Topic: Super Mario Maker - OT

@Gridatttack: Hey! I need you to do me a favour. Since you know more than I about level design I'd like you to play one of my levels and give me the cruelest critique you can. I want to edit that level when checkpoints come out and I want it to be one of the very best. I'll make sure it doesn't hurt my feelings, so don't worry.

Level: Bowser's Frosty Fortress (7B0D-0000-0096-D4CA)

I'll change the final part because I think it's a bit frustrating, but what do you think?

@Freeon-Leon: Sure no problem!
I will do it this night, as I'm currently not at home, so I don't have access to the game :S

Most of my levels are short enough to not warrant check points but this could open it up for me to make longer ones.

@Gridatttack: Cool beans!

If anyone wans to play my level and give me some feedback it'll be greatly appreciated.

And for anyone looking for new levels of mine, don't worry, new levels are coming and will most likely be posted on November 4th!

Of course you can troll people but you are not allowed to trap people. If you build a checkpoint in your level, you have to clear the level two times. Once from the beginning and once from the check point.

Checkpoints are cool but levels aren't long enough to really do much.

Scaling powers is absolutely fantastic though, we totally needed that!

Have you played the levels where people use every inch of the levels with doors? Check points are definitely worth it. Play more 100 Mario Challenges.

The update for status based power ups works for more than just fireflowers right?

I would sure hope so. It would be weird if it only worked on fireflowers.

Too bad no slopes yet, but this update is a welcome addition.

I also work with doors and pipes and then you can do a really long level. But often you are forced to put different regions very close together. That feels like spoilers sometimes. Also you can't set too many doors and pipes.

Super Mario Maker would really benefit from higher levels, longer levels and more pipes, doors etc.

@OneBagTravel: I've made several long levels myself but they don't really need checkpoints; most of the time it's like a convenience, really.

I like the idea of check points but I think it's kind of weird that they're allowing you to put more than one in a level (according to GameXplain). That's never been the way a Mario game was.

Now that I think about it too, the item being a mushroom if you're small Mario instead of being a cape, fire flower, etc. feels like it should be something that's by default instead of your choice.. I kind of have mixed feelings on it being up to you.

Posted a new level.

Anyone interested in a sp00ky level I made for a small lil Halloween contest? https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHkjcntdaA

I just updated a old level I had, won't be able to play the old version now.

I'm fairly sure it has existed before. I can't think of a specific example where it's been the case but I'm pretty certain it has been a thing before. Particularly in some of the later levels. And even if I'm going insane and that's not the case I still don't see what the issue is.

It's not even a case of you needing them for long levels. I've made a few fairly short levels that are fairly technical and ramp up the stakes. With the first section introducing a concept with a breather in the middle before the main technical part of the level. Classic Mario level design. If I could make a level where players aren't repeating that "training" section? Even if the level is short. Surely that's a good thing. And maybe I have three sections, so why not allow me to have two checkpoints?

But what about levels where you need a fire-flower or a cape? If we're wanting to be "true" to what Mario games are like you need the ability to do both. Sometimes you want to give the player a specific item, other times the better item is just an extra bonus. I don't think there's been a Mario game since SMB that hasn't at one point given you something better than a Mushroom when you're small.

@Freeon-Leon: So I got to play around your level, and it was pretty cool. BTW, I will be using this template we used when we had NSMB level design contests (minus the 10 points in the challenge met, because it doesn't applies here)

Design 17/20
I like the challenge of this level, which includes sliding in small places to advance next. The autoscroll part was pretty cool too. Challenging, but never unfair. I also found all the invisible coin blocks.
Perhaps my main complain is that some of the level challenge can be skipped. The first one with the hammer bros and bullet bill was okay, however, in the autoscrolling section, most of the main challenges presented, specifically the jumps between the pipes are sort of useless. You can pretty much avoid the dangers by just doing a big jump between pipes, so it kinda defeats the purpose of that section. Adding a pipe that leads to a bonus room or something would have been nice, as you have space at the top in the first area of the level.

Also, in the part when you have to slide and then jump a muncher pit, I felt that the space required to gain a bit of momentum was a bit short, as if you miss it the first time when you reach there, you have to kind of go a little back and then gain momentum, but its not that easy, as you could possibly hit a bullet bill or a thrown bone.

This also leads to another issue. The speed of the bullet bills and the thrown bones match the speed of the autoscroll. Of the many times I replayed the level, twice I got in a position that in order to advance, I had to duck and then wait for the screen to move me under the blocks. While letting the screen to move the user is not a bad thing, I found myself in a situation that a bullet bill was 1 block above me, so I had to take a hit because otherwise I would have feel to the lava. Though, I understand this is a bit far fetched, but perhaps make the bill blaster a bit higher.

Other than that, I was sort of disappointing in the ending, as I saw it coming lol, but theres not much to do in a SMB1 bowser fight, so yeah.

Polish 18/20
I can't complain that much about you using only ice blocks, as the game doesn't have an ice castle theme, or different ice blocks, but I suppose to make it look less bland, you could have added normal castle flooring between the huge portions of ice blocks, so it looks a bit more varied. In terms of spacing, I felt that the starting part felt empty with all the space above. Perhaps some arrangement or some groups of ice blocks would have helped to make it feel less empty.

Score: 35/40
This is a solid level overall, and an amazing level coming from someone who has never done levels before this game.

Also, I played your noteblock Hijinx one. It was fun!

This is like mini-WarioWare, but bit harder.

Will the checkpoint always act as a free mushroom for little Mario in all styles? Kind of a bummer for those who want checkpoints in little Mario levels.

You can always just add an obstacle that's impassable with Big Mario. Add an enemy respawn or stage hazard just before the checkpoint and then the player will have to shrink themselves with that to pass.

@Gridatttack: Oh man, thank you very much for this.

I understand many of the issues that you have told me, and to be honest some of them were on purpose; like giving a feather before entering the autoscrolling part, I wanted that section to be as accesible as possible since the level is a bit long and I wanted to reduce the frustration of lower skilled players. Now that we'll have proper checkpoints, that can be changed. Actually, the whole first part is made in such a way that the player can learn very quickly how to move through ice so if they died in the autoscrolling section they can almost "skip" the first section by going super fast once they've learned the pattern and understood the challenge.

Just one question... Is the final part fair? I know it's super simple but I wanted it to be easy because of the frustration of not having checkpoints but sometimes I think the spikes are a little too much. But then again, if I had left just falling platforms it would've been too easy... And my original idea couldn't be made because I reached the limit.

I'll keep in mind this feedback you've given when I upload the level next month, although I don't think I'll take down the current version since I like it a lot.

Again, thank you very much for playing my level, I really REALLY appreciate it.

Btw, High Note Hijinks is a good level I made for a younger audience, and I think many people haven't found it that good because of the lack of challenge (although it requires some skill). But hey, kids deserve to have good and easy levels!