More Than A Million Super Mario Maker Levels Have Been Uploaded In A Week

And not a single one of them is mine No one would ever play em anyway so I dodged that bullet

Making a level in SMM is much easier than LBP and most levels very short and simple, so it's no suprise. But I don't see it reaching 8 million, because of the 10 uploaded levels limit and that levels that don't get stars will be deleted from the servers after a while to save on server space.

@SuperWiiU Many uploaders get passed the 10 upload limit quite quickly, and the requirement to get 20 uploads isn't particularly difficult. Why would auto-deleted levels on the server affect the statistics regarding number of uploads? Even if a level is deleted, it has still been uploaded?

@SanderEvers "And not a single one of them is mine"

As in...not uploaded a level. Never will. Don't own the game.

"...Nintendo has posted a new trailer which shows off some of the best user-made stages..."

Only those didn't look like good levels. Some fun gimmicks, but not good levels that I would enjoy playing multiple times and discovering all the tricks. It's a shame even Nintendo are promoting only the gimmick aspect of the game.

@Just_Ethan Luckily thst should be avoided. You can download a level from the servers and mod it etc but you cannot then reupload that level.

I'm addicted to making Mario Levels. I uploaded one of mine and it got 8 plays and one star rating in about 48 hours. Seems hard to get your levels noticed, but it's awesome that, so long as you have the internet, you can basically just play endlessly.

Two stars! With the limited skills I have I consider that a good result so far

From now on I'll just try to make either really good platforming levels or simple boss battles. Already played with the gimmicks enough

And a lot of them are terrible. Yesterday, I got 2 tutorial levels in my normal 100 Mario challenge.

@NintyMan
Don't worry a lot feel for you, it is either they are buried and when they are played, the people die ones and skip/quit.

Just checked back home from work last night and I am up to 33 stars. I think it's 50 to get the next medal but I am going to check that out now.

@NintyMan
Do you have any on the Nintendolife database? If not post the ID of one and I will try them out. I should have at least a good hour to play today.

That is CRAZY. Makes me wonder how many people got the game globally including digital. Maybe around half a million ?

@Volcanox Not a single person has played my level either, but after reading this number I'm not surprised!

Come on gang, let's hurry up and beat LittleBigPlanet's record :smiling:

4 of those levels are mine, but I'm taking it a lot slower now in order to improve the quality of my work.

Good levels get you good feedback. I'm shocked how everyone claims that the servers are crammed with boring and terrible levels. To be quite honest, no level is bad (at least for me), and I find that conquering each level I play is a must.

One thing I do find annoying, however, is the amount of difficult courses. Nearly every course you stumble upon is challenging in some way, and I find this to be incredibly ridiculous. These creators are missing the whole point!

Oh well, at least I'm having a relatively good time making and playing stages.

@ningeek185 It's not true that the good ones get the good feedbacl. I've played some fantastic Levels with no stars and many many well reviewed crap-levels.
The Ranking List is also pretty useless because most people there are let's players with millions of youtube viewers who star their levels.
The only really good levels I played so far came from communities like nintendolife...and hardly anyone else had played them.

And yeah, they ridiculously hard ones are another problem. On an 100 Mario Expert walkthrough I skiped 3 levels at once because in all of them I lost a life within the first second

Good. Now improve the way we can find good/specific courses among the millions of them.

I humbly offer a few of my own uploads where I've tried to keep things relatively simple. Single ideas with no mega-monster-towers.

Land Down Under:
37F1-0000-0011-CBFE

Fabulous Flying Yoshi Bros.
C591-0000-0020-C5E8

Fortress of Suckitude:
65E5-0000-000F-86B5

And for a bit more of a challenge, my best-reviewed one to this point. It takes a few goes to get the timing down, but very satisfying when you do, I hope.

Don't Stop:
E69A-0000-000F-B3D1

@Monsti
I hate some of the levels that if you don't move or jump right away you die, that's not difficult, that's just cheap.

Or blind jumps to a single square etc. They might not be intentionally crappy though. Some level makers seem to forget they have to look at the level like someone who hasn't played it before.

@SetupDisk I actually think that exactly is most people's problem. They think their Level is "hard" when it's almost impossible if you don't know what to do. And often the levels are not as self-explainatory as they think.

Looks like I'll have a bit of gaming to do when I get back home tomorrow, huh.

I've contributed 10 to that number,well 11 including my 1st attempt but I just deleted that.I didn't need to as I have 57 stars but I was annoyed with it being my most played level and a stain on my otherwise pretty creative levels.I'm fairly confident with the way it's going by the time I get to 20 levels uploaded I'll have reached the 150 stars needed for the next increase.I can see the system being tweaked over the next few weeks,months anyway so it will be easier to get recognised fi your level is good.Surely a sharing with friends option is on the way too,has to be?

I didn't get a lot of plays for my levels yet so I have only a tiny amount of stars. I'll probably be stuck in the 10 level limit forever if there's a pick out of a couple of million in a few weeks!

@NintyMan
If I don't get to them today I will tomorrow. I'm a liitle more tired after work than I thought I was.

How long do Nintendo guarantee the servers for?

The question is how many of those are worth playing? I mean, quality is more important than quantity.

I've contributed 5 uploads so far!!! (So many levels....so little time to play them all.... )

And only two of them are mine.

Oh, look at me, I'm Volcanox, I just wanna brag (I guess that's what you're doing?) that I can't make levels 'cause I don't want the game!

What. Ever. Man.

Only two up there right now, but havent put a lot of time into it yet, still unlocking stuff within the game so that I can make more interesting levels. C'mon people lets make more interesting LEVELS!

And about 999,000 of them are not very good. If I play the 100 Mario challenge, I'm lucky to find one decent one in a run or two.

People saying "levels are not good" need to realize that the people making levels are not actual developers and have no idea what they are doing, some levels could be flashy but boring others challenging but unfair.

Thats the problems with this kind of games, especially in its early stages, once people get more and more familiar with the system levels shouls be getting better and better, dont expect everyone to be Miyamoto in a single week, thats downright stupid.

8 of those levels are mine! I think I'm up to about 29 stars, it's gonna be hard to reach 50 stars for sure! I wish you could upload more than ten levels when you start the game, I think 15 or 20 would've been a better number to start out with.

@Volcanox I don't get you,you're always preaching here and Pushsquare about how the modern game industry is boring and the games of yore you like are a dying breed ,yet here we are with a fantastic piece of software that lets us create our own classic levels and share them with the world but you don't want it and "never will".You were moaning before that it wasn't getting 10's across the board even when the vast majority were awarding it 90+.You also say your a game developer who struggles for inspiration,well here you are yet have no interest in it?

@jariw
What is the requirement to get 20 uploads?

@OorWullie

I think Mario Maker is going to come under Critical Dissonance, but time will tell. I see it as a sleep hit more than anything. At least as reviewers were...well...reviewing it, they seemed more kind on the series than normal, despite being unable to fully dedicate time in a lot of cases to master utilising the title.

Hey, if this is a fantastic piece of software then so be it, circumstances dictate I cant get it, at least not yet. Not nice being told you need a gaming PC or a "real console" for a games design course otherwise your grades will likely fall below others and your experience and development ideas aren't good enough.

I'm struggling for inspiration because my usual inspiration (See: Classic games and Mario Maker) isn't seemingly valid anymore. And hey, that's just how my course roles and how I'm being trained, I'm just ignoring the fact I hate my creativity being shoved to the side by peers because I don't have a real console or god forbid Steam. If I don't drop what I want to do, seemingly I will fail, and I don't want that. I'll have to speak to the staff and see what they think before I throw money at a PS4 and feel slightly accepted.

@BigBabyPeach what's the code? I'll give it a try and let you know what I think, if you like.

I promised myself to tone down the difficulty on my next level and then i got the mario 3 airship upgrade stuff......

I made a few stages so far but I upload 0. My local test group think it's good but I don't think it's good enough to show off to the world, I'm my own worst critic. Also I haven't played any uploaded stages but I'll check the forum here this weekend to see what's up.

Good luck getting your level noticed—unless it's some Rube Goldberg machine you don't even play, a take on another Nintendo game, some total troll level that only gets any play time because people inexplicably like to torture themselves outside of work too, or just another similar gimmick.

It's kind of a shame that if you just make a simple, fun, and well designed level—ya know, the kind of levels that made us all fall in love with Mario platformers in the first place, and why we still consider them some of the greatest games of all time—you'll probably not even get a second look.

Well, either way, I'm gonna make simple, fun, and well designed levels—and maybe there will be a gimmick or two in there also, just because I'm confident I can actually manage BOTH of those impossible feats at the same time. Well, I think I can make simple, fun, and well designed levels. Not so sure my gimmicks will amount to much, in terms of serving the purpose of a gimmick—doing something unique/different, getting people's attention, or whatever.

I've already designed one level, which I personally think is better than most of the ones I've played (it's not just unfair and frustrating at least), but it's not ready to be uploaded just yet. I have an idea for how to add one of those "gimmicks", without comprising its core strengths of just being a good and fair level, imo—such that it might get at least a tiny bit of play time.

@Volcanox Well, apart from it being likely 99.9% total sh*t user created levels, with only a few actual well made and genuinely fun, and fair, levels in there, which I expect are going to be very hard to find, I think it's going to be a big hit with both critics and gamers.

I know that building levels is one of the most enjoyable, and strangely relaxing, game experiences I've had in a long time—and for that aspect alone, I think most people that play it are going to love it.

I just wish this wasn't another one of those situations where most of our creations simply won't even get noticed, because a bunch of gimmicky levels, and ones that got in there early, will just hog all the spotlight.

It's just like the App Store, YouTube, Google Play, Twitch, Steam, Kickstarter, etc., all over again.

There's got to be a better way to give basically EVERYONE a fair and equal chance. . . .

The levels they showcased are nowhere near the best. I've seen some really amazing levels that almost inspire jealousy.

@Kirk what's your NNID, I'll check out your levels. I've uploaded a couple, I'm not particularly creative, but it's fun making them anyway. If someone plays it, and enjoys it, even better. Have fun Makers.... that's what it's all about, right Iwata-San?

@LinktotheFuture 50 stars

4701-0000-003D-585B the disturbing truth

0CBC-0000-0034-346A three doors down

81D2-0000-0029-EA9D legend of metroid

One of the biggest issues is user feedback. SMM heavily depends on a person's desire to actually complete a stage. Many people give up after 1 gameover and don't comment on what you can improve. Unless you have a social media following. Haha

@Kirk How many stars/playthroughs a level gets is never going to be a meritocracy. NCIS is often the highest rated drama on television but is it the best show on television? Not even close. Some people just like crap and some people are just going to star levels because they're a fan of the designer.

What I make a point to do is go into the "Up and Coming" section and play levels that have very few playthroughs because I want everyone to have their level seen (even if that level is not so great). So that's what I suggest we all do: every time you start up Mario Maker, go play a level or two from "Up and Coming" and show some love to those rarely played levels. Also, I star levels liberally. If a level is functional, at all clever, and/or remotely fun, I'll star it.

What the game really needs is a playtest option where you can send out your level to people on your friends list first and they can offer feedback before it's posted for public consumption. Because it's tremendously difficult to predict how a player is going to react to playing your level for the first time and random people who don't like your level won't offer feedback.

Here are a couple of my levels:
THE PAC-MAN HUNGERS - 2511-0000-0033-55DC (this is the one where most of my stars are coming from)
GO AHEAD AND JUMP! - EA73-0000-0028-D25E (this is a rather simple one I'm proud of, but hasn't gotten much play)

Wow that's a LOT!

One other thing I've been doing recently is checking to see who has starred my levels and then going to play a couple of theirs. If you click on the white Stars/Players button on your level list, it will show you everyone who's played the level, who starred it, and who completed it. I figure if a player's willing to show my level some love, the least I can do is give some of their levels a shot.

@DrawingPower I think this is a great philosophy.

I uploaded one! LOL

I just uploaded a pretty big level last night, hopefully someone gets to play it. I tried not to be too cheap and used what I know of Mario platforming to create something memorable.

For anyone interested:
1D76-0000-0044-932B. Star Gauntlet

And here's the Super Mario World version:
6B7C-0000-0044-A559.

Hope you enjoy!

I love this game but I am also having trouble getting stars. I have fun making my levels and I usually have a lot of fun playing them but despite the fact that other people have played them, not a whole lot of people give me any stars. I am pretty generous when I give stars. If the level is fun of course I will give it a star, but I also give stars if it made me smile or laugh in some way. I do wish that there was a way to comment without giving stars in order to give some feedback on what could be improved but I guess it is like that to help limit negative comments and cyber bullying. Still I star a lot of levels I play because I guess I just have a lot of fun playing Mario games.

@benptooey
Bummer, that is going to take awhile.

@DrawingPower Yeah, some good points.

I'll forward those on to my bro, who runs the SmallFryUnify Twitch channel, and we can have a play of those during our next broadcast, next Tuesday.

Part of me thinks we may have already played the Go Ahead and Jump! level, but I have a terrible short term memory so who knows. lol

@MJKOP I've not actually uploaded any yet, and it's my bro's machines so I don't know the NNID.

We should be broadcasting a Mario Maker session on Twitch on Tuesday evening, around 7, on his channel, SmallFryUnify.

If you give it a look when it's on then I should be creating my first level that I intend to upload then—IF it's decent.

Wow, those levels look bad.

Ofc, nintendo already said that the goal of this is not to make a top quality level, but rather the process of making it.

Which is a shame.

I already got a group locally who at least know how to see a good level.

And to contribute, once I get the game, I will hang around the leve sharing thread, and will be open for peoples request to review one of their level.

Been reviewing custom NSMB levels in the level design contests we have, so don't expect me to be some random user

@LavaTwilight I'd guestimate that 99.9% of them are total crap, and about 90% of those are troll levels that the designers think are "fun" but they have no clue what actual fun is, especially when trying to combine it with well designed and fair levels—even ones that are meant to be hard.

Most of the Super Mario Maker levels I've tried are just exercises in unfairness, frustration and bad level design.

Well that's not a surprise. Mario is much more popular and much better.

I wonder whether someone could put together a website that collects the best courses for different diffculty categories and puts them together to make a more traditional Mario game. Could have some kind of prize like a virtual medal collection. Choosing the "best" courses would not be easy given the subjective nature of opinion, but that still might be preferable to trawling through a million levels to find 30 or so to make a good "game". Could you not do a competition, Nintendo? A global competition with different difficulty categories and then somehow do something whizzy to stitch the levels together into a cohesive game/s? Couldn't a selection of levels be put into one download? Maybe it's more a community project?

I'm finding some levels very hard and those are not much fun. Nor are the really easy ones. The best ones have enough challenge to make me need to play it again to beat it, but not so much challenge that it's not possible to make progress.

@LavaTwilight The problem is that they ARE being rated. That's how they popped up on/near the top of the list, or so I presume.

It's like people don't know sh*t level design when they see it—and actually think it's fun to just die over and over, and over, on levels that are just totally unfair and frustrating, and genuinely badly designed in many cases.

Not my idea of fun.

I don't really enjoy any of the troll levels or the Kaizo Mario type stuff, and I find the Rube Goldberg machines boring for the most part (although impressive to watch one time).

I like well designed, fair, and fun levels, but, ironically for a Mario platformer (which generally have the best platforming levels in the world), those are pretty hard to find here. lol

At least this shows why proper, fully developed, Mario platform games will always have a place, even with awesome creation tools like this available to consumers.

@Kirk I honestly don't get it either.

My opinion of level design is that it should not be any harder then what Nintendo themselves would make. In other words, while you might run into difficult levels in an official Mario game, they are beatable with enough practice.

My limit is the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 in terms of difficulty. And even that game has some bad design flaws in terms of having invisible blocks that will knock you into pits, and other stuff like Wind that messes up your jumps.

My opinion on level design is this. I think it should be difficult, but fair with the assumption that the player has played all four styles in the past and understands the gameplay mechanics for each style. In others words, my Super Mario U levels have wall jumping, while I plan to have Mario World levels feature the mechaic of kicking shells upwards.

In other words, I want my levels to test the skills of a Mario player, but not be evil. I'm not going to ask a player to wall jump while Koopas are falling on their heads. That's not just unfair, its poor balance.

Why people like playing Kazio style levels is beyond me. No, I don't want to deal with hammer brothers in areas where Mario can barely move, or be knocked into pits because you want to be a jerk and put a block there.

@Caryslan I totally hear you, dude, and completely agree.

VR32 Land: 6 Golden Coins DX!
(D3C5-0000-0045-2A7C)

I carefully translated and remixed two Super Mario Land 2 stages into one with the old game running on my 3DS to make sure it was all accurate enough. I worked really hard on this stage for two days. Theres even a hidden triforce coin room and an alternate secret exit to avoid the boss rush. Its a stage from Tree Zone and Wario's Castle. You can even destroy the save data room with the three pipes. Please try it everybody!

I love this game. I'm already at nine uploaded levels & I plan on adding more tonight. I've got about a dozen stars, with one of my levels being played over a hundred times. People are (rightfully so) stingy with their stars!!!

I've uploaded about six courses now, had several people try each one, and nobody has cleared any of them even once. There's even one of mine with over a hundred attempts from other people but no one has beaten it yet! Maybe I'm making my courses too hard...

@DrawingPower I think you absolutely nailed it

"I star levels liberally. If a level is functional, at all clever, and/or remotely fun, I'll star it."

This comment should be plastered on the box art. I'm exactly the same, and I think people should hand out stars more frequently - if I think the creator has put any sort of time and/or thought into their creation, I give them a star - even if I'm not that challenged by it.

You sound like a sensible person, so I'll definitely check out your levels when I get home.

For anyone that's interested in fairly traditional and accessible levels, here are a couple of mine -

Koopa Mechanics ★
(7622-0000-0037-DD52)

Stoopid Koopa Troopers
(8C0D-0000-0046-804B)

Day-amn! No wonder my level has only 9 stars. And some levels are like 40 - 50 thousand stars. Yikes! So do you need other peoples codes or can you just search with the name of the level? I haven't tried yet.

@Nomad Unfortunately the "search" function is just: insert 16 digit level code here. Nintendolife has set up a good system with searches and everything, but not too many people are using it yet, and it's difficult to get people to rate your levels.

Again, very impressive!

@luke88 I was told by 2 family members that it's awful :/...I'm gonna have to rework it before I feel confident enough to share it.

That's a hundred levels per minute.

Will be interesting to see, if the pace increases, or slows down.

What is surprising to me is how few people are actually completing my levels even though they are pretty easy compared to most platformers. One of my levels has a 0% completion rate and despite that I had my brother try it before uploading it and he completed it in a few tries. I think part of the problem is that most of the community generally isn't very good at platformers and get frustrated and when that happens there is no way you will get a star.

@Dpishere Don't despair it's completely random what standard of players you get playing your course. I uploaded the exact same course, one was normal original mario and the other underground original mario. The original has a 14% completion rate and much fewer players while the underground version has a 30% completion rate, more players and even got a star.

I think this game also brings to light the fact that the vocal minority of good mario players is far far outweighed by the people who aren't that good. So while I consider myself quite decent, something challenging for me would be damn near impossible for the average Super Mario fan. It should also silence these people screaming for harder or more challenging Mario games.

When playing other people levels, I'll give them at least 10 play throughs, but if I still can't beat it because there are 100 different things being thrown at me, or I have to memorise 10 different blind jumps, forget it - I'm moving on. That stuff just isn't fun. The handful of levels I've uploaded are pretty tame for my standards - no blind jumps, and just a moderate difficulty spike at the end of each course. I've also tried to add one thing to think about in each course.

If anyone is interested here's my latest one:

P-Switch to Purgatory
8153-0000-004F-12E3

Well we have to be busy since there is not alot of time left before the NX comes out and the Wii U is no longer supported.

can people please stop starring famous users' levels just because they are famous? RubberRoss's levels are tolerable at best yet he is in the top 20 star ranking wise.