Topic: Super Mario Maker - OT

My latest creation turned out to be something of a hit. it's quite a challenge, try if you dare...

Somewhere in-between easy and medium

Trying something new on the boss battle.

Edit: updated

@OorWullie - try the Mario 10 Challenges, most are short but they showcase what the Mario Maker engine can do. I've taken some of their quick courses and "borrowed" a mechanic here and there Really gives you some level inspiration

@mrichston:
that is one I'm going to have to try later. The pic of weird science contraption thing sold me.

@Nicetry05: There are some very critical mistakes with your level design here:

• 1) just before the second P block, you have several platform that gradually go down, inciting the player to keep its speed. then comes the gap, and a stupid death, that can come in several ways induced by panic. Send the right message to the player, and tell them this is the time for a short rest. Put a single long platform, with a single 1-coin ? block before the thwomp
  You want your level to be hard, not to be silly.
• 2) The room filled with coins is poorly made. When you come to the right wall, the upper platforms are barely visible, with such a busy room and the player not knowing your level (something to ALWAYS keep in mind) he can be tempted to wall jump and blopblopblop his run. You even show that you know this design is bad, because you're giving your player the option of activating the P-block, waiting at the base of the 1st platform, then wall-jumping to the top when the P-block stop, which makes the player lose a single second compared to the run that asks him to do the platforming section. all the coins you get through the platforms don't compensate for that.
• • these two mistakes will often apply only on the first, maybe second run of the player. Not that bad, but still, the difference between a good and a great design lie in the details. But here come the aspects that make your level really problematic:
• 3) Why the moving platform? You're asking the player for way to much calculation to get the optimal timing here. Puting the player on this for the switch activation makes it a total mess to play. If you don't get this perfectly right it I really like using this word your run before you know it. It would be less of a problem (buit still one) if it didn't come that late. You WILL need several tries to get this right, but you need to redo everything prior to that each time. Which is way too tedious.
• 4) The first thwomp in the next platforming section is one block too low. When collecting the coins through a perfect trajectory, you can still be killed by a ridiculous margin. Once again, your design is misleading. Even considering a super-hardcore level, this is unfair. Seeing the danger doesn't automatically make said danger fair.

Most of the problems can be easily fixed, but a hardcore level like this needs to be extremely tight. if you're not a perfectionist yourself when designing these, the players will not be forgiving, because you're asking the most of their skills, when you're not
providing the most out of yours.

I will try some of your other levels now.

@mrichston:
Mad Scientist's Experiment

I didn't read the description of the stage before playing it so I had to figure everything out on my own. There are some neat puzzles in this course. I didn't even know the fire bars can ignite a Bob-omb. The Thwomp part in the beginning took me a few tries to figure out but it was pretty cool. You definitely tried things I've never seen before in a level.

I beat it after several tries and starred your course.

Can we post levels our friends made? Someone I know made a really fantastic level.

Corruption
8F8B-0000-0077-53CA

It starts out all nice and easy, like 1-1, but then things start to go crazy. Notable in that it makes all that Mario Maker nonsense, like enemies in question blocks and power ups you can't reach, make sense.

Here's its Miiverse posting: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHke3ldUTA

My newest level:

It's a mixture of two ideas I had. A puzzle and a ghost mansion. I tried to make it aesthetically pleasing, by breaking up some of the solid design elements. Also, did not overdo it with sound effects. It's not hard, but I think it's fun.

How do I embed levels from the Nintendo Life sharing website in my posts?

@Nicetry05: O, I've tried your levels, and for me it's really a mixed bag.

• underworld's bascis was great, maybe your best in fact, because it is by far the best balanced and most elegant design. You tried nothing too crazy, and because of that you could show all your skills. I really loved this one. It looked good too
• Mario's Menace was ok, but nothing too fancy, there is nothing that really caught my eyes.
• Bo-bomb's run I didn't like at all. I saw it's crazy score, and I don't know if it has been showcased somewhere or what, but I think it looks like a random ship autoscroll level with bland theming and visuals, where you deprive the player from the left side of the screen. If felt both unfairly hard and boring at the same time.
• Castle Crash I had one minor and two big problems with:
  _You can lend on the cloud just by falling down and screw your run if you go cautiously (which you should) after that. It didn't happen, I still had just enough time but, meh, feel like rushed design.
  _ the bomb section brings nothing to your level and is soooo tedious. You hide and then wait for the bombs to do their work. When you died twice on that level already, you might as well quit and try another stage before going through this part again.
  _ the Yoshi part is fun, except that the spring you get through the block can easily disappear while off-screen when yo'ure on your way back. That's what made me quit the level.
• Pipe dream was a good idea, but the same room 10 times in a row starts to feel boring, no matter what you do with it. Also, giving a set number of bob-omb can force a restart from the player for one minor mess-up, which is bad design. You didn't put them in the pipes because you didn't want to give away the real pipes, but come one, the players will need 5secs to try them all anyway and the top ones are almost never used overall.
  Other than that, I really like the idea.
• Bowser's shake down felt good, everything is tight and precise. Through my run I saw nothing that seemed off. Really fun all the way.
• Koopa Kids's Wild skull Ride. Why put a skull ride after a boss? That's so random and anticlimatic. You feel like warped to another level and it's really weird. Then I die and I have to go through the boss again? No, certainly not. The exact same boss after a nice, short, medium difficuty level would feel fantastic.
• Ice Capade: bonus room with nothing but danger? Pipes behind an obstacle in said bonus room with no warp, that force you togo throush the hazards again just to escape the bonus room? Screw that, I'm a player, not a lab rat. I'm here to enjoy myself.

The problem I see in your level design is that each time you do something really complex, you don't put enough time and effort into the idea to make it work 100%. There's always something that will feel meh, or insufficient, or unfair. i'm not sure that you really try to put yourself into the shoes of the players who will discover you level, and don't necessarily play like you. It's sad because you have a lot of interesting ideas, and when you levels work, they are absolutely awesome
_{@DanoLefourbe Cool it on the language. (Jazzer)}

@eXtremeHippo: just post their URL here

like that (shameless infiltration of my last level through an answer ^^)
Just leave an empty line before and after the link to be sure

oh my god

I want DanoLeFourbe to review my levels.

I'll play one of yours too if you want.

@DanoLefourbe: Hi Dan. Thanks for all of the feedback. I'm not at home, but will review it all again when I am. The best course they I've made is Bomb-omb Run (typo). I hope that one is a bit more balanced.

@DanoLefourbe: just saw this also. Thanks you very much for taking the time to play them and review them
I will check out yours also when I get back home. Feedback is very appreciated

@Rexcalibr:

• Larry's Lockdown: super fun, good pacing, and an really nice boss battle, with the option of Yoshi
• Wendy's hideout: was nice and used the P-block in good ways that are not cheap. I liked the extra hidden blonk for thos who miss on the run. It might be a little weaker on the theming than some others, but I really liked it overall.
• Lakitu's friend. A nice classic level I enjoyed, but nothing impressed me overall. Still really good.
• Ludwig's airship was really very nice and a good use of the ship theme. What's weird is I really found it a bit easy, but the completion score is fairly low, so I might have been lucky. Otherwise, it's really beautiful.
• Lemmy's swingback castle: I'm sure there are secrets I didn't find here, so I'll have to try it again, and I want to because it was really solid, well put together and overall well themed. The pillars stopping just above the tracks seemed a bit weird to me but aside from that, it looked good and was well balanced with good pacing. The boss is maybe a bit easy to skip.
• Lemmy's Circus surprised me. the bonus themed on the ghost house? But it really works in a twisted way. I think it is your strongest theme, and the wheel of ennemies really amused me. I liked how the cape is used here ( in Swingback castle too).
• overall a very nice selection of levels that I enjoyed playing. Maybe a tiny bit easy but that isn't necessarly a problem and it seems to be what you're going for, so great. You should try a diversify the bosses, by giving them attributes, using the stacking mechanic in a reasonable way, in a nice room.
  (Yeah I know Bowser Junior is supposed to represent the koopalings as they were in SMB3)

@mrichston: Played it and yeah it is really rough. I got the boo-thwomp part first try and that was very fun.
I think the next part is too obscure for a player who didn't read a description of your level. I tried havig the "bowser pile" ignite the bombs but by being ahead of him and having a lucky fireball hit the bomb. But the delay makes it impossible that way.

I'm pretty tired so maybe I would have guessed in another situation. Right now, I feel there might be too much information for the player to register here. The mess that is each enemy pile doesn't make it any easier to concentrate on what's important.

You need 1 tool, one objective. First make the enemy piles all bombs, so people dont try and guess the role of the other enemies. You'll also get a nice clear explosion, without anything remaining to leave a doubt.

Then you need to help the player understand that the Bowser pile is a tool, and not only a threat. A good way to do this would be to make the player ride a cannon in a safer situation, to put the idea in his head that sometimes cannon=car.
For instance you make a big gap. Above it you put a single block on a railtrack, with a cannon on top. put all that fairly low to tell the player that he can jump and stay on it.
After that you make a slightly harder gap, and then, the room with the Bowser car

@DanoLefourbe: You are the best course reviewer

@DanoLefourbe:

omg you are awesome. I wasn't expecting you to play all my levels.

Thank you so much for the feedback. Lemmy's Swingback Castle was just me remaking that actual stage from Super Mario Bros U in Super Mario World form. I'm going on the game now to play a bunch of your levels.

Yeah @DanoLefourbe nice work on reviews. Wouldn't mind if you tried mine. They shouldn't take ya long since most are easy.