Super Mario Maker

If you're anything like us you'll be itching to unlock all the goodies in Super Mario Maker so you can begin to create amazing levels of your own. Following our recent guide to become an expert Super Mario Maker level designer, we thought newcomers to the game might appreciate a guide on unlocking all these useful tools in a timely fashion. Here we go!

A few items

Unlocking all building items

You may have heard that it takes 9 days to unlock all the building items in Super Mario Maker and been told that you can change the Wii U date in the system settings to expedite this long-winded process. Thankfully Nintendo has heard the cries of reviewers play-testing the prerelease version of the game. Upon launching the game now you'll be prompted to update to version 1.01 which makes things a whole lot quicker.

The key to unlocking all the item packs quickly is as follows:

  • Place every item you have at least once. Also try out any new themes you unlock. This isn't essential but any little red dots next to items or themes will slow you down considerably.
  • Place lots of blocks, hundreds, thousands. If you hold L you will enter multi-grab mode which lets you highlight a chunk of blocks. You can place the highlighted section by holding and releasing ZL.
  • After around 5-15 minutes this should prompt the delivery truck to bring along you next set of items.
  • There is a cooling-off period of about 15 minutes where no new unlock announcements will take place after unlocking content, but placed blocks will still count towards the next unlock.

Here all all the game styles, course themes and items which you can unlock. Anything in bold is unlocked by default:

Super Mario Bros U style

Game styles

  • Super Mario Bros.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3
  • Super Mario World
  • New Super Mario Bros. U
Mystery Mushroom

Course themes

  • Ground / Overworld
  • Underground
  • Underwater
  • Ghost House
  • Airship
  • Castle
All items

Items

  • Brick Blocks (Rotating Blocks in Super Mario World style)
  • Question Mark Blocks
  • Hard Blocks (breakable)
  • Ground
  • Pipes (can be rotated)
  • Super Mushrooms (can make lots of objects larger, shake to turn into a Weird Mushroom)
  • Coins
  • Trampolines
  • Goombas (Galoombas in the Super Mario World style)
  • Koopa Troopas (shake to make Red)
  • Piranha Plants (Shake to turn into a Fire Piranha Plant. Jumping Piranha Plants in Super Mario World style.)
  • Wings
  • 1-Up Mushrooms
  • Arrow Signs
  • Vines
  • Cloud Blocks (they are solid-from-top and breakable by various objects)
  • Coin Blocks
  • Conveyor Belts (direction, length and speed can be changed)
  • Donut Blocks
  • Warp Doors
  • Goal Pole (appearance changes depending on game style)
  • Ice Block
  • Hidden Blocks
  • Tracks
  • Mushroom Platforms
  • Note Blocks (shake to turn into a Music Block which plays a note that changes pitch based on its height)
  • One-way Walls
  • P Switches (appear as ? Switches in the New Super Mario Bros. U style)
  • Lifts (Tap arrow to change direction, shake to turn into blue falling lift)
  • POW Blocks
  • Semi-solid Platform (shake to change appearance)
  • Lava Lifts
  • Spike Traps
  • Bill Blasters (shoot Bullet Bills. Shake to turn into red ones which shoot Bull's-Eye Bills)
  • Bloopers (shake to turn into Blooper Nannies)
  • Bob-ombs (shake to turn into lit ones)
  • Boos (shake to turn into Boo Buddies)
  • Bowsers (shake to turn into Bowser Jr.s)
  • Buzzy Beetles (shake to make it hide in shell to use as a Shell Helmet)
  • Cannons (shake to turn into Red Cannons)
  • Chain Chomps (shake to turn into Unchained Chomps)
  • Cheep Cheeps (shake to make green. Green versions have the appearance of Blurps in Super Mario World style. Green versions resemble Deep Cheeps in New Super Mario Bros. U style.)
  • Dry Bones (appear as Fish Bones underwater)
  • Fire Bars
  • Grinders
  • Hammer Bros (add a Super Mushroom to them to turn into Sledge Bros)
  • Lakitus (shake to remove it from cloud)
  • Lava Bubbles
  • Magikoopas
  • Munchers
  • Burners
  • Rocky Wrenches (Shake to turn into Monty Moles)
  • Spike Tops (Shake to make it into the blue, faster variation)
  • Spinies (Shake to make it hide in shell, becoming a Shell Helmet)
  • Thwomps
  • Wigglers (Shake to turn into angry ones)
  • Fire Flowers
  • Super Stars
  • Shell Helmet
  • Mystery Mushrooms (Exclusive to Super Mario Bros. style. Allow you to change Mario into other characters)
  • Super Leaves (Exclusive to Super Mario Bros. 3 style)
  • Cape Feathers (Exclusive to Super Mario World style)
  • Propeller Mushrooms (Exclusive to New Super Mario Bros. U style)
  • Big Mushrooms (make enemies bigger)
  • Shoe Goomba (stiletto boot version when used in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 styles)
  • Yoshi Egg (Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U styles)
amiibo

Unlock Mystery Mushroom Costumes

Tapping an amiibo against the GamePad in Course Maker mode you will unlock that character, but you can also get these costumes (along with other fun non-amiibo costumes) simply by beating the 100 Mario Challenge mode. If you are short on time, simply play the mode on its Easy setting and you'll only need to complete 8 community created stages. If you really hate one of them, just hold down the - button to skip. Upon finishing you'll be awarded with a new costume.

To use the costumes, simply go into the 8-bit Super Mario Bros. theme and drop a Mystery Mushroom item. Tapping on it will reveal all the costumes which you have unlocked. You can hide the Mystery Mushrooms in question mark boxes, or simply place it one square above Mario so it immediately falls on his head and transforms him at the start of the level without the need for any input from the player.

10 Mario challenge

Unlock Coursebot's Sample Courses

By completing levels created by Nintendo themselves within the 10 Mario Challenge mode you can increase the number of sample courses available to you on Coursebot's list. 56 sample courses can be unlocked, so keep playing 10 Mario Challenge to unlock them all.


We hope you found this guide useful. This will be an evolving guide, so if you have spotted something we missed (or need to correct us!) please let us know with a comment below. Have fun making awesome Super Mario Maker levels and remember to share them with us in our in our special level sharing area.