Anyone have Mario Maker?

[rpgdemon]

If so, let's set up a thread to trade stages.

[RickZarber]

YES.

I reached my upload limit, so I figured I’d leave everything up for a while before deleting the unpopular / overly difficult levels to make room for anything else I make. So, uh, get ‘em while they’re hot?

My levels aren’t exactly easy (they’re all about precision and timing, with some puzzle aspects, and most of them have secret or alternate routes). Many of them follow a “you learn by dying” idea. BUT! I do not go in for dickishness-- no doors/pipes that lead to insta-death, no trails of coins that lead to death (in fact, trust the coins, they’re usually hints!), no death raining from the sky where you can’t see it coming, etc. So, not dickish, but not easy, but all of them have been play tested by my roommates which is very helpful for making sure they’re not impossible or over-annoying.

(These are in creation / upload order.)

1. Timing is Everything (SMB) - First level made with the Day 1 unlockables. All about timing your jumps. Can be tricky for Mario neophytes, especially the first piranha plant, but many elements of this one reappear in my later levels in more complex forms, so it works as a good intro. 96B8-0000-0067-0E2F

2. Thinking Rewards, Haste Survives (SMB) - For a while this was my most popular level. Also made with the Day 1 unlockables. Basically the previous level but harder. Think quick! Hint: the coins at the beginning give you a clue on a way to snag a 1-up! 8C9F-0000-0067-539B

3. Spin Jumps Will Work (NSMB) - Made with the Day 3 unlockables. This one’s like a hard Donkey Kong Country level; learn by dying, then as you get it down just speed through it. And use those spin jumps. I like this one a lot, but it has a low completion percentage and will probably be on the chopping block. 32FB-0000-006E-2ADD

4. Boos’ P-Switch Secrets (SMW) - A puzzle-based level that requires critical thinking and knowing how to properly use the cape. Has a secret exit, as any good Mario World ghost level should. Again, I’m very fond of this one but it has one of my lowest completion percentages, so it’ll probably go. 972B-0000-007B-3EB2

5. Yoshi’s Buzz Saw Bounce (NSMB) - Protip: Yoshi can jump on buzz saws without taking damage. And remember to hold your jump for that extra distance. If you’re good at this--and follow the coins--this level’s a breeze. Otherwise... Good luck~! CCB1-0000-0082-FB60

6. Think or Swim (SMB3) - If you’re smart, you can skip the underwater section completely with the secret exit. If not, you’re getting wet. Even then, you can skip most of it if you’re brave... 7E76-0000-0090-EA29

7. Choose Chomps or Cheeps (SMB) - A variation on the theme of the previous level, but much more difficult. You can skip the water completely if you brave the Chain Chomps mountains, but it’ll take some exploring. If not, there’s a secret exit underwater that’ll let you skip the final land bit. Other than that, your swim skills will be tested. A759-0000-0091-49BF

8. Hotfooted (SMB) - Longest and most complex level thus far, with a Bowser Jr to face before you get to Bowser, but there are alternate routes that’ll let you skip the mini-boss or even both of them--if you’re willing to take some leaps of faith. Another one that I’m pretty proud of, but only a handful of players online have managed to finish it. I wish I could see the death stats for the second layer, so I could see what’s tripping people up. A68C-0000-0095-3103

9. Mad Verticals (SMB3) - My attempt at an “easy” level... and not coincidentally, the one that's netted me the most stars! There’s a hard jumping bit in the middle, but it can be easily skipped via Lakitu cloud. There is one secret exit but it’s not easy to find. There is a bit at the end though that punishes you for missing a jump, but as long as you have a power-up you'll be fine. 604D-0000-00A4-7484

10. Please Follow Posted Signage (SMB3) - Another puzzle level. Pay attention to what the level is trying to tell you via signs, coins, and other visual clues, and it should be easy. If you find you’re running out of Starman juice too soon, try re-evaluating when you let it touch you. One semi-shortcut that nets you a power-up, but only one exit. I dunno, I struggled to make it intuitive, but I think I failed; almost no one has beaten it. On the chopping block. A384-0000-00A8-81FC


Now, your Mario levels. Give them to me.

[shiney]

I'll update this with my list later; I have a couple pretty cool levels and a don't move one because why not.

[rpgdemon]

Awesome! I'll throw my courses up, then give yours a try, Rick. (And possibly an in-depth analysis of them)

So, I've currently got two courses uploaded:

How To Jump: C7ED-0000-005A-B6A2
This was the first course that I made. I built it essentially as a simple exercise in "tutorial" level design - Teach, then execute. I think it did pretty well at this. Simple and easy.

Squatman!: 0320-0000-00EC-E68C
I actually don't want to say anything about this one until after people give it a try. I've copy/pasted some of what I am planning to say about it into a notepad document, and I'll write the rest later.

---------- Post added at 11:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:18 PM ----------

I was going to write up some thoughts/critiques/comments on the stages, but then I realized that you might not want them. Mario Maker is a game - It's meant to be fun, and I tend to be blunt about design. I'm used to being surrounded by other devs critiquing my stuff and theirs, where it's best to be straightforward, since it helps make everyone's work better (And everyone knows you're doing it because you're interested in their stuff, not because you hate it).

That said, I think I know where Spin Jumps Will Work's low completion rate comes from, and how you could address it if you wanted to - There's no clear goal to the level. As a player, I didn't know where you wanted me to go most of the time, or which steps would lead me towards success. It felt like a series of disconnected pathways which happened to bring you to the goal, rather than a cohesive/planned experience. I couldn't really formulate a plan of attack and attempt to execute on it; I died most often not because I failed to do what I was trying to do, but because I didn't know what I was supposed to be attempting.

That said, there are a lot of cool pieces there - You just need to be clearer in guiding the player through them.

[RickZarber]

Well, I played your first level and that was all well and a good tutorial (might have given me some trouble when the game first came out; would have been a good one to cut my teeth on) but hahah, Jesus, Squatman!? Woof! Like, I'm not saying it's a bad level, just fiendishly difficult. (I didn't end up beating it, that was one of my roommates--he also left that comment. He had some things he wanted me to convey to you that I will not be repeating but suffice it to say your level suffered much verbal abuse. But he finally did it, so hey!) For myself, I'll come back to it another time.

And yeah, no, go ahead with any critiquing. Be as in-depth as you would like! I won't take offense. Learning is good. I proooobably won't go back in and change any levels, but I'll take note of stuff for future endeavors.

As to Spin Jumps Will Work, on one hand I completely get what you're saying, on the other hand I kind of don't? Like, yeah, not being cohesive/planned, well that's because it wasn't. Heh. It was only the third stage I ever made and I was totally just making it up as I went. So that's mostly down to lack of experience with building. But as to it being unclear where to go / what to do, once you get to that fire flower, there are only two paths to take, high road or low, and it's really just a matter of running through them (though the bottom path is supposed to be not the obvious choice--you only see it's even there when you're desperately climbing up the other side.) I dunno. Could maybe use more guiding coins? I know the beginning suffers from being Too Much, and that most people I've had play the level in person get tripped up there. If I were doing it over, I'd definitely simplify that, or at least spread it out.

[rpgdemon]

There was a reason I didn't want to say anything about Squatman without having it be experienced firsthand, hahah.

So, here was my description of it that I ended up not including with the post:

I uploaded it last night, and it's definitely hard. I spent a good amount of time tuning it so that the difficulty is in the right spot where it's hard, but very fair and fun. I think I've succeeded - Even though only six players have tried it so far, between the six of them they attempted it 114 times, which means a lot when you have no obligation to finish a level, and you are incentivized towards skipping anything that kills you more than a handful of times in 100 Mario Challenge.

The concept of Squatman actually came out of the original Super Mario World - My brother and I were goofing around, and we decided to play through the game as far as we could while crouched down, and the image of Mario bouncing around the level squatting and wearing a cape seemed like the most hilarious superhero ever. Hence - Squatman.

When Mario Maker came out, I realized I needed to share Squatman with the world. Unfortunately, if I just built a normal level, there was no way that I could tell people, "Hey, you should play this as Squatman" - They'd just run through it normally. So, I had to build this insanely difficult stage, which relies on you making all of its jumps while ducking down. (Incidentally - Did you understand that that was what it was asking you to do?)

I was shooting for the Flappy Bird type of difficulty, where you have this insanely easy task that ends up being incredibly difficult to execute correctly. You have this immediate feedback loop of, "OKAY, I can TOTALLY do that all I need to do is follow the freaking coins!"

Another thing I did when I upped the difficulty is, I also wanted to avoid boring the player by making them repeat sections they'd already done correctly. It sucks to have to do 30 seconds of level that you already have mastered, just to play 5 seconds that kill you. I wanted to keep them engaged with exciting new challenges, throughout the whole experience. I figure, if you're dying a bunch, it should be a minor inconvenience, not something horribly upsetting.

The one place where I think I may have gotten that wrong was with the first checkpoint flag - I wanted any player who made it through the initial jumping hell to not have to do that ever again, so I put it directly after the last jump. Right after that is the more chill climb up to the top of the hill. This was a little breather section - The player probably isn't going to die climbing up the hill, it's just meant to give them a break.

The issue is, right after you jump off that hill, you have a series of difficult jumps, and the chill stretch ends up feeling frustratingly similar to a section where you go, "Yeah, okay, I get it, now let me play the hard part."

[RickZarber]

So apparently Squatman is really taking off! :P Are Wander and Snake people you know, or just random people who've become part of the whole thing now? (Or forumites who've not said? Snake isn't our Snake, is he???)

Also, I noticed there were a couple of my levels you hadn't beaten. Mind if I ask what's tripping you up?

Also also, MORE PEOPLE POST LEVELS coughshineycoughcougheveryoneelse

[rpgdemon]

I was totally surprised at Squatman taking off like it has! I thought Wander and Snake were people who YOU knew!

The Snake guy even made his own version of Squatman!

---------- Post added at 09:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------

As for the levels I haven't beaten yet - Giving them another playthrough now, to jot down some notes.

---------- Post added 11-22-2015 at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous post was 11-21-2015 at 09:15 PM ----------

So, the biggest thing that kept me from finishing the levels was the length, really. I'd die, and just not want to do it again. That was more Nintendo's fault than your own, since you made them before the checkpoint flags got added in.

The ghost house did stump me in the end, for a little bit. I kept flying into that last wall, and then falling through the coins that were supposed to make up the walkway when you hit the P block, because I never actually landed on the solid ground to find the P block first. Once I did, I found the invisible block and beat the level really quickly.

[RickZarber]

I deleted Spin Jumps Will Work, Boos' P-Switch Secrets, and Hotfooted in order to make room for new levels. I chose those because I have now altered them to add checkpoints; I'll re-upload them once I unlock more space. In the meantime:

11. Down to My Actual Cat Whiskers (SMB) - My first Costume level, starring Catsuit Peach (ha, just read that and realized the confusion that word could cause). Definitely meant to be a challenge. Multiple shortcuts throughout, but you'll need the Catsuit at all times. If not you're taking some trips underground, including a boss fight I was pleased to find a way to force you not to skip. 4586-0000-010C-4727

12. The Toad's Refrain (SMB3) - A castle-to-castle airship-hopping level, with no shortcuts, a mini-boss that might require you to think, depending on your power-ups, and a classic Bowser fight at the end. Tried to make this an "easy" level. But you know how that usually goes... 66E0-0000-0108-FB81

13. Throw Up to Grow Up and Go Up (SMW) - This level will make you throw up. A lot. ...I kinda don't want to say much else about it, because it's meant to be one you kind of "discover" as you go. Three ways to win, including a secret one that skips half the level. 87AF-0000-0108-FF30

[rpgdemon]

Okay so Down to My Actual Cat Whiskers had me in love with what I thought was a brilliant shortcut you'd designed, and then had me really just disappointed in you for making a trolling fakeout like that. Like, I had been drafting up a post about how awesomely designed that shortcut was, and then realized it was impossible, and just got unhappy. When you design something subtle and subversive into your level that lets the player feel really clever for finding, don't make it a trap. And if you DO make it a trap, don't make it one that pretends to really be a way forward, so that players have to attempt it several times before discovering it's impassability. That's just punishing your players for caring about your level.

So, here's what I was GOING to say:

The shortcut by the first warp pipe was absolutely perfect. After I got the second catsuit, I remembered that tower I had seen while I fell, and I got really excited when I could go back up through the pipe. I felt like -I- had discovered this unintended secret way through the level, and when I got to the coins at the top and realized that it was a planned shortcut, the design floored me. It was pretty much perfectly placed - as a player, I felt like -I- discovered something, on my own, even though it was clearly placed there for me.

As a designer, it's really important to remember you're designing for the player. When you make a level feature, you're not trying to show off how clever you can be, you're trying to make the PLAYER feel clever for tackling it correctly. And this shortcut did that perfectly. The level didn't call out to it in any way, it let me discover it on my own, by thinking critically about what I had seen in passing on the way down. As I was climbing, there was this subversive quality, where I felt like I was charting my OWN way through the course, instead of just following the path. It was only once I had climbed the tower that the level tipped it's hat and said, "Good job! You made it!". By giving me that path of coins, it let me know, "This is a good place for you to be. I'm glad you got up here - Keep going now!" and rewarded me for finding the shortcut, without shoving the fact that you had planned for this to be a shortcut in my face. The triumph was still MINE, and it was great.

Now that THAT'S out of the way...

I AM SO DISGRUNTLED RIGHT NOW. YOU MADE THE DESIGN OF THE LEVEL ALL ABOUT YOURSELF AND ABOUT SHOWING THAT YOU WERE CLEVERER THAN THE PLAYER. YOU LET THEM GO THROUGH THIS AMAZINGLY DESIGNED SHORTCUT, AND THEN PULLED THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER THEM WHEN THEY TRY TO COLLECT THEIR REWARD. THAT WAS HORRIBLE - WHEN A PLAYER HAS TO BE CLEVER AND FIND A SECRET WAY OFF THE BEATEN TRAIL, YOU DON'T KILL THEM AT THE END OF THE PATH OF COINS.

There's no difficulty being added there, the player is just being unfairly killed because they trusted the level to be well designed. In order to get to the trap, they applied critical thinking, made their way off the beaten path, and discovered this cool new secret, all on their own. The only person who finds this is someone who actually cares about the level, and is one of few devoted players who will most appreciate what you've done with it. Once they got to the secret, they knew what the level was telling them to do, executed it correctly, and died because the level was poorly designed, not because they did anything wrong. You put the lulz of trolling the player over consideration for them.

It was just bad design. It punished exactly the subset of players who could, should, and would have been most impressed and excited by your level.