Maker’s Mark 1

naxuu
6 min readSep 27, 2015

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A semi-regular post on my favorite undersung Mario Maker levels, for myself as much as anyone else

An introduction, and some advice on curating your Mario Maker feed

Hello! Welcome to the first Maker’s Mark. This is a place for me to highlight some of my favorite Mario’s Maker levels. Think of it as a celebration of the indie DIY part of Mario Maker. This isn’t about popularity or gimmicks. There will be no auto-playing or music levels here (I didn’t care for them even on day one, and their popularity is baffling.) If it has over 1,000 stars already, it’s probably been talked about elsewhere, so it won’t appear here. If it has a few hundred and is really quite impressive, then OK. But your average joe is having trouble getting his levels “out there”, I think, and some of those levels getting lost in the noise are actually well-designed, considerate to the player, and just challenging enough that you’re going to struggle, but when you succeed you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment. I’m the sort of player who thinks Dark Souls is fair and perfectly tuned to force you to learn its ways and better yourself, so that’s my standard for a level. I’m not into Kaizo unfairness, or cheap tricks, but I don’t mind dying more than a few times. I also think it’s exceedingly difficult to make a gentle, easy level that’s well designed. So those are worth highlighting as well.

I don’t think most people understand, yet, how to curate their Mario Maker feed to create the best experience for themselves. That’s not surprising. Most people still don’t understand how to curate their Twitter feeds, so they end up following dull celebrities and comedians and generally having a horrible time without realizing it. And Nintendo hasn’t exactly made following people easy, after all (they’re Nintendo; that this has working online functionality at all is a miracle.) A few tips:

1. Add your existing Wii friends using Miiverse

You can’t just easily follow your existing friends from Wii U. I have no idea why; it should’ve been the first thing the developers thought of. But, there’s a workaround of sorts. If you head to the Miiverse, then Activity Feed, you’ll see the recent posts from each of your friends. Mario Maker automatically posts to this whenever you upload a level, or whenever your friends upload levels. You can jot down the level ID code from that. Then you can head to Mario Maker -> Course World -> Courses -> the magnifying glass, and enter in the ID there. At that point, you can play the level, and also click on your friend’s avatar, then the “heart” icon to follow that friend. I know, this is ridiculously convoluted. Don’t blame me.

2. How to find levels

You might be playing through 100 Mario Challenge or plugging in IDs you’re finding on the internet. These are both solid ways to discover levels. A few places have sprung up for level discovery:

Mario Maker Hub: http://www.mariomakerhub.com

Nintendo Life: http://www.nintendolife.com/super-mario-maker

Reddit’s daily level exchange, i.e.: https://www.reddit.com/r/MarioMaker/comments/3mk1dd/lets_have_a_level_exchange_september_27_2015/ (and that Mario Maker subreddit in general)

MeFi Mario Maker: http://mefimariomaker.blogspot.com (Disclaimer: I’m a part of this blog. But so is John Harris, of Gamasutra / @Play, and he’s worth reading. He comes from the roguelike school of design, and he’s quite thoughtful.)

The Boo Lab series on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCKUYKWkNYNxooWRQI9jMIfdYK3iMvnc6

None of this is perfect — I eagerly await the perfect curation site with nothing but stellar levels, and I’m sure it’s coming soon — but you can get a bit granular to find the kind of level you’re looking for. Or head to the existing curated social media feed of your choice, and search there — I’m finding good levels made by my twitter friends and through Metafilter, which are my preferred places to spend time on the Internet.

Oh, by the way, you’ve probably already realized this, but if you’re running through 100 Mario Challenge in search of good levels, lean very heavily on the “Skip” feature (hold down the “minus” button on your controller.) Especially on Expert mode. If a level is troll-y, frustrating, cheap, or unfair, skip it. No need to waste the time or energy. There’s a difference, though, between challenging and unfair. You’ll learn the difference the more you play, and the more skilled you get.

3. Star the levels you like

When you come across a level you like — star it! Star the levels you finish and enjoyed. Star the levels you couldn’t complete, but enjoyed anyway. That last one is crucial — people simply don’t star levels if they can’t finish them. But that’s a poor metric for deciding whether to star something. I like to be challenged. If I spend an hour on a level before completing it, that’s okay as long as I’m having fun! There are levels I haven’t completed, but I plan to go back to them to take them on. Some of them contain dozens of little tricks, and it’s constant discovery and learning. It’s a shame when these levels aren’t starred, simply because people play them for 3 minutes and then move on when their egos aren’t stroked. C’mon, have the humility to star a level you didn’t succeed at. (Sorry, that got ranty for some reason.)

Don’t skimp on starring levels either. They’re not a finite resource. You can give out stars to creators that made the effort. Show appreciation for small creators who haven’t blown up. Star something if a creator seems like a nice person. Star for the hell of it. You’re not a refined professional critic who metes out stars sparingly out of a sense of integrity. Digital hugs feel good. Make someone feel good. Help the thoughtful makers out so they can upload more levels, and do your part to flood the Mario Maker system with better courses.

4. Use stars as a discovery mechanism

When you do star something, it’s logged in your Player Info screen. (That’s your Mii avatar in Course World, on the upper left part of the screen.) There are tabs for Starred Courses and Played Courses. Explore that section, and figure out who made the courses you’ve starred. Chances are that creator has other quality levels you can take on. Follow them! Even if that person is a complete stranger. This isn’t Facebook. Don’t be shy. Everyone likes to be followed. (Just don’t leave creepy or overly negative comments, please.)

If you’re not using the Follow / heart functionality, you’re probably not living your best life. Try it.

5. Check up on the people you follow regularly

When I’m looking to play new courses during a Mario Maker session, I don’t jump into 100 Mario Challenge all that often. It’s a bit too random for my tastes, and the Expert mode (which is where my personal tastes run) has too many levels that are unfair and needlessly frustrating. I usually start out by going to Course World -> Makers -> Following, and browsing through the list of people I’m following. I’m currently following 30 people, some I know and some I don’t. That list should hopefully grow to 100 or more in due time, which should lead to a steady stream of new courses for me to play. I’ll occasionally prune the list if it gets out of control or someone isn’t as great of a level creator as I thought. Just treat it like a carefully curated social media feed. Then check in all the time to see what’s new. I know we’re not used to thinking of video game social functionality that way, but trust me, this is how you’ll have the optimal Mario Maker experience. Nintendo doesn’t make discovery all that easy. Be proactive!

6. If you have other tips, let me know.

We’re all learning how to get the most out of this weird, amazing, frustrating, rewarding tool in front of us. If you have additional tips and tricks for discovery of small, quality indie levels, let me know and I’ll add it here.

Next time out, I’ll list a few of the levels I had a good time with in these initial weeks. Yay! Now go sip some whiskey and explore some levels.

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