Creator vs. Player: When an Exit is an Entrance
The last couple of days I have become obsessed with Super Mario Maker, but I don’t own the game, I have been watching videos of it instead. Generally I am not the type of person that watches the videos of a game instead of playing it, but because of Super Mario Maker’s accessible level creator a new door has opened that seemed locked before. Now we can observe the differences between a creator’s vision and player imagination.
I first noticed this when Giant Bomb hosted a stream the other day where they cooperated with their viewers to create a level, a cruel, harrowing level. Throughout the stream, Dan Ryckert would take suggestions from the chat and try to make the suggestion as cruel, but feasible, as possible. This resulted in a platform with P-blocks on every other space, invisible blocks that will smack a player into the face of an enemy, and the words POLICE STATE being spelled out in coins.
All of this was fun to watch, but what was even more interesting was seeing the things happen that they did not intend. One of my favorite parts of the level is the giant Bowser they place on bouncy springs at the beginning. Originally this was meant to be an obstacle to get past, but as they continued to design the level he ended up chasing the player afterwards! The video was really fascinating because it was a cool recording to see how each part of the level was designed and how they intended each section to work against or with the player.
The next morning, Patrick Klepek, senior reporter at Kotaku, played the level for his Mario Maker Morning stream and that is where the magic began. In the beginning part of the level with the giant Bowser Dan added a mushroom so that players would be able to get through it, they just had to wait for the power up then take the hit. Patrick took it a different way, by actually taking the springs and putting them under him so that he could get through while keeping the power-up. This is just one of the cases where the differences between creator and player can be seen.
This contrast is something that we see in games already whether we are playing them or someone is breaking them. The Dark Souls series capitalizes on the idea that players are going to take advantage of of the games mechanics in ways that the creators did not think of. It’s a feeling you get when the Taurus Demon falls off of the bridge during the fight, or if you throw poop over the Capra Demon’s door to kill him without actually fighting him. Some people call this “cheating the game” but whether or not the creators of the game intended those moments to happen or not, the players are not doing anything that could be considered cheating. Instead, these players are utilizing different techniques that they discovered with their imagination to complete an objective.
Other games give players this feeling as well, the Metal Gear Solid series has been known for the various ways that you can complete objectives and defeat bosses. It is also a similar feeling when someone pulls off a crazy stunt in Grand Theft Auto V such as landing a car on top of an airplane or riding a bicycle down the side of a skyscraper.
Now Super Mario Maker allows us to see the other side of this feeling. We can go through a course as small Mario when the orginal creator intended you to have a fire flower the entire time. Something that may be considered impossible by the creator, may end up having an undiscovered technique that makes it a walk in the park.
After I finished watching Patrick’s playthrough of the Giant Bomb level I yearned for more of this sensation. I wanted to watch more people create their levels and the people that would play them but I discovered a dilemma that astounded me. There is not a lot of people that are recording and publishing themselves creating levels in Mario Maker. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t making levels and putting them online, that is obviously not the case, but there are not a lot of of videos presenting how the creators design and think. I was really disappointed in this discovery because one of the best parts, if not the best part in Mario Maker is that it gives people the ability to create their own levels with ease. Plus, this also means that there is not many other videos capturing this contrast between creators and the players. It’s only been two weeks as of today that the game has been out, so I believe that these videos will come eventually, but as of now the deficiency is disadvantageous.
Before Super Mario Maker came out Eurogamer released a video interview with two of the designers of the original Super Mario Bros., Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. At the end of the video he says something that really sums up this creator vs. player sensation:
“As you just saw now, you need to be thinking that if this happens, then THIS will happen. You need to simulate the level and as its creator, understand the big picture. But when someone actually plays it, they might understand it differently. Maybe what you thought was an exit, could be seen as an entrance by someone else. After it’s completed, being able to objectively look at your course and appreciate it as a person who hasn’t designed it is important.”
I hope that more videos of people creating levels do come out in the future. So far what is out there has been a real treat to watch and enjoy. Once I pick up Mario Maker I am going to try and record some level creating myself, if not for others then for me. As for now though you can watch Giant Bomb creating their community level with Patrick Klepek playing it later, there is a really good video on Twitch of PangaeaPanga messing around with different treatment of the game’s mechanics, and you can also watch stampylonghead and Sqaishey Quack make levels for each other.
