Will Patrick Klepek beat Dan Ryckert's SMM Challenge?

I'm going with Dan on this one. #HEEL

this is legitimately kind of exciting

Well Dan got community help on bolstering the level. This hardly seems fair and in line with the spirit of the original challenge.

Patrick should compete under protest cause this seems like Dan is cheating.

What is best in life? To crush Patrick, to see him driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of his fanbase.

This is way too good. I love this stuff. Eagerly awaiting the final level and Patrick's attempt.

I'm going Team Patrick, simply because difficulty isn't synonymous with good level design, and bad level design isn't the same as exploits.

If there were rules in place for no community help, Dan has already broken them.

If Dan is actively seeking help from the community help for patching up his level, then Patrick should be able to also receive help. Also, he is actively making it harder by removing exploits.

Seems like other duders in this thread also voice my concern that Dan has sort of violated the spirit of the challenge with his re-uploads.

I think the thing I love about all this is the donation. It's a really cool way to make a stupid thing have it do some good. I'll have to give it to Dan for having a GREAT idea.

But fuck Dan, I'm Team Klepeck. The man EATS difficulty.

I feel iffy about Dan patching his level, but to me it depends on the nature of the exploit. If it's something like using the cape or abusing Kamek's - that's bad. If it's something that is literally easier to fail yourself into that trivializes everything - that's fine.

One of the rules is "There is to be no help from the chat, community, or miiverse posts" Dan has already violated this by getting hints about exploits and thus has changed the level 3-4 times. He even mentioned/thanked the people that he got help from.

Totally against the spirit of the bet. #teampatrick should be able to help out or go back to the first incarnation of the level.

I also think Ryckert editing the level post upload is kind of cheap. I would be willing to look over it if he does a video/article/podcast thing talking about his Mario Maker experience though, his tweet about how it made him think differently about game development caught my interest.

I don't know why everyone is so upset about the community helping Dan on his levels. Patrick has been the most cocky while beating the levels that Dan and the community made together. Having people help Dan is absolutely in the spirit of the challenge.

Is there a video of this level? I want to see it.

You snooze you lose, patty. Better hurry the fuck up before more of these exploits get fixed, lord knows you're gonna need em'.

#TeamDan

The challenge doesn't start until Patrick starts the level...

And the rule that you can't get help from the community is specifically for Patrick.

Also its not like Dan is taking design advice from the community, he is just using twitter to help him fix unintended exploits.

I swear some of you are taking this way too seriously

I want a full dark side Patrick to retaliate with an even harder response level.

Evil Patrick has black hair and black eyes. Like Dark Willow.

Patrick's got this.

BTW how many Wii U's is this little spat gonna sell? I thought about getting one just so I could play these courses. This promo style is better than the Nintendo World Championships' SMM round.

Surely, at long last, THIS will shut up that idiotic narrative I keep seeing pop up in comments/forums that Patrick is persona-non-grata around the staff...

Now that we've gotten THAT out of the way: I absolutely adore this dynamic. I can't IMAGINE two people I'd rather see sharing a friendly rivalry in this industry.

@wonderva: The problem I have is that these aren't exploits, this is bad level design. If the problem is that the mechanics of the Mario Maker engine aren't working as intended, then it's an exploit. If he stuck Yoshi in the level, and Yoshi allows the player to do something Dan didn't like or expect, then that isn't an exploit. That's Dan's bad level design.

Hehe now I kinda wanna see more exploits, so that Dan has to play it again, and then perhaps Patrick will notice that it's not up yet even though the challenge has been made.

But from the Twitter feed it sounds like Dan is satified with the level now, aka. don't wanna do it again.

If it is as he say a "great" puzzle and not cheap trick's it will be fun to see Patrick play it :)

Hearing that exploits have already been found made me forget the "Titanic" issue with Dan. Once he's planned something he doesn't test it enough. See the pipe at the end of the 2nd community level. I KNEW it was a makeable jump the second Dan tried it but he just assumed it wasn't and that's where Dan is failing.

Patrick might just be the 1 2 3 Kid and Dan is Razor Ramon, cocky and too sure of himself…

Couldn't really care who wins, as long as this leads to a pax wrestling match between the two (Or a handicap match of Dan vs Patrick and Xavier.

The other part of this is that it's timed so all Dan really has to do is fill a LONG level with random crap like the GB stream levels and watch patrick never figure them out. "Take pipe 3-4-2-1-4-6-3-3-1-3-5-7-2-3" would be a solution that would take more than 72 hours to brute force. Specially with all the devious misdirection you can use. The path you thought was the answer and was working on for the last 5 hours turns out to be a pure dead end.

@foolishchaos: No. He clearly states: "After I post this level, you have 72 hours to beat it." Of course Patrick should have some leeway within his schedule, but Dan shouldn't be allowed to go in and patch it.

The whole video he's saying that he's making the level, but he's clearly getting outside help. He clearly shot this video before even making the level, thinking he was going to design the perfect level, and is now claiming exploits in order to fix bad level design.

I swear some of you guys will get mad about literally anything

chill Dan is playing the Heel, what do you expect for a Heel to play fair? this was very clearly telegraphed in the video.

#TeamPatrick

Which is why I said I hope Patrick wins. I don't think anyone is saying Dan is a terrible human being, we're just pointing out that he's already cheated at this challenge. I don't know why the Dan-apologists take it so personally.

@sergio: not apologizing, and I hope Patrick too, just saying that it was clear from that start that he was going to do that.

Between these videos and the rest of the Mario Maker coverage I am getting a Wii U later this year. Looks likes such a great game.

Thanks to the 2 Mario Maker streams and this whole fiasco I now also want a Wiiu and this game.

#TeamRyckert

@sergio said:

Finishing a video game in a way the creator didn't intend is the dictionary definition of an exploit. Dan has a clear vision of what he wants his level to be, and it's Patrick's Job to prove to Dan he can beat that vision.

You complain about Dan's "bad level design" but also complain when he fixes it? make your mind up.

The original version of the level took me about 20 minutes to figure out, then maybe another half hour to execute and beat it. Turns out every single step of the way the things I was doing were not ever intended to be possible while I thought they were the core concept. Taking out Yoshi undid much of my method. I eventually figured out a new method. Still wasn't the intent. In the effort to get the level as pure as possible, to weed out unintentionally easy ways to beat it it has been updated into a thing I can't figure out. The end goal is still the same, I know what has to be done. But there is a particular step that I simply cannot figure out how to accomplish. I won't be looking for answers, I'll figure it out on my own, or I'll see it when/if Patrick pulls it off. Only after that will I seek out answers (or Danswers) if Patrick can't get it either.

Dan has said no help from the community. That was for Patrick. There was never any stipulation that Dan couldn't get any help on his end. It may have been somewhat against the spirit of the challenge but it was never really specified that he would upload a single level and then leave it to fate. Think of it like a stadium realizing that the turf was subpar and not fit for the level of play coming to it. They overhaul and update. But once the game starts, that's it. No more changes.

But how far will Dirty Dan go? Does he have people at the electric company who can cut the power so Patrick can't finish? Or to cause a sudden internet outage in his area so he can't upload a completion?

I'm probably missing something obvious but damn, I am afraid for Patrick now.

*update* I just figured out what I was missing. There is a thing which can be done that I didn't realize was possible. Once I did it became easy to adapt that into my old method. I now know how to beat it and would just have to put the run together. But I'm a bit played out for the day so that will have to wait. But it's like the knowing of how to do it has unlocked it in my brain, like I don't even need to do it because I solved the puzzle already. Phew.

I want Patrick to beat this but with Dan going back and fixing exploits, I just don't know if Patrick will be able to do it.

If you're too excited to wait until Monday, here's a stream highlight of some guy beating the level: http://www.twitch.tv/sodiumeyes/v/20089234

How come Dan can get the community to beta test his level, and Patrick can't get so much as 1 hint from them. This whole challenge is skewed in Dan's favor, so I voted for him.

@rongalaxy: because its 100x harder to make a level, than it is to beat it. if he could not get help, this whole challenge would be skewed in Patrick's favor.

I think Patrick is screwed.

Ahaha yeah, no. Klep has zero effing chance at this. Just watched SodiumEyes do it only after meticulously studying it in the editor, and even then you have to execute - which is a whole other ball game.

Pat will Quit.

To those that have tried the level: does it seem like that trick is the main obstacle, and that Patrick's success hinges on that? I caught a bit of a stream which had a lot of item carrying, but the actual traversal didn'f seem that hard, at least the part that I saw.

Question is will Dan allow Patrick to study it in the editor, if it comes to that.

how can you complain about him removing exploits? this is way more fun if patrick needs to beat the level using the path intended to defeat it!

i'm neutral, i'd like to see patrick beat it but only after a long long time!

The only reason Patrick won't be able to do is if if he doesn't have enough time to figure out all the tricks. Either way I'm on his side since Team Dan isn't a valid choice at all from my point of view.

95% of the challenge is gone in this level if you look in the editor.

Agreed. I think Patrick would rather have it this way - he wants to beat Dan at his best, not find an accidental way through the level that Dan didn't intend.

Besides, people should really lighten up - it's for charity! This is the most entertaining thing I've seen in the gaming community in awhile, and the fact it's for a good cause is the icing on the cake. No reason to insert drama where none is needed.