Shia LaBeouf says you can.

I'm tempted to pick up an Amazon card and order it so I can create shitty dumb levels to share with my friends but I don't know. I tend to struggle with level design, even with a simple editor. I do fucking love the idea of custom Super Mario World stages on a game and not a romhack though. Hm...

I'm in your boat. However, playing the sample levels in 10 Mario Challenge kind of gave me a few ideas, you may want to give those a shot if you haven't. After going through those I've actually come out of it with two ideas (not copying, but just concepts that made me think of things that could be done) that I think are pretty awesome...just have to pull it off now.

This will probably seem like a very small gripe, but the spin jump being on the triggers is annoying the shit out of me. That and constantly adjusting my system clock so that I can gain the ability to make pipes connect to other pipes elsewhere in the world... so typical Nintendo bullshit. Other than that, it's enjoyable for what it is. There are a very small number of levels I've played that make me go, "Huh, that could have been in (insert relevant game here) and I wouldn't have thought it was a user created level," but those levels make me smile.

Yes, absolutely. Enjoying both sides of the game: making (and testing and uploading) my own levels, and playing through other user-created levels.

I get what you mean, it'd be nice to have another category that promotes levels with a high percentage of stars vs. finishes (ex. 80% of people who finished the level starred it), or something along those lines, as opposed to those with highest total number of stars.

But I think the reason that levels with few playthroughs get included in the 100 Mario Challenge, and the Up and Coming tab, is to separate the wheat from the chaff. If nobody tried those new, unplayed levels, we'd never know if they're good or bad. One of the best user-created levels I played was something with 0 stars and <10 playthroughs; I found it either in Up and Coming or the "You might like..." selection (scrolls by after completing a level).

Yeah, I've been having a blast.

I'm really enjoying it so far, only had the chance to make one level though. I want to try to make traditional style mario levels,i dont really like the clutter of hundreds of bowsers and goombas running around lol. That being said some of those stages are hilarious.

I'm awful at making levels, but that's not really why I tried this out

The real problem is that, from what I've played of the challenges so far, apparently just about everyone else sucks at making levels too

It's just about what I expected but it's still disappointing to see it all in practice. And for 70$ no less

@demoskinos: so far for me the created levels are not doing it. There are some really fun creative stuff out there but the lack of structure really takes away the drive to finish levels. It's so easy to just skip a level and move onto the next if that level becomes frustrating at all.

I've tried my hand with the creator tools but I'm not really getting much out of it. I knew I probably wouldn't and really bought this game in hopes of an endless supply of Mario levels.

I hope Nintendo does a very un-Nintendo thing and keeps updating and tweaking the sorting and finding tools in this game.

Jeff and Dan have made some pretty good levels so far. Dan makes fucking hard ones. Jeff has made some easier fun ones and a few that had a tough little trick to them. I'm hoping once it's been out a little longer there will be forum posts here and there about creators who make the less gimmicky and more classic Mario levels.

There's this. Seems like there are a lot of people in there making more traditional levels. You could try some out and follow the people making stuff you like. I've only checked out a few so far, but the quality is definitely higher than your average 100-Mario Challenge level.

@spunkyhepanda: I actually have had that thread open in my browser since I got the game. I haven't taken the time to try any of them out yet. I've really enjoyed Jeff and Dan's levels so far.

@sloppydetective: What did you expect? Dan is the Waluigi of Giant Bomb.

I don't know if I would say I am disappointed with this game, because I honestly wasn't expecting much to begin with. From the moment this was announced, I felt this was going to be little more than a novelty - something that would be fun to mess around with for a few minutes or so, but not something to warrant setting up my Wii-U. Let's face it, and I am putting myself in this camp wholeheartedly, most people are not game designers. Sure there will probably be a lot of great levels to come out of this game, but the majority of levels are either gimmicks (auto levels, music levels, etc...) which are technically impressive but not a lot of fun to play, or impossibly hard levels designed to screw with the player (which can be fun, don't get me wrong, but it's not what I want to play all the time).

This game made me realize the limits of the Mario formula. I know some people are just going to say it's my lack of creativity, but there just isn't a whole lot you can do to a Mario level to make it interesting anymore. It doesn't help the game gives you such limited options at the beginning. I'm supposed to use the very limited tools until the game arbitrarily decides I've earned more content, but they only give ten spots for uploading until some arbitrary star count determines I'm allowed to upload more. So am I supposed to be whoring myself online to get people to notice my levels in a vast sea of other levels, or should I just upload ten courses and twiddle my thumbs until I'm allowed to upload more?

Am I crazy for thinking the fact I paid eighty dollars for this game means I should be allowed to use all the tools on arrival? It got to the point where I was just randomly scribbling blocks all over the screen just to speed up the process when the game would decide to give me more things to use. If the content unlocking was tied to the 10/100 Mario Challenge I could kind of get behind it. If it was a case of "beat the 10/100 Mario challenge and you'll unlock more content" that would actually be worth something. It's a catch-22 where I want to upload levels, but I have such a limited space to do so I don't want to upload anything until I have all the tools, but the only way to get more tools is by making more levels (or, as I said, just scribbling on the screen). I paid for the product, I shouldn't also have to prove I really want to play the game.

The thing that really kills this game for me is the abysmal search functionality. In a game entirely relying on user-made content, how could they muck this up that badly. Only being able to search for a level based on an over-complicated string of numbers and letters is just appalling. How about letting us type in a name of a level? Or deciding which style of Mario we want to play? Or letting us search by user without having to already find one of their levels to begin with. What if I want a level with Yoshi in it? Or no power ups? Or tons of other things I should be able to search for? The fact it is so frustrating to find levels I want to play makes me turn the game off after a few minutes of turning it on.

Finally, where do you really go from here? Is it really possible to release another Mario game after we've been given the tools to basically do it ourselves? Why would anyone pay more money for a Mario game when there is a theoretically unlimited amount of Mario levels to play on this game I already have? Or is Super Mario Maker supposed to be the New Coke of video games? Nintendo showing us what it's like when we make Mario levels so we'll be more appreciative when the real Mario levels come back. Honestly this feels like a last ditch effort when you've completely run out of ideas on what to do with a franchise.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there are going to be no great levels coming out of this game. I'm sure some people will make things that are really fun and interesting, but it's not going to be worth wading through the bile just to get to them (side note: if I see one more "jump over this pit - oh and I put an invisible block right where you will jump so you fall into the pit and have to restart" one more time I might actually throw this game at someone. It's not funny, it's not clever, it doesn't make your level challenging, so knock it off!).

I'm sure I am going to get a lot of flak for this comment, but I felt it needed to be said. I love Nintendo. They were a big part of my childhood, but this honestly feels like the dying grasps of a once brilliant entity maybe better laid to rest. There have been so few decent games for the Wii-U - where is the Mario 64/Galaxy style Mario game for the Wii-U, where is the new Zelda game (not a big fan of Zelda but still), where is the new Metroid game, etc... Why are so many of Nintendo's flagship titles getting little to no attention on this device. For a console manufacturer that, let's face it, relies on nostalgia the fact there are so few recognizable titles on the system is really puzzling.

But I'm getting off topic. To answer your question, no I was not disappointed with Super Mario Maker. I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it, and it delivered pretty much exactly what I was expecting. The thing I am disappointed with, however, is the search functionality. As far as I'm concerned, how terrible it is, is inexcusable.

I thought it was ok at first but the more I play it the more I enjoy it. I'll probably go back to it very often.

I've been constantly going back to Mario Maker because of a nifty little trick! Try out 100 Mario on Expert, and check the star/player ratio in the pause menu. Generally speaking, levels with roughly a star for every 10 players is worth your time. You come across some real good stuff!

I played Mario Maker for the first time since Thanksgiving a few nights ago, and I was a lot more disappointed with it than I had been in the first few months of its release. A friend and I decided we wanted to play 100 Mario Challenge on Normal, because Easy is usually just awful and expert, while sometimes enjoyable, is just as likely to be either an unenjoyable nightmare or a constant level skipping chore. Sometimes you just want to play some regular ass levels without a million things popping off or every jump requiring expert precision, you know? Anyway, we were sad to discover that over half of the sixteen levels that popped up were autoplay levels on first load, sometimes even on the second and third loads. At what point did the normal difficulty get filled with autoplay levels? As someone that doesn't like those levels, I found it to be incredibly sad.

I feel like the middle-tier levels are disappearing. Maybe it's because nobody is making them anymore, or maybe it's because of the filtering system (which as we all know has always needed work), but I remember when I was playing this game for hours a few months ago, normal levels still existed and the autoplay ones were filtered into easy. I'm sure it was bound to happen eventually, but still. I just think it's sad.

I also had two levels that I put a lot of time and effort into making disappear from the server due to inactivity. While I understand why this happens, I think it's super unfortunate to discover that if I want people to see a level I made that disappears, I have to play through it and upload it again (granted, this is only a problem for my more difficult levels); Or that if I want somebody to see something I make, I then have to do the extra work of plugging my stuff on social media or in forums just to get it seen. Again, a necessary evil, but I'm stuck in that middle ground where I really want to create levels but I don't want to promote them because it's a video game and I just want them to exist without being evicted.

If Nintendo said hey, give us 5 bucks and your level can live here for a year, I might do it for one or two of my levels. Also, I've decided that I would be willing to pay Nintendo real money so that I can have extra level creation slots, because my 10 are almost filled up and I want to keep making levels. How about I give Nintendo 10 bucks for a pack of 10 additional slots and we'll both be happy? I hate microtransactions most of the time but that's one I would get behind.

Overall, I'm still glad that Super Mario Maker exists and I think it's magnificent for what it is, problems aside. I just wish there was a better way to do a few things. And I know we all kinda feel that way. I know more changes are coming, and I hope by this time next year enough changes will have been implemented that the problems that bother me now will be solved for real, and not just in some Nintendo-like fashion that doesn't really meet the everyday player in the middle.

@dprotp: ima try that

i dont own a wii u or the game, but if i did i would properly not enjoy it as much as it deserves since i have no real nostalgia or anything to mario or the nintendo brand other then the gameboy. but im supprised of how much i enjoy seeing people complete the levels the staff of giant bomb have made. for some reasons i dont care about other peoples levels

@youeightit said:

Get stars, son! Make good levels and you get to make more good levels. Maybe I'm biased, but I managed to get 50 stars on one level alone with very little Social Media Shit. Then again, maybe I just got lucky. (Last time I checked, I'm at 7 courses uploaded and a little past 180 stars)

You'll find that things are way more pleasant--I've often made it to the 16th level with over 90 lives!

@dprotp: I've uploaded 7 levels and have 8 stars, 6 of which are from posting on Reddit and the showcase thread here. I've been putting hours into tuning the level, making sure I have no leaps of faith or bullshit hidden blocks, and I don't do pixel perfect platforming. Regardless, most of the time my levels don't get starred, if they get played or completed at all. I don't think they're super hard or terrible, it just seems like people don't bother starring traditional levels.

For reference: https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/profile/QuidProBono

Huh. Yeah, I had a feeling that would happen.

I'll be sure to give them a try tonight!

This has definitely not been my experience. I haven't gotten anywhere near 50 stars on my most popular levels, which the people that have played seem to like a lot. I don't think my levels are at all worse than a lot of the good levels I've played.

This is a lot more in line with my experience, except I've been making levels of all degrees in difficulty, from very easy to traditional to completely bananas.

I think I just Dan Ryckert'd this shit!

Seems the game needs way better tools for discoverability and ingame tagging as well...

@youeightit: I'm glad it's not just me! I'm almost out of level slots at this point due to my star starvation. If you post your ID I'd love to play your courses! Mine is a few posts up

I'll check yours out now. I just got a Wii U for christmas and am in love with the game. I try to go out of my way to star traditional levels. I love the wacky shit people make, but there is something to be said for something that feels like a real mario level.

EDIT: Just played your Mischief Maze level. Really loved it! I can see the puzzle-like nature of that level turning some people away, but I enjoyed it.

I bookmarked you! I'll try your levels now. Here is my profile, for anybody interested. I'll post this over in the showcase thread too.

https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/profile/elvisboogens

@ssully: I think the biggest problem new players face is the absolute glut of automatic levels, and more recently music playing levels. I got the game about a week ago and I immediately went to other sources to find levels. Although, Mario maker bookmark now has a "Traditional" tag which is a fantastic addition! I still think it'll eventually be better, it just needs some more work to surface those levels. Unfortunately, most communities will favor novelty over solid gameplay it seems.

@ssully: Thanks! I always loved those levels in the Mario games, and they're just as fun to make as to play!

@youeightit: Bookmarked you too! I'm excited to try yours. My girlfriend is playing right now, haha

Luckily I havent seen much of the music or auto levels in the 10 or 100 live challenges. While there are still some stinkers in there, I've found a lot of great levels and creators just through the challenges.