Super Mario Maker

That level was featured on Gamexplain on You Tube, and made its way to the top 50 most starred levels. It might still be there.

The cargo train stage was fun, and it still should be among the top starred stages.

I'm working on an airship stage as well. I have my WIP labyrinth, but that one gets worked on in between as I feel like.

I'm making a Ghost House castle thing.

In response to 32_footsteps:

Thanks for the comment. The whole door to before thing was supposed to be a check point. I tried to layer several hints about what the door was for. The first being the coins in the shape of a check mark (check mark, check point). The second was the invisible blocks you would inevitably hit trying to get to the door. The vines were also supposed to give a clue. If you fell down without moving, I hoped you triggered a sound cue in the middle of the air. That sound was supposed to indicate that there was something there for you to hit. Given your response, I didn't succeed in conveying the clue.

@1429: It's a tricky thing to do. (I haven't played your level, and I'm currently at work) You just simply can't know how a person will play your level, until they play your level. Honestly, I was shocked at how my brothers played my levels and made mistakes I thought the average player wouldn't make, despite them both having a long Mario history behind them.

It really made me realize that I needed to tweak my levels. That, combined with the shockingly low completion ratio (which I realized is based on number of tries, not players, but still).

@32: I actually did something kinda like that where you go through a Bowser's Castle gauntlet and end up in a room full of pipes that shoot coins. It's called "Bowser's Treasure Stash" on the spreadsheet. Also, I need to get around to adding the codes for my other levels on there.

Made a short new level. Spin 2 Win, which is exactly as it sounds.

89D4-0000-0096-E226

This level is my cruel masterpiece: F738-0000-0050-89A9

@1429 I think the problem is that it doesn't really function well as a checkpoint - it's not like I get to restart from there if I die. Honestly, I thought that it was an indication that it was the correct route, and I felt a bit cheated when it turned out to spit me out at the level's beginning. Granted, since it was a 500-tick clock, it's not like I was screwed. Similarly, the fact that I didn't spawn into a sure-death area (which is perhaps my biggest pet peeve in Super Mario Maker - just admit you have no sense of game design and give up right now) made it just a minor annoyance.

The sound cues were probably the worst part of that setpiece. You get the "ding dong" cue when you enter the door, which I've gotten used to being the "You did the right thing!" cue, while the "buzz" sound is almost impossible to trigger without plummeting to the level start - I didn't know I was heading in the wrong direction until I was already in freefall.

The problem is, I think, that you can't really be sure how a player is going to react to certain clues until you've seen many players in action. And how many of us have? I'll admit, I've only watched two or three people play Mario games in the past.

I uploaded that door level, finally: 5D47-0000-0098-8E3C.

Aside from the name of the level, I tried to make it clear visually that going through the doors is a bad idea and that going up the pipe is what saves you.

Considering Mario is made in Japan, I wonder what Japanese players think when they see level after level after level whose title is in English.

It doesn't help that a lot of amateur designers seem to think difficulty is sucker-punching the player out of left field instead of actually providing a fair challenge. There's a mile of difference in my respect for a hard course that's had because it demands a very precise level of skill and a level that's hard because oops, you should've read the designers mind and realized that door lead to a death trap and that pipe spits you into a bottomless pit.

edited 9th Oct '15 11:50:37 AM by Pulse

I had to redesign a level so enemies couldn't fall in from off the top of the screen. I had to move enemies so that you have more time to react to them when you jump onto the platform they're on. My level "Bridge to Mushroom Forest", both versions, shows what I'm talking about. I hope it does well. The original had 7 stars out of 33 players, last I saw. I hope people like the new one with the tweaked difficulty more.

The level I just uploaded is the only one that does that, and I tried to make it really obvious.

I think an appropriate warning is the best thing to aim for. I would do things like place coins if you have to jump to an offscreen location, or place enemies in such a way that you don't have to jump on the platform and then immediately get out of the way. Or at least I'd try.

I think my levels aren't that great, looking at them, and I really want to spend a lot of time making a single really good one than a bunch of okay or decent ones.

If I ever stick a Thwomp offscreen, I always reinforce the ground with hard blocks where they'll land, or a skeleton if it's an underground theme.

I think a better idea would be to put blocks in the thwomp's path for it to destroy in order to reach you. That way, a player who doesn't realize "skeleton = thwomp" would still get the shock of it coming at them, but not be punished for missing the intended hint.

I generally try to make sure my levels all are at least fair.

A better idea would be to make the first Thwomp-over-a-skeleton within view, that way the player can learn to associate skeletons with Thwomps first without getting crushed from off screen.

edited 9th Oct '15 12:00:59 PM by Anomalocaris20

Huh, found a course in 100 Mario Challenge that had a Big Mushroom in the NSMBU theme.

Collecting it only gives 1000 points and nothing else, even as Small Mario.

What the? Do you think that might be a secret?

Try starring that level, and give us the level code maybe so we can study it?

edited 9th Oct '15 1:17:57 PM by BonsaiForest

So I am trying to remake my galoomba level so that the check point isn't so confusing. Instead of a door, I used a pipe that takes the player to a copy of the level's beginning. However, I try to highlight the hidden block that the player wouldn't have known about.

Edit: And done. ID: 81FB-0000-0098-E719

edited 9th Oct '15 1:43:34 PM by OrionAurora

ID for the course I was talking about: 1E93-0000-0046-3988

Huh. It appears to be one of the Amiibo bonuses, yet unlike the others, it doesn't transform into a flight power-up when the theme changes.

I made a new level! https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHkg9BuMng