Video Game / Super Mario Maker

Anyone can make it. Everyone can play it.

Super Mario Maker is Nintendo's 30th anniversary celebration of the Super Mario Bros. franchise^note That is, the release of Super Mario Bros., not Donkey Kong, a Game Maker engine for Wii U based around the 2D Mario platformers. The game provides an assortment of enemies, power-ups, and obstacles to make courses with, using an interface very reminiscent of Mario Paint. Players can combine things to create new objects, enemies, and courses that would give even Kaizo Mario World a run for its money. Above water big Bloopers with wings? That's one of the easier things to make. Mario in a giant stiletto with a Spiny helmet to match? Totally normal. Three giant Bowsers stacked on top of each other? Good luck.

In addition to all this chaos the maker allows, users can decide to shift between various graphic styles, including the classic 8-bit styles from the first Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, the 16-bit graphics of Super Mario World, or the 3D vectors from New Super Mario Bros. U.

People can also share the courses they make online with other players. Courses need to be cleared before they can be uploaded, preventing Unwinnable by Design courses from cropping up.

One of the game's most promoted features is a Mystery Mushroom powerup: a mushroom that, when collected, will turn Mario into Costume Mario, assuming the form of a different character. These costumes can be collected by either clearing the 100 Mario Challenge, a gauntlet of randomly-picked courses; Event Courses, courses designed by game developers or parters; or Gnat Attack, a minigame from Mario Paint. There are over 100 different Mystery Mushroom costumes, and a number of them can alternatively be unlocked by scanning a compatible amiibo. Additionally, the game has its own amiibo, a 30th Anniversary Mario figure in Classic and Modern colors. Using the figure in-game creates a Big Mushroom, which allows Mario to become Big Mario, replaces enemies with Mario-themed variations, and causes the game to take on a CRT television-style filter.

The game was released on September 11th, 2015 worldwide (and a day earlier on the 10th for Japan), the Friday (and the Thursday, again for Japan) before the 30th anniversary of the Japanese September 13th, 1985 release of the original Super Mario Bros.

A re-release of the game for Nintendo 3DS was released on December 2, 2016. It includes all of the same development tools as the Wii U version except for the Mystery Mushroom and amiibo support (and the Big Mushroom wasn't made an unlockable to compensate for this, meaning it can't be used either), and does not include the ability to upload courses online or search for them by Course ID. It was the first first-party 3DS game without any 3D functionality. However, it includes Yamamura's Lessons (a tutorial mode discussing course design and how the various course elements work), Super Mario Challenge (a replacement of 10 Mario Challenge with medal objectives), and the ability to share courses via StreetPass and local wireless, including unfinished courses so others can complete them.

As of January 21, 2021, the Wii U version is unavailable to purchase from the Nintendo eShop^note It's still available to those who purchased it previously, and as of March 31, 2021, it's no longer possible to upload and bookmark courses. On April 8th, 2024, online services were terminated for the Wii U and 3DS, making it no longer possible to play any levels that were shared online.

A sequel, Super Mario Maker 2, was released June 2019. It introduces new gimmicks such as slopes, new level themes, and a graphic style based on Super Mario 3D World, including the Cat Mario power-up.

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This game contains the following tropes:

#-E

• 1-Up: In every game mode, Mario can earn extra lives in the same usual ways: collecting a 1-Up Mushroom, defeating a certain number of enemies in a row, collecting 100 coins, or grabbing the top of the Goal Pole in the SMB and NSMBU themes. There are new ways to earn 1-Ups as well; in the SMB3 theme, the Roulette Box contains a 1-Up Mushroom, while in the SMW theme, crossing the Giant Gate at the top earns an extra life. In the 10 and 100 Mario Challenges, Mario can only earn three extra lives per course.
• Abnormal Ammo: Bill Blasters and Lakitus can be made to fire/toss anything from enemies to coins
• Advancing Wall of Doom: Possible to invoke through the use of tracks and various damaging obstacles attached to them.
• Airborne Mook: Everyone—just apply wings and they'll fly. If they already fly, they'll move in different patterns.
• All There in the Manual: Mashiko/Mary O's deliberately terrible courses would make no sense to someone who hasn't read the Super Mario: Crash Course comics.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Unlike in Super Mario 64 DS, Costume Mario plays exactly the same regardless of which form he takes: getting an extra hit and being able to break bricks like Super Mario while still being only one brick's-height tall like regular Mario. However, (almost) each individual costume gets their own unique sound effects, including transformation sounds and victory fanfares. For example, the Wii Fit Trainer shouts "Up!" whenever the player jumps, and when Link clears a course, the "Triforce collected" theme from the original Zelda game plays. Many of the costumes also have their own "lose-a-life" jingles if they fall into instant death traps.
• Antepiece: When a new set of tools is shipped in the Wii U version, a sample course showcasing most of the elements is also unlocked.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Levels are only allowed to be uploaded if their creator completes them first. This prevents any Unwinnable by Design joke/troll levels to be uploaded. In addition, anyone can see a course and edit it, along with any shortcuts or tricks the level's creator used to give themselves a free pass to the exit. Thus, if a course has such a quick-exit, it will pointed out in the levels comments very quickly.
  • Playing the 100 Mario Challenge picks a random player-made course. Should the player come across a course they can't complete, there's the option to skip the course by holding down the touch screen or the minus button.
  • The lack of a lives system in this game (outside of the 10/100/Super Mario challenge). This is a blessing if you are going into Kaizo-style courses.
  • Course World requires the player to be connected to the internet in order to play 100 Mario Challenge. If you happen to lose connection, the game will automatically be saved so you won't lose your progress on the map.
  • If you complete a course for upload, and the server is down or the connection fails, the game will remember that you completed it if you upload it again later.
  • Due to the formidable skill and luck required for the Super Expert courses in 100 Mario challenge, only six of them have to be beaten. The inclusion of this mode in the first place also mildly alleviates the overall difficulty of Expert, as it now includes courses with a higher clear rate.
• Anti-Grinding: The Easy, Normal and Expert 100 Mario Challenge will eventually stop rewarding Mystery Mushroom costumes, making it more difficult to unlock more of them as the player will have to look for more of them in the next difficulty set. Namely, Easy has 20 obtainable costumes, Normal has 48 and Expert has 34. The last few (5) costumes are exclusive to Super Expert.
• Anti Poop-Socking: Zigzagged in the Wii U version. Since new course elements are unlocked every real-time day (and it takes only 5 minutes to queue them up), this encourages the player to take regular breaks instead of playing for several hours in a single session. That said, the 1.0.1 update allows players to unlock the course elements right away by placing enough objects/tiles.
• Anti-Trolling Features: Both this game and its sequel require that any level must be cleared by its creator before it's allowed to be uploaded. This prevents any joke or unwinnable levels from getting into the public eye. Also, players can download any level to look at the bits and pieces used to create it, which means any tricks or hidden objects will be quickly found.
• Aquatic Mook: Among the available enemies for level creation are Cheep Cheeps and Bloopers, which can be added not only in underwater areas, but also in any level regardless of its theme (Cheep Cheeps will hop from the bottom of the screen in land- and sky-based areas, and in a castle they'll be soaked in lava, which means they cannot be stomped on).
• Arrange Mode:
  • The 10-Mario challenge has you go through a gauntlet of 8 randomly selected sample courses with 10 lives, and allows you to get three lives per course, but you need to complete the course to get them.
  • The 100-Mario Challenge is much the same as the 10-Mario Challenge, except the levels are user-created, you have 100 lives, and the number of courses changes with difficulty level^note 8 courses in Easy mode, 16 in Normal and Expert, and 6 in Super Expert. At the end of a run, you are rewarded with a random Mystery Mushroom costume, but there are only a finite amount of costumes that can be unlocked per difficulty level^note 20 costumes in Easy, 48 in Normal, 34 in Expert, and 5 in Super Expert. Given how many of the Expert and Super Expert levels have completion percentages in the single digits, good luck getting those last costumes...
• Art Evolution:
  • Bowser's received a completely new sprite for the Super Mario World mode that looks more like his modern appearance, since he's only ever seen in his Clown Car in the original game.
  • Bowser Jr. gets three new appearances in 8-bit and 16-bit, each reflecting the games' respective art styles and the Early-Installment Weirdness associated with them. For example, his SMB1-style sprite is noticeably Off-Model compared to the other sprites.
  • In the original Super Mario Bros. 3, Buzzy Beetles reused their sprites from the original Super Mario Bros. with a different color palette. In SMB3 mode in Super Mario Maker, they have new sprites with a black outline to better match other sprites in the theme.
• The Artifact:
  • You can't collect item cards from the SMB3 Goal Box, or Bonus Stars from crossing the tape in the SMW theme; they're only good for points. At least there's a chance to get 1-Ups from them.
  • Collecting spare powerups while in the SMW theme (like a Super Mushroom when you're already Super Mario) will still play the sound effect that played in the original when something got stored in your powerup box, even though you don't have that box here.
• Ascended Glitch:
  • The Weird Mushroom power up. It was originally a glitch the dev team found when they were making the game that made Mario skinny, but they found it so entertaining they decided to make it an official power-up in the game. Using it makes Mario tall, thin, and makes him jump higher. Weird Mario, in other words, is similar to Luigi.
  • There are a number of videos showing how to jump over the flagpole in the first Super Mario Bros. No exploits are required to do so here.
• Ascended Meme:
  • From a different game, even. The Inkling Girl costume uses the popular "Woomy!" sound clip.
  • One of the sample courses is an Automatic Level titled "Underwater Automation".
  • The Fire Koopa Clown Car in the December 2015 update. Many courses had already been created that gave Mario a Fire Flower and a Clown Car in order to make a course like a scrolling shooter. The devs loved these courses and decided to officially support them by condensing the fire and the Clown Car into one.
  • This commercial for Nintendo 3DS, when showing footage from Super Mario Maker, actually showcases the infamous "Mecha Bowzilla" stage.
• Aside Glance: While most of the forms Costume Mario takes on perform a dramatic or iconic pose when the Up button is pressed, a number of them, such as Wario and Duck Hunt, just stare at the camera.
• Asset Actor: Some of the levels from classic Mario games that are replicated here originally featured enemies that are absent here, so they're substituted with other enemies. For example, a Hammer Bros. is used in the place of the Chargin' Chuck that originally appeared in the replicated level of Super Mario World, red Koopa Troopas stand in for Shy Guys in the event course based on World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. 2, Bowser Jr. replacing both Larry Koopa in the World 1 Airship and Boom Boom in World 8 Airship (both from Super Mario Bros. 3), and so on.
• Asteroids Monster: The giant Goombas that split into smaller Goombas from New Super Mario Bros. Wii are back. They can be created by placing a Super Mushroom onto them to make them big.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • Any and every single enemy should the player choose. Give it a Super Mushroom, and it'll grow. Give them another one, and they will grow again... and sneeze it out, as it can't grow any larger. Enemies can be stacked on top of each other, as well, regardless of size.
  • Scanning a 30th Anniversary Mario amiibo figure unlocks a new power-up called the Big Mushroom, which not only makes Mario twice his size and weight, allowing him to break bricks and blocks by running into or stomping on them, but also alters the enemies to give them Mario's visual attributes, as well as making the screen look like a CRT television.
• Audible Gleam: Equipping a Spiny Shell on Mario's head causes the spikes to shine with the sound of a blade sharpening.
• Author Avatar:
  • Yamamura, the rock dove, is based on a veteran Nintendo employee named Yasuhisa Yamamura. Like his avatar, the real Yamamura is a course designer; he's worked on games like Yoshi's Island and the New Super Mario Bros. series.
  • In-universe, within the official course "Bowser's Puzzle Dungeon", Bowser apparently couldn't resist the temptation to put an encounter with himself near the end of said course.
• Automatic Level: There are several courses uploaded to the game's servers where the player doesn't have to touch anything to win. One of the sample courses is even an automatic course called "Underwater Automation".
• Automatic New Game: In the Wii U version, starting the game for the first time immediately throws the player into an incomplete course where there's no more course beyond a pit. The player's next task is to finish the course so that it can actually be beaten. It also serves as a tutorial course, where it points out what elements/enemies should go where and how different elements interact with one another. In the Nintendo 3DS version, you're just sent to the Course Maker with an already finished course while Yamamura and Mary O. talk to you.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: A course can be made to scroll automatically in three speeds represented by a tortoise, a hare, and a cheetah, just like the Mouse Speed options in Mario Paint.
• Auto-Tune: During course building, a digital voice will sing the names of elements laid down to the tune of the course music.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Big Mario, accessible only with the 30th Anniversary Mario amiibo, is as big as SMB normal-sized Bowser, and can smash through blocks just by running into them. He also still can take damage, and has a much bigger hitbox.
• Background Music Override: It is possible to implement one of the special music tracks to Mario (including an effect that completely turns off any sort of background music). Doing this will override the music of the current level (including a differently-themed secondary area).
• Bag of Spilling: Mario reverts to small form between courses.
• Battle Theme Music: The signature boss theme of each game style available can be implemented to any enemy or space, not just Bowser or Bowser Jr. (if it's put into Mario himself, it will be heard during the entirety of the level, negating the music from the areas used). Since the original Super Mario Bros. didn't have any battle theme, in Maker it borrows the enemy blockade music from Super Mario Bros. 3 instead.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The Ghost House theme can be chosen in the course maker, and is available even for the game styles that didn't have Ghost House courses in their original versions (Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3).
• Big Creepy-Crawlies:
  • Among the available enemies for level creation we have Buzzy Beetles and Wigglers, with the latter coming in normal and angry forms.
  • The boss of the Gnat Attack minigame is King Watinga, the robotic insect that serves as the leader of the flies.
• Big Fancy Castle: The Castle theme can be chosen in the course maker.
• Blessed with Suck: Spiny Mario can become this, as you can't hit blocks (they just shatter), so unless you have something you can throw (or the NSMBU exclusive Ground Pound), you're not getting anything out of those.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: The crossover Mystery Mushroom costumes can be unlocked by completing the 100 Mario Challenge or Event Courses... or just by scanning the corresponding amiibo figure. It doesn't work for every costume, as not every one has a corresponding amiibo, but it does unlock a good chunk of them.
• Bullet Hell: Due to the game's high enemy cap, it's entirely possible to stack Hammer Bros on top of each other and create projectile hell. The same can be said for other enemies, such as winged Spinies, which shoot spikes in cardinal and diagonal directions, and of course, Bullet Bills.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Shoe Goomba finally makes its return after its last and previously only appearance in Super Mario Bros. 3... and in an additional high-heel form, with winged, giant or winged giant variations of both the Stiletto and Normal versions. However, unlike many other items and enemies, it's only available in the Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 themes, being replaced by Yoshi in the newer styles.
  • The Undo Dog from Mario Paint makes its return after a couple of cameos in WarioWare games. Likewise, King Watinga also returns in the hidden Gnat Attack mini-game.
  • This is the first appearance of Donkey Kong Jr. in an official Mario game since Game & Watch Gallery 4 (even if only as a costume for Mario to wear).
• Butt-Monkey: Builder Mario on the pre-title screen. He gets Thwomped, transformed into a Goomba, killed by Luigi, and more.
• Cap:
  • Different kinds of objects draw from different pools that each have a limit for how many can be present in an area, with the course and sub area counting as separate areas. For example, there can be up to a total of 100 "active" objects such as enemies, springs, POW blocks, etc. and a maximum of three Bowsers or Bowser Jrs. in an area.
  • In the 10 or 100 Mario Challenges, the life counter caps off at the starting amount. Also, only three extra lives can be earned from a course, and they are only rewarded once the course is cleared. This prevents players from regaining their entire life stock from a single course. The only way to actually make any meaningful use out of any lives gained during the course past the initial 3 is to play a set of courses as a "world" by pressing the play button on the left side of a row of courses in the Coursebot: this is also the only way to start a course with any powerups.
  • Players starting out will discover that they can only upload 10 courses to Course World. However, as they get more stars from other players, their "rank" will increase, and they'll be able to upload more courses. This, in theory, stops players who make bad/unfair courses from flooding the Course World, and allows more skilled creators more space to show off their skill. In addition, only 120 courses can saved locally.
• Challenge Run: In the 3DS version, the Super Mario Challenge levels have optional objectives like reaching the goal after collecting all coins, defeating all enemies of a particular kind, or never pressing or tilting left. Two levels even encourage the player to not touch the floor again after the first jump. Completing such feats grant medals, which can later be used to unlock the secret World 19.
• Character Blog: While not a traditional blog per se, several of the game's helper characters — Mary O., Yamamura, Undodog, Coursebot, Mr. Eraser, Soundfrog, and Parakeet, along with Bowser — have their own official Maker pages, home to several courses they designed.
• Charged Attack: The new Fire Koopa Clown Car allows for these, which can destroy anything that a Bob-Omb can destroy.
• Checkpoint: The sixth delivery of new game features includes an Arrow Sign. Shaking it turns it into a Checkpoint Flag. Up to two of these flags can be placed onto the course. Uploading courses with Checkpoint Flags requires you to clear them from the flag(s) onward. Note that the ability to turn Arrow Signs into Checkpoint Flags wasn't present when the game was originally released, but it (among others) was added in a free software update released on November 4th, 2015 (the 3DS port, as well as Super Mario Maker 2, have them present in the base content).
• Checkpoint Starvation:
  • At launch, it was impossible to place checkpoints within the course, so long courses would inevitably fall into this. Checkpoints were added in a November 2015 update, though of course all courses created before that date still lack them (this includes all pre-built levels played during 10-Mario Challenge, as all of them have remained unchanged since the release of the game).
  • If you get a Game Over in Gnat Attack, it's back to the very beginning of the minigame for you, not the beginning of the level you were on.
  • The 3DS version has checkpoints within the base content, and most levels in the story mode (Super Mario Challenge) have them accordingly... except they're useless if you're aiming for the levels' extra objectives, as you won't be allowed to complete them if you respawn from a checkpoint after losing a life (this is done likely to prevent cheating, but it's still a problem if the level is too long).
• Chest Monster: Certain enemies can be placed within ?-blocks, essentially turning them into this.
• Combat Stilettos: It's possible to turn a Shoe Goomba into a Goomba in a high-heeled boot. Sometimes, it looks so wrong, it's hilarious.
• Combinatorial Explosion: A lot of the fun advertised in the trailers revolves around putting things together that don't go together in the normal games, and the game having updated physics/rules to deal with it. Any enemy can have wings applied to it, anything can bounce on trampolines, and different objects can be stacked upon one another in unorthodox permutations.
• Combo Platter Powers: It's possible to combine many different power ups to get crazy new ones, such as having Fire Mario wear a Spiny helmet while riding in a Koopa Clown Car.
• Console Cameo: Two of the many costumes that can be unlocked for Super Mario Bros. 1 mode are R.O.B. (carrying over from his Smash Bros. appearance and amiibo) and the Wii Balance Board (based on Wii Fit).
• Co-Op Multiplayer: An interesting example of this in the 3DS version: players can share unfinished courses via Streetpass, which other players can complete.
• Cosplay: Some translations refer to Costume Mario as "Cosplay Mario", although seeing as his entire sprite is replaced with an unrelated sprite of the character in question,^note which suggests either shapeshifting or Latex Perfection, "cosplay" is a pretty big understatement.
• Couch Gag: Builder Mario's fate on the pre-title screen is different for each day of the week. For example, Magikoopa will turn him into a Goomba on Tuesday, and on Saturday he'll be crushed by a Thwomp.
• Creator Thumbprint:
  • All of the courses on Bowser's official Maker page use the Castle theme, have at least one section that involves bouncing off of cannonballs, and end with a battle against Bowser himself (except for "Bowser's Treacherous Trek" since you play as Bowser via Mystery Mushroom, so it ends with you getting dunked in lava due to a spring Kaizo Trap).
  • Mr. Eraser's courses all involve a large number of bouncy objects; apparently "Mr. Bumper" is his friend.
• Crossover:
  • Via the Mystery Mushroom costumes. In addition to Nintendo's non-Super Mario characters, there's Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man (Classic), Pac-Man and a a Felyne. Rather than the actual canon characters, these are labeled "Costume Mario" and are identified as transformed versions of Mario (as the only playable character), to avoid confusion as to why the 100+ characters in the game can only use Super Mario's basic abilities.
  • One across mediums rather than franchises; one Mystery Mushroom costume added via Event Course is the stylized Mario from Super Mario-Kun, a long-running Mario manga.
  • Event Courses rewards costumes of characters from other media, like Shinya Arino, Famitsu mascot Necky, a Mercedes-Benz GLA, Chitoge Kirisaki from Shonen Jump's Nisekoi, Babymetal, Kitty White and Melody from Sanrio's Hello Kitty and Onegai My Melody respectively, and Shaun the Sheep from Aardman Animations' Shaun the Sheep.
• Cross-Popping Veins: Practically an Easter Egg given the specific setup, but if Mario grabs the Big Mushroom in a Super Mario Bros. course and finds a Fire Koopa Clown Car, the usual clown face is instead replaced by picture of Peach with a heart next to it. Charge up a shot, however, and her eyebrows furrow and the heart changes into crossed veins.
• Cute Kitten: One of the possible alternate hands one could choose is that of a cat's paw, whether gray or cream. In addition, one of the special effect options is having the exact same cat's paw swipe a character.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The 4 themes keep their different mechanics & limitations. For example...
    • Mario can't wall-jump or ground pound by himself in any of the 2D platforming games that came before the New Super Mario Bros. games.
    • He can't spin jump in games before Super Mario World.
    • He cannot pick up and carry items in the original Super Mario Bros.
    • Tossing held items straight upwards only works in Super Mario World.
    • Fluttering in the air with Yoshi only works in New Super Mario Bros. U and not in Super Mario World.
    • Yoshi's tongue can go through walls in Super Mario World, but not in New Super Mario Bros. U.
  • Yet, not everything that worked in the original games works here:
    • Going past the Super Mario World goal posts is not enough: the moving tape must be broken to clear the course.
    • The frame window for getting extra height off of a Trampoline or a Note Block is much narrower than it was in Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U. If the player's timing is off, it's usually too late to turn back and try again. As a result, courses with a high density of Trampolines and bottomless pits tend to have low completion rates.
    • Super Mario World vets might find that spin jumping with the L/R/ZL/ZR buttons instead of the A button will take some getting used to. But those who are familiar with the Super Mario Advance 2 version will have no problem there.
    • If you're used to how overpowered the Spin Jump is in Super Mario World, get ready to be disappointed the first time you try to Spin Jump off of a Boo, Lava Bubble, Grinder, fireball from Bowser, or Magikoopa magic.
    • Alternatively, if you're used to how underpowered the Spin Jump is in New Super Mario Bros. U, get ready to be surprised the first time you try to Spin Jump off of anything aside from the aforementioned things.
    • The invincibility running speed is much faster than normal, making it far too easy to fall or jump into a bottomless pit. This didn't happen in any of the classic games; it's a carry-over from New Super Mario Bros. U.
    • If there's anything set to come out of a pipe, it won't come out until the pipe the enemy/object comes from is onscreen for a few seconds, compared to older games where Piranha Plants and the like pop out almost instantly upon being scrolled on-screen.
    • Yoshi in the Super Mario World theme won't swallow power-ups and transfer it to Mario like he did in the original game. This is a trait carried over from New Super Mario Bros.
    • You can pick up P-Switches in the NSMBU theme and the SMB3 theme, which is a carry-over from Super Mario World.
    • The physics of P-Switches have changed a bit. For example, they can be placed on top of Thwomps. They can also act as platforms, so as an example, you can throw one onto spikes, press it, and jump off without getting hurt at all.
    • While Mario maintains the "looking up" animation in the Super Mario World theme, holding up or down will not reveal portions of the course above or below the current field of play.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: In the Course Maker, death will send the player back to the creation interface (along with a marker of where Mario died.)
• Death Throws: Mario retains the classic "jump in the air and fall down" pose when he loses a life. Enemies have their own death throes by flying off screen and spinning as they fall while certain enemies retain the traditional Goomba Stomp defeat animation.
• Degraded Boss: Bowser and Bowser Jr. can be used in the course maker, and both can be modified just like the enemies can. However, unlike any other object in the game, only three total can be used in one course (which can be doubled by using the sub area), which prevents players from placing them everywhere and calling it a day.
• Denser and Wackier: Not that the Mario series was ever overly serious to begin with, but with the amount of crazy stuff one can create and the game's own funny details, this is one of the silliest main Mario games.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Some of the Mystery Mushroom costumes allow this, as they are based on other Mario characters that appear in the game, resulting in situations such as Peach rescuing Peach, Toad meeting Toad, Bowser fighting Bowser, or Bowser Jr. in a Clown Car in another Clown Car.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • A few amiibo of the same character react differently when used in-game. Scanning in an Isabelle amiibo figurine or card will net a different costume depending on if she's wearing her summer or winter outfit. Additionally, the Yarn Yoshi amiibo from Yoshi's Woolly World have different sound effects than the standard Super Mario/Super Smash Bros. figure, and the Mega Yarn Yoshi costume is slightly bigger than the regular Yoshi costumes. The gold and silver editions of Mario receive unique costumes in addition to the standard Smash and Mario series amiibo, while the 30th Anniversary Mario (regardless of color) unlocks a different power-up; these are all considered one and the same in most other games.
  • Clearing the 10 or 100 Mario Challenges as certain characters will earn a unique response from the character that's rescued at the end. Rescuing Toad as Bowser, for example, will cause the poor Toad to confusedly freak the heck out.
  Toad: B-B-Bowser? Aaaaagghhh! I thought you'd taken the princess to another castle!
  • The Easter Egg within Super Mario Bros. 3 where Mario could go behind the scenery by ducking for a few seconds on the large white blocks doesn't work within Super Mario Maker. If one attempts to do so anyway, there's a different Easter Egg where Mario simply hops on the spot (as if he's trying to go behind the blocks) while making a small sound.
  • Mario usually uses his standing stance when riding a shoe. However, there are a few power-up forms that wouldn't quite look right in that stance, and those ones are given a new one (for example, the Wii Balance Board costume squeezes into the shoe). When Big Mario rides a shoe that clearly looks too small, it will stretch out to fit him.
  • The course that appears on the title screen? Tap an analog stick to play through the course like a proper level - with the title remaining in place to be tapped an enjoyed. The title theme even has a "hurry up" speed-play if you let the timer run down to 100 seconds, and Mario will undergo his Death Throws if the timer hits 0 - regardless of whether the course has begun playing. And if you go straight to the course maker from the title screen, that exact course will be waiting for your editing pleasure.
  • In the Super Mario Bros. style, if a door is placed over the entrance of the fort at the end of a course, Mario will open the door as he enters the fort after clearing the course. The addition of keyed doors added even more detail to this. If Mario has the door's key, he'll use the key to open it before entering. If Mario doesn't have the door's key, he will struggle to open the door for a while before looking away and crouching, which normally happens if something prevents Mario from entering the castle.
  • If a warp pipe's obstructed on the exit side, Mario won't be able to exit through it. Instead, a short cutscene plays where Mario peeks out of said warp pipe before returning to the entrance side. If both exits are somehow blocked, Mario will lose a life when he attempts to return from the entrance.
• Difficulty Levels: Course World offers "Easy", "Normal", "Expert" and "Super Expert" user-designed courses, categorized by the course's completion rate. In the 100 Mario Challenge, courses are chosen exclusively from the corresponding Course World difficulty.
• Disturbed Doves: When tripping a checkpoint, there's a small chance to see doves (or fish, in the Underwater theme) flying off the flag, appearing out of nowhere.
• Double Unlock: The Weird Mushroom in the Wii U version. First, all the built-in courses from 10 Mario Challenge must be cleared, which unlocks the four Nintendo World Championship 2015 courses. Beating those unlocks the Weird Mushroom.
• Dub Name Change: Mashiko the manual guide is renamed Mary O. in the North American version.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • A few Mystery Mushroom costumes that appear in the game hadn't been released by the time of its September 11 launch date. For example, the Yarn Yoshi amiibo didn't release until October in North America, and Lucas hadn't been revealed yet until November.
  • The Arwing Walker zigzags with the trope. It was supposed to appear in Star Fox 2, way back on the SNES, but since that game was never released at that time, it instead made its first official appearance in Star Fox Zero, which hadn't been released yet when Super Mario Maker came out.
  • "Builder Mario"^note i.e., Mario wearing his builder outfit. would eventually go on to appear in Super Mario Odyssey.
• Easter Egg: There are many.
  • The Weird Mushroom appears infrequently in the SMB theme; eating it causes Mario to grow tall and thin, and gives him a higher and floatier jump akin to Luigi's. If all of the Nintendo World Championship 2015 courses are cleared, they can be purposefully inserted into a course by shaking a Super Mushroom, instead of having them randomly appear in the place of a normal Mushroom. In the Nintendo 3DS version, the Weird Mushroom replaces the Mystery Mushroom.
  • As a reference to the title screen of Mario Paint, the different letters of the title screen can be tapped to cause different effects to happen, like turning the "M" in "Mario" into a "W" and hearing Wario's voice (and spawning his Mystery Mushroom). The screen itself can be tapped to make different things happen.
  • From time to time, flies show up, and they can swatted by tapping them. Hit them all, and the hidden Gnat Attack minigame appears. Beating it unlocks the secret Builder Mario costume.
  • Pressing A, B, and down on the D-Pad on the pre-course loading screen will cause the course to take on the same CRT television effect as Big Mario.
  • Even the original reveal trailer shows one off — by blocking off the exit after the goal at the end of a course, Mario will walk against the blockade futility for a while until he stops, turns around, and ducks in frustration.
  • Some of Costume Mario's costumes have different invincibility themes while collecting a Super Star: the modern-colored Mario uses the Powerful Mario theme from Super Mario 64, Mario (Gold) and Mario (Silver) use the Metallic Mario theme from the same game, and Kart Mario uses the fanfare from Super Mario Kart.
  • Whenever Mario falls into a pit, there's a chance of playing one of the eight secret death sounds.
  • The in game manual has a section where you can enter codes (found in the game's artbook) to see short clips of developers in game making things and giving the player advice on how to use elements to make puzzles, faces, and everything else. Entering 1309 shows a video of Takashi Tezuka and Shigeru Miyamoto making a doodle, which is the same ones found on the final page in the artbook. Entering 0913, meanwhile, shows Koji Kondo playing the Mario theme. The codes both stand for September 13th, the original release date of Super Mario Bros. in Japan.
  • The version 1.20 update added the ability to tap on a Warp Door while in the Maker to knock on it. Knocking a few times and stopping results in knocking back in response. Doing that a few times or knocking without stopping causes the door to open to reveal Weird Mario in a random pose/outfit. These are different for each game style, with the outfits in the SMB3 and NSMB styles referencing powerups from those games that weren't included in Super Mario Maker.
  • If the bonus music is playing when a level is completed in a Super Mario World-themed level, the stage ending theme is replaced with the Bonus Game ending jingle.
  • A Magikoopa placed next to a flag pole within the Super Mario Bros. 1 and New Super Mario Bros U styles can temporarily transform it into something else. Temporary due to it reappearing as soon as you've defeated the Magikoopa (as to not make the course unwinnable). This also works with the axe in the castle theme.
  • Putting a door over the entry to the castle at the end of a course in the Super Mario Bros. theme will cause Mario to open the door and go through after beating the course.
  • If you shake a spike on a New Super Mario Bros. U ground theme, there is a random chance that it will make a train sound.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: If you complete 10 Mario Challenge, or 100 Mario Challenge on Easy, you get told that Your Princess Is in Another Castle!. You need to beat the 100 Mario Challenge on Normal, Expert or Super Expert to properly rescue Peach. Note that you still have to play on all difficulty levels in order to unlock all the Mystery Mushroom costumes except those earned via Gnat Attack or the online Event Courses.
• Eternal Engine: It's quite possible to make one with conveyor belts, tracks, grinders, skewers, etc. The SMB3 Underground style has appropriate scenery and music for this sort of setting as well (it also helps that its corresponding semi-solid platforms are designed with a mechanic/factory motif). The SMB Airship style is another good option.
• Evil Living Flames: The Lava Bubble is one of the enemies available in the game for level creation. The player can give it wings so, instead of jumping from the bottom, it moves slowly in a diagonal pattern.
• Excuse Plot: Most Mario stories are like this, but with the "campaign" mode of this game consisting of random player-created levels, it goes even further than usual. The entire plot, when starting a 10 or 100 Mario Challenge: You get "Princess Peach is in trouble!" and a little animation of Goombas carrying her off to a castle. And when you win (unless you're on Easy mode) you meet Peach in the castle and she thanks Mario for saving her. Everything beyond that is up to you, and/or the players who designed the levels.

F-L

• Fake Difficulty: This is bound to happen with some user created courses, especially since people can share courses to other players, and the 100 Mario Challenge chooses courses at random, which is especially noticeable with Expert and Super Expert difficulty. These courses often feature Trial-and-Error Gameplay that will quickly exhaust your precious lives. Here are notable ways that will kill you:
  • Enemies or traps placed right next to Mario's starting position so that he dies if the player does not instantly react. Have a nice quick death.
  • Thwomps hidden offscreen so that they come crashing down from nowhere on an unsuspecting player. Same for Lakitus positioned in the same way so that not only can't you see them, you also can't attack them.
  • Multiple pipes and doors where all but one leads to death traps. If the course forces you to pick a path, enjoy some Russian Roulette.
  • Hidden blocks placed over jumps. Think you can make it? Too bad.
  • Hidden blocks that contain an enemy. Using a giant boo ring is a favourite choice for these kinds of obstacles.
  • Hidden blocks placed over pits and other forms of inescapable traps. These force the player to restart the level which takes longer than simply dying.
  • Making the timer ridiculously tight, forcing the player to speedrun the level. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it does hand a great tool to level design sadists who want to basically mandate Trial-and-Error Gameplay. It gets especially sadistic if these are made as puzzle levels.
  • Requiring the use of difficult exploits to complete a course, such as throwing a shell against a wall then jumping on it
  • Broken automatic courses that say you don't need to press anything, only to find out that it contains enemies with random behaviors such as Bowser and Hammer Bros who have a chance of killing you. This may or may not be intentional, depending on how sadistic the creator is.
  • Power-Ups at wrong times. Think you need the Fire Flower now instead of the flying item that you got in the beginning? Go ahead and get it, only to realize that the course requires you to use your previous item in order to advance, leaving you stuck.
  • Filling a course full of enemies, with progression/survival becoming a Luck-Based Mission.
  • The worst offender of this is players intentionally placing randomized behavior enemies like Magikoopas and Hammer Bros next to certain environments. Placing a Hammer Bro next to 3 different adjacent blocks, where one of those blocks is a note block that could place a trap. A Hammer Bro has a 50% chance of hitting that trap block, causing a player's chance of passing cut by 50%. The Hammer Bro also has hammers thrown at random and is not consistent. The Magikoopas can be similar to Hammer Bros when hitting a brick block, with a chance of a monster that can hit the trap block. The only reason why they even have clear rates is due to people leaving their Wii U on just so they can get that clear without doing anything, while exponentially increasing the death rates; even so, it is very likely that the method won't work due to that low chance of passing.
• Flunky Boss:
  • Due to the absence of Mechakoopas, a Bowser that is riding a Clown Car tosses Bob-ombs from it; Bowser Jr. instead tosses out Koopa Shells from his Clown Car.
  • In Gnat Attack, Final Boss Watinga sometimes shoots up off-screen and summons some basic Gnats.
  • You can put pipes with enemies alongside Bowser or Bowser Jr, providing them with little armies of mooks.
• Flying Seafood Special: Bloopers can hover in the air in the same way they swim underwater.
• Game-Breaking Bug: In earlier builds, placing an upwards facing warp pipe at the top of the screen in an underwater area and then entering a warp pipe that leads to said underwater pipe would softlock the game, forcing you to close the game and restart. To make things worse, if you ran into a Troll course in 100 Mario Challenge that had this glitch and you fall into it, not only would you lose your progress, but the course wouldn't even show up in your Recently Played list, which means you couldn't even report the offending course. Luckily, Nintendo caught word of this glitch and patched it out in December of 2015, as well as making it impossible to place pipes at the edges of the screen from then on.
• Game Maker: Designed to be this for 2D Mario platformers. Unlike many similar games, Super Mario Maker is specifically designed to be as intuitive and flexible as possible.
• Giant Mook: Any enemy that's been given a Super Mushroom is at least twice as large as their normal counterpart, and sometimes has extra abilities.
• Gimmick Level:
  • Even in the review copies alone, some creations move away from the standard design.
  • Vertical bowling is a course with very little danger, instead challenging players to throw objects up at coins and enemies to get as many points as possible and post their score.
• The Goomba: The available enemies for level creation include the trope-naming Goombas (for the Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3 and New Super Mario Bros. U styles) and the Galoombas (for Super Mario World'').
• Go Out with a Smile: As Big Mario, once you defeat Bowser, it will turn out that Peach riding him was actually a Magikoopa all along. He will smile as he and Bowser fall into their demise.
• Gratuitous English: Arino ("Jamp!") and Professor E. Gadd ("Hoppu!") whenever they jump. Additionally, Barbra the Bat's transformation sound includes a sound bite of her saying, "Mamma mia!"
• Green Hill Zone: The Ground theme can be chosen in the course maker.
• Ground Pound: It can be done in the New Super Mario Bros. U style as usual, and it can also be performed in the Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 styles by using a giant Goomba's Shoe.
• Guest Fighter: Costume Mario can take the form of other characters, complete with appropriate sound effects, in the Super Mario Bros.-based stages. Unlike in Yoshi's Woolly World, the characters from Pokémon are usable.^note However, only the Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur costumes use sound effects from their home series.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • While it might not affect the game in a negative way, several items have less-than-obvious interactions that may not be obvious until a course built around them explicitly points them out. The 3DS version at least has Yamamura and Mary O. point these out during Super Mario Challenge.
  • Goomba's Shoes are a major offender of this; wings can be put on them, which gives them a short flutter jump, and giant versions of them work differently on whether it's a shoe or a stiletto, with both of them being able to use a Ground Pound to defeat normally unkillable enemies such as Munchers and Chain Chomp pegs and the latter being able to break bricks when jumping on them normally. Also, pressing a shoulder button causes Mario to leap out of the Shoe just as he would Yoshi; this is the only use for shoulder buttons in the NES styles, and those buttons didn't even exist on the original console.
  • The Buzzy Beetle and Spiny shells: the game heavily implies that you can only wear them if they fall on your head which you can only do yourself in SMW style courses that allows you to throw items upwards, but you can also simply duck while holding them in all but SMB style courses to wear them instantly.
• Hailfire Peaks: Select the Castle theme. Add ice.
• Handwave: Only the Blue Pikmin can survive underwater. The game gets around this by putting them inside a bubble whenever Costume Mario is underwater while wearing their costume.
• Harder Than Hard: The 1.40 update added the Super Expert mode to the 100 Mario Challenge. It's the shortest mode (with only 6 courses), but it's brutal.
• Healing Checkpoint: Mid-level checkpoints in any game style change small Mario into Super Mario when reached. However, some levels seem to put hazards such as spikes next to the checkpoints, negating this effect.
• Helpful Mook:
  • One can make enemies like Bill Blasters or Lakitus dispense coins or powerups instead of enemies.
  • Having a Spiny or Buzzy Beetle shell drop onto Mario's head will turn him into Buzzy Mario or Spiny Mario (the Spiny's spikes even defeating normally unbeatable enemies such as Thwomps).
  • Magikoopas, Thwomps, and Bob-Ombs can clear blocks that may be otherwise impassible in a given course. Magikoopas also have the potential to create Mushrooms and flying items out of blocks, though that's entirely luck-based.
• Hey, You!: If the final course of the 10 or 100 Mario Challenge is cleared as Costume Mario, the quote of the character you've rescued will be changed to not specifically refer to the character you've taken the form as. However, they have a unique line when greeted by certain characters, including Toad freaking out at Bowser or Peach saying that Bowser was kind enough to rescue her himself.
• Hitbox Dissonance: Some costumes are bigger than small Mario but keep his hitbox. Totem Link is especially notorious for this.
• I Fell for Hours: One of the audio skits that can play when Mario falls down a pit is a very long "falling whistling sound", accompanied by birds chirping and dogs barking, until Mario hits a trampoline that stops his fall.
• Incendiary Exponent: If Cheep Cheeps are placed in a castle course, they'll fall into the lava and are subsequently set on fire. In this state, they're immune to anything short of a thrown object, Spiny Mario or Super Star, making them a difficult enemy to deal with.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Among many other classic Mario setpieces, conveyor belts appear for their addition in levels. They are specifically modeled after the ones seen in the New subseries, and have been retroactively adapted for use in the styles of the games that didn't have them originally.
• Interactive Start Up: There's a playable level on the title screen.
• Instant-Win Condition: As soon as you touch the Level Goal, it doesn't matter what happens from there. You can walk across spikes without being hurt, be thrown into pits without dying, or even fail at being crushed, because Mario will just phase through whatever fell onto him.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Collected and used like in the Yoshi's Island series. Mario can carry as many keys as locked doors are in the course. Attempting to grab one too many knocks it off the screen. They can be placed by themselves or dragged onto enemies and bosses to be offered as rewards on defeat. Also offered as rewards upon collecting all Pink Coins in a course.
• Interface Screw: Possible to invoke this within the course maker via the use of visual effects. One in particular you can attach to both items or just passing the scenery that causes Mario to get dizzy. You can also cause giant crashing sound effects complete with giant brick breaking to happen on courses.
• Invincible Minor Minion: A couple of traditionally indestructible enemies are made mortal: The Cannons and the Bill Blasters can be taken out by a ground pound by a giant stiletto. They also reward points just like a regular enemy would.
• Jump Physics: Each theme sticks with the jump physics from the original game, though with a few tweaks. For example, the Lifts in the Super Mario Bros. theme are pass-through instead of solid, and the New Super Mario Bros. U Spin Jump functions more like it did in Super Mario World, allowing Mario to jump on spikes and other sharp objects.
• Kaizo Trap:
  • It wouldn't be a Mario course maker without them. That said, they're only cosmetic in this case — a course is counted as beaten as soon as the goal is reached, so the course counts as cleared even if Mario is knocked off-screen.
  • Magikoopas can make the SMB1 and NSMBU Goal Poles and the Castle axes vanish, making it look like this. However, the Goal Pole or axe will always come back.
• Last Lousy Point: Unlocking new costumes without amiibo are mainly done through several completions of the 100 Mario Challenge. Eventually, you won't be able to unlock any more costumes through Easy, Normal and Expert, which leaves Super Expert as the final hurdle. Since difficulty levels pick courses based on clear rates and Super Expert mode tends to use ones with really low clear rates (even compared to those of the already difficult Expert courses), many players will be beating their heads against the wall trying to clear Super Expert at least five times to unlock the remaining costumes.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Mildly. The Propeller Mushroom appearing as the power-up for the New Super Mario Bros. U spoils its surprise appearance in NSMBU proper.
• Latex Perfection: While the 8-bit aesthetic they're used in makes their exact nature unclear (whether they're true transformations like in Super Mario 64 DS or actual disguises), the Mystery Mushroom costumes transform Mario into a character that almost always bears no resemblance to his default sprite apart from proportions. When Costume Mario is hit, the character's entire sprite simply falls away to reveal him, even if the sprite was three separate Pikmin, Links, Mario Bros. or musicians.
• Leaning Tower of Mooks: Like in Super Mario 3D Land, it's possible to stack Goombas on top of each other. Unlike that game, the vast majority of enemies can be stacked in absurd ways; Munchers atop Goombas, Hammer Bros. riding winged Wigglers, and even stacks three Bowsers tall are all entirely possible.
• Lethal Joke Item: The Goomba's Stiletto might look ridiculous, but it's just as effective as the Goomba's Shoe. When both items are made giant, the stiletto is actually more powerful than the shoe. While the giant Goomba's Shoe can only defeat enemies with its Ground Pound, the giant stiletto can defeat enemies and break brick blocks with its Ground Pound.
• Lethal Lava Land: Though the Castle setting has lava in all game settings, the New Super Mario Bros. U fits the best due to the lava illuminating the surroundings of the castle, even in the background.
• Level in the Clouds: The Airship course theme makes this setting possible as long as you rely less on the airship motifs themselves and more on the cloud blocks, bridges, donut blocks and mushroom platforms.^note You can also get rid of the tense Airship theme by embedding the Bonus music onto Mario
• Levels Take Flight: The Airship theme can be chosen in the course maker, and is available even for the game styles that didn't have Airship levels in their original versions (Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World).
• Letting the Air out of the Band: Happens in the 10 Mario Challenge and easy version of the 100 Mario Challenge if the final course uses the New Super Mario Bros U. style. After it's finished, music starts up while approaching the Princess, which slowly dies down upon meeting Toad instead. Like the majority of the New Super Mario Bros. U soundtrack, this particular music was originally taken from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which played when the one Mario thought to be Princess Peach revealed "herself" to be Kamek in disguise.
• Level Goal: The usual Goal Pole from Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. U returns, along with the Roulette Box from Super Mario Bros. 3 and the Giant Gate from Super Mario World. A few mechanics have changed, however: The SMB3 cards now have a standalone 1-Up card in addition to the normal Mushroom, Flower, and Star cards (which now award points). Going past the Giant Gate in the SMW styled courses is not enough — Mario must actually cross the moving post.
• Loophole Abuse: In order to publish your course, you have to be able to actually beat your own course; presumably this was done to keep players from putting out courses that are impossibly hard (or just plain impossible courses). However, since it's never specified how you have to clear the course, more than a few players have added well-hidden "developer paths" that jump right to the goal so that they can make incredibly difficult courses and still publish them or make actual nigh-impossible courses and spend hours beating them.
• Locked Door: The game originally only had regular doors, but a post-release update added locked ones alongside the Interchangeable Antimatter Keys that open them. They are present in the base content of the 3DS version as well as Super Mario Maker 2.
• Luck-Based Mission: Individual courses can be this; it's not uncommon for courses to contain spots where it's impossible to not die unless you know where the traps are (popular versions include doors or pipes that lead directly into deathtraps, or areas that block you in with invisible blocks that are impossible to escape without restarting the course, and starting the course with an enemy right next to Mario that will kill him within a second unless he dodges it). Too many of these courses can torpedo a run quite quickly.

M-S

• Marathon Boss: Bowser. Since the traditional way to beat him is to just grab the axe and dunk him into lava, or in rare cases kill him instantly with a Super Star, there are inevitably many instances where neither is an option, leaving you the alternative of whaling him with fireballs or thrown enemies. Hitting him with either does the same amount of damage and he takes a lot of hits before going down, especially when he's been enlarged with a Super Mushroom as it doubles his HP. So if there's no Fire Flower in sight, steel yourself for a long battle (unless the maker didn't account for skipping him altogether).
• Meaningless Lives:
  • If you're playing just one course (as in, not a 10 or 100 Mario challenge or a four-course world), lives are completely pointless since every time you die, you're just sent back to the beginning of the course (or at the checkpoint if available). Any hidden 1-Ups or areas where you can gain many lives by killing loads of enemies or collecting hundreds of coins are pointless since those lives literally do nothing for you unless you're in a challenge. Even in challenge mode, there's a Cap of no more than three lives per course and no more than 10 or 100 lives total, rendering any you get beyond that pointless.
  • If you arrange the Coursebot courses so that they form an entire 4 course "world", you have the option to play the entirety of that world. In the Wii U version, this is the only point within the entire game where the 1-up mechanics work exactly like the mainstream Mario games.
• Mecha-Mooks: Among the available enemies for level creation we have Bullet Bills and Bob-ombs, as well as their respective variants (Bulls-Eye Bills and lit Bob-ombs).
• Medium Blending: The cursors include real hands and cat paws.
• Megamix Game: The game is a Level Editor version. It features graphic sets based on Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros., and each set comes with unique power-ups, enemies, and obstacles taken from the respective games as well as new mechanics; and within the embedded sample levels, there are recreations of levels from past games. There are plenty of references to Mario Paint incorporated into the editor, and many Super Mario Bros. characters (and many not from the franchise) are present as Mystery Mushroom costumes. The game was released during the platform series' 30th anniversary, so it made sense.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: The game features an offscreen Bowser on tracks that can be used to create this effect in due to the fireballs looking similar to meteors.
• Mickey Mousing: While creating courses, a robotic voice will read out the name of any object that's set down in time with the background music.
• Mini-Game: The Gnat Attack (also known as Fly Swatter or Coffee Break) mini game from Mario Paint returns. It's opened by swatting three flies while in the Course Maker. The flies can be spawned at will by shaking a Muncher. It must be beaten to unlock the Builder Mario costume. In a November 2015 update, beating the game in hard mode will unlock the Fighter Fly costume.
• Miracle-Gro Monster: Applying a Super Mushroom to enemies in the Course Maker will make them grow huge. Applying the item to a Hammer Bro. turns it into a Sledge Bro.
• Money for Nothing: Since Meaningless Lives is in full effect in many modes, collecting coins (usually done in order to collect a hundred for a 1-Up) is pointless except in very specific circumstances. Coins can still be used by course creators as a way of drawing attention to possible routes (or else lure players into a horrible death trap) or for use with P Switches, which turn them into blocks and vice versa.
• Mook Maker: Bill Blasters and Lakitus can be re-purposed to spawn almost anything, and enemies can march out of pipes as in SMB3.
• Motion Parallax: Most skins are layered with parallax which allows the characters of the retro ones to cast shadows on the background. It gives them the feeling of being illusions.
• Musical Nod: A few to older Mario games. For example, the Super and 10 Mario Challenges use the Donut Plains music from SMW, while the Course World and 100 Mario Challenge use the Grass Land music from SMB3.
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups:
  • In the editor, certain powerups are locked to a specific theme. Yoshi is only available in the Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U themes, and is replaced with the Shoe/Stiletto Goomba in the Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 themes. Additionally, each theme has at least one exclusive powerup of its own: the Mystery, Weird, and Big Mushrooms for SMB, the Super Leaf for SMB3, the Cape Feather for SMW, and the Propeller Mushroom for NSMBU.
  • In addition to standard Mario powerup rules (Mario can't have two "upper-level" powerups at once), he can't wear the Buzzy Beetle or Spiny shells as Costume Mario. Touching them with a costume in use causes it to be knocked away.
• Mythology Gag: There are several items and aspects that reference older games:
  • Bowser Jr. acts just like the Koopalings in Super Mario Bros. 3, retreating to his shell after taking a hit. He even has a similarly-styled sprite in the SMB3 theme.
  • Placing Spike Traps underwater in the SMB3 theme will cause them to turn into Jelectros, a similarly invincible and immobile enemy.
  • The doors in the SMB3 theme look just like the doors from Super Mario Bros. 2, and some of the Mystery Mushroom costumes use sprites from the game. A post-release update added Keys and Locked Doors, though they're used in the style of the Yoshi's Island games.
  • Luigi's Mystery Mushroom costume is a Palette Swap of Mario's sprite. This is a throwback to Luigi's appearance in older games, where he was merely a green Mario sprite.
  • Autoscroll speed is represented by three animals; a turtle, a rabbit, and a cheetah. In Mario Paint, these animals appeared on an option screen to adjust the mouse's speed.
  • Wario's Mystery Mushroom costume looks like the sprite used in the Mario Bros.-based minigame from the first WarioWare game.
  • Builder Mario's outfit is a nod to how he looked in Wrecking Crew. It also harkens back to the days when he used to be a carpenter.
  • Pressing up as Costume Mario does one for several of the outfits. Samus uses the Samus Aran Is About To Shoot You pose from the second American box art, Zelda turns into Sheik (and Sheik similarly turns into Zelda), and several use their taunts from Super Smash Bros..
  • Some Mystery Mushroom costumes are a ? Block on Mario's head and a Goomba as a character, not to be confused with the papier-mâché Goomba mask.
  • Pressing Up while wearing the Trampoline costume turns it into the trampoline sprite from the original Super Mario Bros.
  • Completing a Super Mario World-themed course while the bonus music is playing will cause the ending jingle from the Bonus Game of SMW to play instead of the regular course ending theme.
  • Seeing Luigi-like Bullet Bills in Big Mario's filter brings Luigi's Green Missile move to mind.
• Nerf: The spin-jump from SMW was hit pretty hard with the nerf gun, losing the ability to spin jump on many enemies and obstacles like the Grinder, for example.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The Boos and Dry Bones, as well as their variants (Stretch and Boo Buddy for the former, Fishbone for the latter) and winged forms, can be added into the created levels. Despite the Boos being incorporeal, they can be stacked with other enemies to form piles.
• No Fair Cheating: A minor example: you can't skip a course when you're in midair unless you've either already died or are far enough falling into a pit that the game counts you dead, leading many people into thinking that skipping a course in this mode always costs a life. If you hold down the skip button while landing on a Muncher or Spike Trap while small, though, the game will register the request to skip before it registers Mario getting hurt.
• Non-Dubbed Grunts:
  • Shulk's Mystery Mushroom costume uses his Japanese voice acting regardless of the game's language in spite of normally being voiced by Adam Howden outside of Japan.
  • Wii Fit Trainer's Mystery Mushroom costume always uses her North American voice actress, October Moore, instead of the unique regional voice actresses featured in Wii Fit and Super Smash Bros..
• Non-Standard Character Design:
  • Not all of the Mystery Mushroom costume are 8-bit characters. One of the most notable exceptions is Sonic the Hedgehog, who uses 16-bit sprites based on his first game, a sharp contrast from the SMB1 graphics. What makes it even odder is that Sonic already has a game with more appropriate graphics. He's also the only costume with more than two frames in his jump animation. Similarly, Pac-Man uses his appearance from Pac-Land, which, while still 8-bit, is much larger than most other sprites—even Sonic's.
  • Arino's costume also looks noticeably more "refined" than other 8-bit costumes, looking almost like a battle character sprite from one of the SNES-era Final Fantasy games.
  • The Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Mario Trio costume is visibly based on the graphical style of Superstar Saga.
  • Mr. Saturn and Master Belch's sprites look more along the lines of how they do in EarthBound, unlike even Ness and Lucas themselves.
  • Birdo's sprites appear to be more of a 16-bit style (not unlike Arino's), rather than matching the 8-bit art-style of all the other Mario characters (including Waluigi, Rosalina, or even Captain Toad, who debuted in the game less than a week earlier). Her animations seem smoother and more fluid than those of most of the other Costume Mario characters, as well.
  • Starfy's sprites are taken directly from his Game Boy Advance games. The series originally started development on the Game Boy Color, so 8-bit sprites of Starfy already exist, but Nintendo tends to be reluctant to show anything from cancelled/unreleased games (barring previews before the cancellation).
  • It's possible to scan a 30th Anniversary Mario amiibo in order to summon a Big Mushroom and then set the stage style to something other than Super Mario Brothers. While the mushroom has no effect in the other styles (other than giving you points), it also doesn't have any alternate styled counterparts, resulting the game rendering them as a giant SMB1-style mushroom regardless of the course's style. Even in the New Super Mario Bros. U style, it notably stays 2D in spite of the rest of the environment becoming Pseudo-3D.
• Noodle People: The Weird Mushroom makes Mario tall and very skinny, with long, gangly limbs. When he climbs into a Goomba's Shoe, he has to crouch down so that his knees are at the same level as his head.
• Nostalgia Level: Some of the sample courses are "remixes" of levels from earlier Mario games. Also, three of the official Event Courses are based on the starting levels from Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and Land respectively. Creators can also make recreations of levels from earlier Mario games, although some elements from the original games are missing, such as slopes.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • People can leave Miiverse comments that show up in the courses by pausing while having Mario standing in the spot they want the comment to show up at and clicking the comment button. While this was obviously intended as a small, fun detail that can help prevent frustration by having people comment and give some forewarning on certain courses, course creators can also leave comments on their own courses as well. As such, some course creators take advantage of this by posting "dialogue", either from Mario or another character, in certain spots throughout their own course to give said course its own "mini-plot" of sorts.
  • Several creators use certain things like semi-solid platforms, mushroom platforms, vines, tracks and the like as decorative aesthetics in their levels rather than for actual platforming. Combining several of these things, it's possible for course creators to make pseudo-houses in their levels.
• Opening the Sandbox: To help out new players, the game only starts out with a limited set of tools. After playing with the course maker for a short while, new items are queued up to unlock the next day. Starting with the 1.0.1 patch, however, they can be unlocked in the same day if the course maker is used long enough. If one only plays little by little, it takes around 9 days to unlock everything, but players who spend a lot of time in the game can unlock the tools faster. In the Nintendo 3DS version, much more assets are available from the start, although some of them — even those that need to be shaken in order to be used — still need to be unlocked through Super Mario Challenge.
• Overly Long Gag: When Mario falls into a pit, there is a chance of a special "audio skit" occurring before the standard death jingle, and some of them take a decent amount of time. ^*In one, Mario will land at the bottom of the pit, then hop, skip and drive away in a car, all while dogs chase him and birds flutter away, for a good 20 seconds off-screen. Thankfully, they can be skipped.
• Painting the Medium: Using the Big Mushroom powerup causes the game to take on a retro "CRT television" filter. The effect can be used on any course by pressing A, B, and down on the D-Pad on the course's loading screen.
• Palette Swap:
  • It is possible to change graphical styles from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros U., and all styles retain their original physics and gameplay mechanics (wall-jumping and ground pounding in NSMBU mode, holding shells in SMB3 and SMW mode, etc.); however, there are some changes to the original games' physics, such as adding the Goomba Springboard feature to the SMB theme.
  • Certain Mystery Mushroom costumes are unavoidably palette swaps of Mario, like Luigi (as he was in the original Super Mario Bros., though in this game he has his modern colors instead), Mario in modern colors, Mario (Silver), Mario (Gold), Dr. Mario, Builder Mario (Mario with the outfit seen in the page image), and even Mario Bros.-Mario.
• Pixel Hunt: A course can be set-up like this using invisible blocks. Some people have made entire courses consisting only of those.
• Plant Mooks: Among the available enemies for level creation we have Piranha Plants and Munchers, with the former coming in their two most well-known forms (the one that simply faces upward and the one which shoots fireballs).
• Platform Hell:
  • It's a game maker based on 2D Mario games. Going off of most ROM Hacks alone, it's inevitable courses like this will pop up a lot, especially given the level of chaos the maker allows. The game even offers objects to this end that appear rarely if ever in the original games, like Spike Traps and One-Way Walls. While you're required to clear your own course in order to publish it, a measure implemented to prevent players from simply sharing nigh-unbeatable Kaizo Mario World wannabes ad nauseam, Kaizo-style courses still exist because their creators did manage to beat them.
  • Two of Nintendo's official levels are this. Mary O's "My First Course" represents a complete newbie trying to design a course, only to accidentally create one that's so bad, it's nearly (but not completely) unbeatable. "Bowser's Puzzle Dungeon", allegedly created by Bowser himself, is, in-universe, a more intentional example in which Bowser had deliberately set up moments to try to screw users up while they try to solve his puzzles (a few times through the use of Schmuck Bait traps). It's one of the game's hardest levels (with its completion rate being within decimals).
• Play Every Day: The Wii U version only starts off with a basic set of tools, and gradually unlocks new ones every day (or right away if it's played especially long). This is both to ease in newcomers and to prevent players from ignoring the game after a period of time.
• Player Data Sharing: One of the main draws of the game is the Course World, where players can upload their courses online for the entire userbase to play.
• Poison Mushroom: It's possible to rig ? Blocks so they release enemies instead of power-ups.
• Power Up Letdown: Items that are normally helpful can be made into obstacles with the right level design.
• Power-Up Mount: Yoshi, of course. However, unlike many other items and enemies, he's only available in the Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U themes.
• Product Placement: A Mercedes-Benz GLA car is one of the costumes Mario could get from the Mystery Mushroom, and a Sky Pop Event Course added in January of 2016 only exists to advertise Southwest Airlines.
• Production Foreshadowing: Getting a big Mushroom and encountering Bowser has him become Peach riding a mustached Bowser, which became part of the final level in Super Mario Odyssey.
• Punny Name: In the North American localization of the game, Yamamura's apprentice is named Mary O, after a common mispronunciation of Mario's name. However, in Japanese and other localizations, she's known as Mashiko.
• Puzzle Reset: Entering a door or pipe causes enemies, platforms and other such stuff to respawn and reset to their default positions. It's not uncommon, especially in puzzle courses, to come across two doors placed side-by-side or close together for this explicit purpose. One has to be careful, however, as coins, items and destroyed blocks don't respawn, which can easily make a level Unwinnable by Design. Used item blocks remain used as well (unless their inner contents are vines, in which case they'll fully reset even if they're destroyed with a Spiny Shell, Bob-omb, Thwomp, Skewer or one of Bowser's large fireballs).
• Rage Quit: Very rarely, if Mario falls down a pit, instead of the usual death tune, one can hear Mario yelp, hit the ground, scramble up, run out, hop into a car and drive off, shouting "Bye-bye!". This is followed by a dog chasing after the car, then a bird, then a fly. If all this hasn't been skipped, then the death music starts up.
• Reality Warper: Magikoopas can invoke their usual transformation magic and Teleport Spam, but now they can even make the Goal/Axe vanish (making the Course unwinnable until you kill the one responsible).
• Recycled Soundtrack:
  • Most of the original games' soundtracks are reused here, although they're given new remixes that play in the editor.
  • Gnat Attack's soundtrack is taken straight from Mario Paint.
• Red Ones Go Faster: Zig-zagged with shakeable elements. Red Bill Blasters, cannons, etc. do fire more quickly. However, blue Spike Tops and Lava Lifts also move quickly. And then there are objects like lifts, which in particular become blue "flimsy lifts" that drop when stood on rather than moving side-to-side faster.
• Remilitarized Zone: The kind of level you can build with the Airship setting, though it's possible to craft them in any style once the Bullet Bills and Cannons are unlocked.
• Remixed Level: Some of the sample courses are Nostalgia Levels with different twists.
• Replay Mode: The Coursebot stores all levels you've completed on 10-Mario Challenge, allowing you to replay them without needing to go through that mode again (especially since the levels are chosen randomly, and you finish it every time you complete eight levels); they're listed on a separate page from the levels you've created or downloaded. In the 3DS version, the Coursebot does the same for the extended 100-Mario Challenge, which also gives you the chance to complete any special challenge you couldn't fulfill during your standard run there.
• Respawning Enemies: For technical reasons, the majority of elements placed within a level will respawn when you re-enter an area after leaving. This includes enemies, which allows designers to put "reset doors"^note pairs of doors that don't really take you anywhere; when you enter one, you exit from the other at the start of Kaizo or puzzle rooms so you can reload the enemies and other elements necessary to progress in case you fail in some way.
• Retraux:
  • Assets that didn't debut in — or are otherwise absent from — certain games have new sprites to fit within the appropriate graphical styles, allowing for many combinations. Examples include Thwomps in Super Mario Bros., Wigglers in Super Mario Bros. 3, and Hammer Bros. in Super Mario World. This even applies to course themes: World and U's Ghost Houses can be made in the style of 1 and 3, and the Airship courses from 3 and U can also be made in 1 and World. Not only do they have graphics made to fit in with the original game, but also brand-new background music tracks in the same style.
  • In addition, the Mystery Mushroom power-up gives a costume of another character for Mario to wear, complete with appropriate sound effects. While a few characters (such as Link and Kirby) use their original graphics, most characters have newly-created sprites in the Super Mario Bros. style, and tunes from their original games replacing Mario's different sound effects, including the death sounds and course clear tunes (barring all of the Pokémon costumes prior to Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, which use no unique sound effects).
• Rubbery World:
  • In the course selection menu, take a look at the landscape in the background behind the robot; every time the robot's head comes down (especially when the truck stops by), the entire landscape bounces. Even the lighthouse on the other side bounces with it.
  • It's possible to make a course entirely out of bouncy Note Blocks and springs.
• Run-and-Gun: The game allows the creators to take the classical Mario formula and turn the action up to eleven by throwing tons of power-ups and enemies at the player. One particular trend was to use the Koopa Clown Car and a Flower Flower to give to the game a Shoot 'Em Up flavor. Nintendo noticed it, and later included a fire-shooting Clown Car in an update.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: Courses that have been uploaded but not played can appear in the Easy difficulty of the 100 Mario Challenge. An unlucky player can run into difficult unrated levels; good thing they can be skipped. Also, the Expert and Super Expert difficulty have this feel as they allow for courses with a clear rate up to around 15%; levels near that mark are miles easier than the average Expert or Super Expert level. And then there's the issue with impatient players rage-quitting after a couple three attempts, pushing courses that aren't very hard into Expert/Super Expert territory.
• Scunthorpe Problem: The software will reject course titles that include profanity, and don't even bother trying to insert a space in the middle of a four-letter word, because it's too smart for that. Unfortunately, that means it will also reject such innocent titles as "Yoshi to the Rescue."
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • Trying to beat an automatic course manually can be this, as they are almost always NOT set up to be reasonably playable in the normal way.
  • Completing a 100 Mario Challenge without skipping a course is a popular one. It's not so hard on Easy and Normal, but Expert and Super Expert...good luck.
• Serious Business: It's implied within the official levels (and made more explicit in the Nintendo 3DS version) that Mary O. had a mentor that helped her learn how to make Super Mario Maker levels (in a form of a bird named "Yamamura"). This, in turn, implies this trope taking place due to the game being a novelty tool for user-created levels.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Mystery Mushroom powerup will turn Mario into another character, many of which are from other Nintendo series. This includes Link, Marth, Isabelle, and even the Wii Fit Trainer.
  • In the overview trailer, a level was shown off that used Music Blocks to create a short song, which the narrator says might sound a bit familiar. Said song is an arrangement of the Creative Exercise theme from Mario Paint.
  • The parrots from the Nintendo DSi and Nintendo 3DS Sound applications reappear here. Like in those apps, their purpose here is to record sound effects.
  • The title screen is highly interactive, and like the one in Mario Paint, each letter of the logo causes something different to happen.
  • In Super Mario World's Underwater theme, the spikes are the Sea Urchin enemies from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
  • Rather than using Super Mario World's instrumentation, the new SMW airship theme seems to use the soundfont from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
  • The sound effects when the Magikoopa's fire off their magic are the same as the Wizzrobes from the original Legend of Zelda.
• Silliness Switch: One of the functions of the Big Mushroom in the Super Mario Bros. courses is to change the appearance of many enemies to more ridiculous forms. Cannons shoot spinning Luigis, Koopas and Goombas have fake moustaches, and Bowser has Peach riding on his back.
• Silly Walk: The Wii Fit Trainer costume has a walk cycle where she walks while simultaneously holding the dance yoga pose.
• Skippable Boss: Before the Key Door update, there was no hard-coded mechanism to specifically require the player to defeat a particular enemy in order to finish the stage, so in most cases instances of Bowser or Bowser Jr. can be avoided rather than fought. So course designers used certain workarounds to defy this trope, such as requiring a Clown Car to reach an otherwise inaccesible exit.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: With Ice Blocks you can create a good ice-themed level with a little imagination. The underground setting, especially the Super Mario World one thanks to its glittering background, is best suited in most cases for this purpose.
• Smart Bomb: The POW Block, which instantly defeats all ground bound enemies on the screen when you hit the block from underneath. You can also pick up the block and chuck it for the same effect (except for the Super Mario Bros. themed levels).
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Possible to invoke this using the "boss music" or "bonus music" effects. Even if used correctly (that is, "boss music" for enemies that represent the bosses of the stage and "bonus music" for areas that give out prizes), it's still possible for them to come out as this trope depending on level theme and style, an example being the dark boss theme of Super Mario World on the normally cheerful overworld.
  • Bowser and Ganondorf's victory themes sound much more gloomy and dramatic than victorious. Justified in that they're villains.
  • Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle's Bottomless Pit "lose-a-life" jingle is the happy, upbeat cue for a Prof. Oak Pokédex rating in Pokémon Red and Blue.
• Spikes of Doom: Though spikes by themselves aren't present, spiky round blocks play this role. They're sharp enough to bring (literal) pain to the Clown Cars, which becomes a huge problem in levels where you have to pilot one while navigating through a narrow spiky corridor. They turn into Jelectros in the Super Mario Bros. 3 Underwater style, and into Sea Urchins (of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening fame) in the Super Mario World Underwater one.
• The Spiny: Among the available enemies for level creation we have the trope-naming Spinies, as well as the fireproof wall-clinging Spike Tops (which come in both the standard red forms and the faster blue ones).
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To Mario Paint on the SNES, sharing many of the same design aesthetics and characters. In fact, it was a Mario Paint sequel at one point in development.
  • To Mari0, a fanmade level maker that shared many of the same aspects of this game, except the portals.
• Spread Shot: The Fire Koopa Clown Car shoots one fireball straight forward and one at each diagonal above and below it if Mario shoots a shot while he has a Fire Flower.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Anything placed on top of a trampoline will bounce off of it, including other trampolines. Also, Bill Blasters and Lakitus can be made to generate trampolines.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: Although not obvious at first glance, many of the enemies within the New Super Mario Bros. U Theme are actually 2D sprites with software tricks to make them look 3D.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The new assets created for the older game styles, particularly the original Super Mario Bros. theme, are drawn similarly to the poorly-animated and oftentimes Off-Model sprites of the original games.
  • Mary. O's first course, aptly named "My First Course", is an intentionally poorly-made level chock-full of enemies, to represent Mary. O's own growth as a level designer. At first she's a total beginner who makes crappy levels, but as she gets advice from Yamamura and experiments, she gets better at creating levels, which shows in her official courses.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: One of the sound effects Soundfrog has, represented by Undodog with a surgical mask, cuts off the game's music with an abrupt static sound and visual effect when activated in gameplay.

T-Y

• Take That, Audience!: One of the many Maker Sounds are a trio of lips that laugh, and course creators tend to utilize these in mockery of the player.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The newly-created Super Mario World airship music uses the same recurring melody as all of the original game's level themes.
• This Is a Drill: Skewers, the spiky drills which originally debuted in Super Mario World. They can be placed by shaking a Thwomp.
• Throw the Mook at Them: It's possible to pick up and throw Koopa Troopas, Bob-ombs and Buzzy Beetles in the Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U game styles (Super Mario World also allows you to do this with Galoombas as well, which replace Goombas there; it's also the only game style where you can throw enemies and objects upward). The trope is averted for the Super Mario Bros. game style, where it's impossible to carry anything in the first place.
• Timed Mission:
  • As per a Super Mario Bros. game. It's possible to create courses that have a very limited time, even shorter than the 100 second courses that New Super Luigi U was known for — the minimum time limit is 10 seconds. The maximum time limit is 500 seconds, even though there were courses with longer time limits in previous Mario games.
  • Gnat Attack has a time limit of 30 seconds for each round.
• Title Scream: In keeping with the tradition from 2000s-era Mario titles—although this time it's a chorus of people.
• To Be Continued: The 10 Mario Challenge ends on this note, as does the 100 Mario Challenge in Easy mode. Interestingly, the 3DS version's Super Mario Challenge also ends this way, despite ending with an actual rescue of Princess Peach rather than Toad.
• Toilet Humour: The official course "Doghouse" has, at one point, a section of blocks arranged in such a way as to resemble a cat. A Goomba-spawning pipe is placed where its bottom would be, implying it's pooping them.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Discussed in the manual, at essay length. It advises that although you may think that level you just created is simple and straightforward, there will be players who do things you didn't think of. The same essay also states that you shouldn't be annoyed by this; it's an integral part of game design, and a great way to learn how to be a better game/level designer.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Yamamura has a taste for edamame (soy beans in the pod).
• Transplant: Many of the elements from Mario Paint find a new home in Super Mario Maker, which include Undodog and Mr. Eraser, who both gain more characterization in the Maker series.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: As seen in the Giant Bomb Makes Mario streams, it's the easiest thing in the world to design a course so as to present a player with several pipes, doors, and one-way walls, one of which will allow them to continue and the rest of which will send them to a quick death or back to the beginning of the stage. The only way to know which is which is to try one and hope.
• Triumphant Reprise: The end credits theme of the 100 Mario Challenge becomes a more joyous remix if you were to complete the mode on Normal or Expert. Clearing it on Super Expert, however, results in the Easy credits music being used instead.
• Troll: Some player-made levels give Kaizo Mario World a run for its money, although most of their designers are honest about them being "troll levels."
• Tutorial Level: In addition to the built-in courses at the start of the game, courses that go into how certain objects react and interact with each other are fairly popular in Course World. People have explained everything from how to properly use a cape, what spin jumps can work on, and the extent to how much the Spiny shell protects, and so on and so forth.
• Uncanny Valley: Mario's appearance after grabbing a Weird Mushroom◊. It looks like regular Mario with an actual person's proportions. The warped and distorted sound effects indicate that this effect was completely intentional.
• Undead Counterpart: Among the available enemies for level creation we have the Dry Bones and Fishbones (skeletal variants of the Koopa Troopas and Cheep Cheeps respectively).
• Underground Level: The Underground theme can be chosen in the course maker.
• Under the Sea: The Underwater theme can be chosen in the course maker.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: Because of how the Course Maker works and with the number of bullets and projectiles that can appear on-screen, players can invoke this trope by creating their own shmup levels using Lakitu's Cloud or the Koopa Clown Car. A later update included the Fire Koopa Clown Car for this purpose, and two levels in the 3DS version are designed to showcase this trope (one of them even has the optional challenge for the player to reach a certain score by defeating as many enemies in a row as possible).
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: There are courses that relied on glitches that have since been patched out for completion, rendering them completely unwinnable after the patch. Nintendo has occasionally deleted such courses from the servers, however.
• Unwinnable by Design: Players have to beat their courses before they can share them with others. However, it's easily possible for a course to become unwinnable under the wrong circumstances, such as only giving the player a single item or a powerup that's necessary to proceed that they can lose before you can use it in the way the course creator intended. That, or the creator can just insert pipes or doors that lead to rooms you can't exit after entering them.
• Variable Mix: While in course creation mode, there are different mixes of the main course themes. The sound effects and voices heard upon adding items even sync to the melodies.
• Video Game Caring Potential: One could design courses that are easy and enjoyable for others to play, but...
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Part of the fun of designing courses is to watch people try to play through sadistic courses with all kinds of nasty surprises. The courses featured in the 2015 Nintendo World Championships provides several prime examples.
  • Alternatively, you can make courses centered around using blocks or coins to spell out insulting messages aimed either at the player or the character you're playing as or subject Yoshi or enemies to all kinds of abuse without the player being able to stop it.
  • The ability to jump off of Yoshi's back to make it over a pit or hazard, while consigning the unfortunate Yoshi to oblivion, is a time-honored trick in Super Mario World, but at no point in that game is it absolutely required. Not so in this game, where at least one gimmick course (by Giant Bomb's Dan Rykert) requires the player to make a mass-dinosaur-murderer to finish the course.
  • The cruelty isn't limited to making courses either. A great many Miiverse comments will point to a pipe that leads to a bottomless pit and claim "this one's safe!"
• Video Game Flight: The Raccoon Leaf from Super Mario Bros. 3, the Cape Feather from Super Mario World and the Propeller Mushroom from New Super Mario Bros. U are available as power-ups, though they're only available in their respective game styles.
• Video-Game Lives: While 1-Ups can be earned anywhere, there are three game modes that specifically feature lives. The main ones are the "10 Mario Challenge", and the "100 Mario Challenge". The 10 Mario Challenge is easily accessed through the main menu, while the 100 Mario Challenge can be found in the Course World menu. In these modes, extra lives earned in a course are banked with a Cap of three, and rewarded upon finishing the level. It's also possible to play a "world" of four saved courses through Coursebot, which features lives that work the same as standard Mario games (you start with three lives, and 1-ups are applied immediately). Otherwise, one can die many times without ever worrying about getting a Game Over.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: Defied with the ability to report inappropriate courses and the most-likely-to-be-abused feature, custom sound effects, are replaced when sharing online.
• Violation of Common Sense: Some courses require Mario to take damage for various reasons:
  • Enforcing Small Mario past a certain part, most often because the clever contraptions ahead are easily bypassed by players exploiting Mercy Invincibility. Most common in courses with checkpoints, as checkpoints turn Small Mario into Super Mario when activated.
  • Conversely, requiring Mercy Invincibility to pass some Beef Gate or stretch of Munchers.
  • Making Yoshi run away to pass some unpassable obstacle while Mario takes another route (not accessible with Yoshi) attempting to catch up with him on the other side.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Mystery Mushroom costumes transform Mario's sprite into other characters from across many different forms of media, or even alternate versions of himself.
• Wall Jump: It is possible to perform wall jumps in the New Super Mario Bros. U game style (Super Mario Maker 2 makes it possible on the added Super Mario 3D World style as well), but not in the older ones as the ability wasn't present in their respective source materials.
• What the Hell, Player?: Mario reacts if mean things are done to him while within the course maker, like attempting to fling the eraser over his head or putting a flame over him. And of course, it's possible to design courses that deliberately invoke the trope.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: The Mystery Mushroom can (magically?) dress Mario up as a number of female characters, such as Peach, Samus, the Wii Fit Trainer, or all three members of Babymetal at the same time.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: 10 Mario Challenge ends with the captive Peach being taken to another castle, unsurprisingly. This also happens when 100 Mario Challenge is cleared on the Easy difficulty, but it doesn't happen on Normal, Expert or Super Expert mode, or even the 3DS version's Super Mario Challenge mode.

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Princess Peach: Thank you, Mario. You're my hero!

COURSE DESIGN

Don't Press Anything
My First Level!!
Goomba Spam
Choose Wisely
Sound Effect Spam
Captain Toad [DON'T JUMP]
RNG Enemies Galore
Kaizo Trap
Music Level
Offscreen Thwomps
THINK FAST! [10 s]
Yet Another 1-1 Recreation
(Costume Mario)'s Story Part 7 [TURN ON COMMENTS]
Quiz
Unexpected Shmup Level
Castle of 3 Bowsers

THE END

New Mystery Mushroom costume unlocked!

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