SuperMario Maker (tentatively called Mario Maker when announced at E3 2014) is a 2D platforming and level creation game for the Wii U. It is the eighteenth entry in the Super Mario series.[1] It allowed players to design and share their own 2D Super Mario courses, alongside viewing and playing courses made by other creators until the discontinuation of Nintendo Network on April 8, 2024. To build a course, players can use a variety of objects such as blocks, enemies and items. They can also set a theme and incorporate their course into the styles of four previous Super Mario games (Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U), each with distinct mechanics and features. While the game typically uses the GamePad, whose touchscreen is used to design courses, other controllers such as the Wii Remote, Wii Classic Controller, and Wii U Pro Controller are also compatible.[2] Additionally, the game has compatibility with amiibo, which can be scanned to unlock different Mystery Mushroom costumes based on the amiibo figurine.
The game was announced at E3 2014 and was released in September 2015 (originally set to be released in early 2015), as part of the 30th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros.[3] Limited editions of the game launched alongside an artbook with codes that can be entered in the in-game manual. The Nintendo eShop version of the game requires at least 1.4 GB[2] of storage memory to be downloaded.
Starting on November 7th, 2017, Nintendo has terminated the Miiverse service, removing support for comments on uploaded levels. Super Mario Maker was removed from the eShop on January 13th, 2021,[4] leaving the game only available in retail. On March 31st, 2021, the ability to upload new courses and view the most starred courses online was discontinued,[5] but players could still play courses that were uploaded before the discontinuation until April 8, 2024, when the Nintendo Network service shut down, rendering the game no longer playable online.[6][7]
In a similar fashion to Mario Paint, the title screen is highly interactive.[8] A randomly generated stage will appear, and players have the option to choose "Create" and edit the stage, or "Play", to choose either Course World or 10 Mario Challenge. Players can even complete the stage before starting. When pressed, each letter will cause a different effect on the game title screen.
The game is set up so that players can design their very own 2D Super Mario courses. They are able to set up and edit the length and width of the stages, the course's theme, and game styles, and are able to use various objects, items, and enemies. Players are able to switch between editing and playing their created stages, and can easily make any changes using the tools provided. An outline mode can also be used to show Mario's movements and to make positioning objects easier.
The game starts with only one row of course elements, as the game features an unlocking system, in which a set of elements will be available for the next day, so long as they spend at least five minutes using the tools they have. As part of a Day 1 patch, however, the elements can be made available immediately by spending enough time placing elements on the course. Players can also add sound effects to their courses using the Soundfrog (which uses the frog icon from Mario Paint). These effects happen when Mario walks over them in the play mode, with some effects generating visuals. Players can even record their own sound effects and add them to the game. However, these custom sound effects are replaced with a generic parrot/chicken squawk when uploaded to Course World.[9]
Players can save up to 120 different courses onto their Wii U profile.[2] They can be found in Coursebot, the course selection screen. Locally saved and downloaded courses can be arranged into worlds, which are set up like in Super Mario Bros., with four courses per world. There is no way to upload courses in worlds; players can only upload single courses.
Below is the full list of all the 68[10] sample courses that are in the game. The sample courses that are in worlds 1 and 2 are unlocked as the player unlocks new course sets. The sample courses that are in worlds 3 through 16 are used in the 10 Mario Challenge. The world 17 courses, which are the courses that were shown off at the 2015 Nintendo World Championships, are unlocked after the player has completed all the 10 Mario Challenge sample courses. Completing all four of those levels, in turn, allows the player to freely use the Weird Mushroom when creating levels.
The game gives players the option to choose the game and course styles from various 2D Super Mario games.[11] There are four game styles and six course styles to choose from. Each game style retains its respective gameplay elements and physics from its base game. For example, Mario cannot carry items in the Super Mario Bros. style, can triple and wall-jump in the New Super Mario Bros. U style, and is able to throw Koopa Shells upward in the Super Mario World style only. Each game style has its own exclusive elements, such as Yoshi being available in the Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U styles, but is replaced in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 styles by the Goomba's Shoe, as well as its exclusive power-ups and end-goals. Changing a course theme changes the assets, objects and the music of the edit mode to appropriately share the theme. These game and course themes include:
Players can make ? Blocks, Brick Blocks, Note Blocks, Bill Blasters, Lakitus and pipes spawn one of the following objects, by dragging one of the following objects onto one of the former objects (whether huge, winged, both, or neither):
In 10 Mario Challenge (Japanese: 10人マリオチャレンジ, 10 Nin Mario Charenji), the goal is to clear eight randomly-selected sample courses with up to ten lives. Players can obtain up to three 1-Ups in each course, but must be able to complete the course to collect them. As many as 56 different sample courses appear in this mode, and they'll be added onto the Coursebot's sample courses list when completed.
Course World is Super Mario Maker's dedicated way to share course creations with the rest of the user base. The sharing system is similar to what was done with Pushmo World and the later games in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. Uploading courses is limited to 10 at first, but players will be able to earn the ability to upload more when they are given more stars by players.
In order to share a course online, players must be able to complete it, and have access to Miiverse. Players can download, play, and even alter courses made by other players, but they are unable to re-upload those altered courses to the online servers, as to avoid issues of stealing. Once a course is uploaded, players can comment on it, and/or choose to give it a star if they liked it.
It should be noted, however, that uploaded courses that haven't received at least one star within a set amount of days can end up being removed from the Super Mario Maker servers without any warning. The Miiverse posts for the courses will only be removed if the player deletes the courses; if deleted by Nintendo, the Miiverse posts will still be present, but the course IDs will not work. Lastly, any courses that are deleted by Nintendo are blocked from being uploaded again, regardless of whether they get updated.
As part of the 1.20 version update, an "Event Courses" section has been added to the Course World. Event Courses allow players to play courses created by Nintendo, and potentially obtain Mystery Mushroom costumes as well.
Whenever players receive stars, they earn medals, based on how many stars are earned. Below are all the medals that the player can obtain, along with the star requirements needed to get them. Even if a course is deleted, the stars remain.
Course World also features a variant of 10 Mario Challenge, known as 100 Mario Challenge (Japanese: 100人マリオチャレンジ, 100 Nin Mario Charenji), which gives the player 100 lives to clear a certain number of user-created courses; 8 courses on Easy; 16 courses on Normal and Expert; 6 courses on Super Expert. Courses marked as the selected difficulty (based on clear percentage) are used. Unlike with 10 Mario Challenge, players can save their progress while playing the 100 Mario Challenge, and they can choose to skip a selected course to try another one instead. At first, only the Easy and Normal difficulty levels can be selected, but players can unlock the Expert difficulty by completing the Normal difficulty 100 Mario Challenge at least once, and if they clear Expert once, then the players will unlock the Super Expert difficulty.
Clearing 100 Mario Challenge rewards the player with a random Mystery Mushroom costume. However, there is a limit to how many costumes can be unlocked on a single difficulty level; this in return, means that the player has to complete all the difficulty levels a certain number of times in order to unlock every random costume in the game.
Prior to the release of update version 1.40, without using any amiibo, the player could unlock up to 95 different Mystery Mushroom costumes in 100 Mario Challenge. The unlock limits were originally as follows:
If the player uses any amiibo to unlock the costumes, then the unlock limit for each difficulty level decreases, depending on which amiibo figures were scanned. Also, when the players have unlocked all the Mystery Mushroom costumes at a certain difficulty level, a notice will appear to notify them.
Although the recreations are mostly faithful, each style has some minor differences from its source material (disregarding console limitations, etc.). Some of these changes bring one or more styles in line with others, although this is not universal (for an example of a difference that remains, Koopa shells cannot be picked up in Super Mario Bros. style).
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