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What's your TOP TWO favorite features of the new update?

  • Super World Maker

    Votes: 63 71.6%
  • The Koopalings

    Votes: 12 13.6%
  • New Power-Ups and Headwear

    Votes: 34 38.6%
  • The SMB2 Mushroom

    Votes: 34 38.6%
  • The Cursed Key & Phantos

    Votes: 2 2.3%
  • ON/OFF Blocks & ON/OFF Trampoline in 3D World

    Votes: 2 2.3%
  • Mechakoopas

    Votes: 6 6.8%

  • Total voters
    88
  • Poll closed .

Deleted member 17207

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,208
I've basically fallen in love with this game again. Jumped in last night just to check out a master sword level - ended up playing for hours lmao.
 

Slai-Man

Member
Oct 25, 2017
387
kDkGjhd.png
 

GreenMamba

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,280
i wasn't planning on doing any link business, but I've thought of something that warrants picking up the master sword, based on a true test of courage...


I dug the second half a lot, it's pretty much where my mind immediately went after seeing the iced coins addition.
Conceptually very cool. I enjoyed this one a lot. I think I liked the first section more than the second but both were great.
Great concept and nice aesthetics, had a good time
Nice course! At the fire flower part I was too afraid of melting the platform below me at first haha.
Once of the nicest things about seeing people come back to the game is that I'm catching up on profiles that I originally missed in their entirety, for whatever reason, and yours was one of them. (It might have been because half your levels were from the period when I was buried up to my neck in Fire Emblem instead.) Your latest was very good and enticed me to play through your entire set from start to finish. You're one of several makers here who has really figured out how to make an easy level with generous head room and safety nets still feel like a densely packed experience that is interesting from moment to moment, and not always in the same way: sometimes with the aesthetic, sometimes with the overall flow, sometimes with the core interaction even if most of these are pretty traditional.

There is one specific thing that strikes me as well tested about these levels, particularly those with a vertical section, and it's that the decoration always makes it clear when it's safe to go down, even when I can't see a platform. (I complain about that endlessly with novice makers who don't pay attention to the camera.) Likewise, the 1-up placements and power-up progression are all very intuitive, and there's a satisfying reliability to popping invisible blocks or question blocks and having the level respond as I predicted every time.

As for the latest level, I hinted at this already in a comment card, but for me what works about it is that it's actually a variant of a moving-platform concept where there is a clear "head" ahead of you and a "tail" behind you that forms a safe zone, only here the head and tail move in independent (but highly visible) patterns. So this rewards the player for reading the situation and planning ahead like they would with a snake-block level, and you provide just enough of a lead time to read everything while keeping a bit of tension going on in the back. I liked the Fire Flower section, too, as you have to hit the button judiciously and not just spam fireballs to the point of destroying your own route.
Thanks for the feedback guys!

I do make it a point on my levels to make sure that they always feel right. It's hard to describe but I test the levels over and over and over and I've come by a philosophy for myself--if it doesn't feel right, it's wrong. If something feels off, change it.
 

zashga

Losing is fun
Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,190
Had to make a Link level while it's the cool thing to do.



Ended up having a bit of everything; I wanted to experiment a bit with all the different stuff Link can do. Hopefully not too hard. The checkpoints should make it easy to accumulate the red coins. Even if you do the safety coin first, I don't think keydeath is possible, except on the super basic platforming at the very end. If you die there. then I am truly sorry.
 

Aurongel

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
7,065
The Link powerup should really have been its own game mode and not something you can change into on the fly. I'm really enjoying Link's moveset but building it on top of the Mario powerup mechanics is annoying and leads to a bunch of levels that have an abundance of pipes with master swords coming out of them for players who accidentally take a hit. I'm surprised there isn't a bigger backlash to this, it seems like a common criticism I've seen around.

Anyway, I'll probably complete my Pokey focused level this weekend, looking forward to sharing it with y'all 🙂.
 

GokouD

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,124
Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.
 
Nov 2, 2017
418
Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.


Wow, I had no idea that Spikeballs at night theme behaved like that! Just goes to show that there's a lot of different stuff you can do with them. Really liked this level, even if it was frustrating the couple times I got the ball to the very end only to mess up!

I also made another level.

Link's Tricky Tirals

Course ID: M0Q-7TY-9PG

I realize Link levels are dime a dozen and this one has such a generic title to boot, but I wanted to try making one. Probably fairly challenging since there are sections that you have to get through without losing the Link power-up. I did try to make use of each different ability that Link has, also there's bosses at the end.
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487
Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.


Really fun level. I enjoyed it, inventive as always. I did a take on this for one section of my expert path in my newest level but you made a who level out of it really well. Good job.

Newest level is my worst performing one by a decent margin. Sorta sucks since I really think it's a great speed run course but eh, whatchu gonna do?

Just finished up my first 2.0 level. It's a Zelda dungeon with spike balls, seesaws, and darkness to deal with. I had to delete the level and clear check it again because of a misplaced semisolid and then as soon as I uploaded it I noticed another one... Luckily it's in the dark part of the level so hopefully no one will notice it.

The Dark Dungeon of Damocles
M0S-2N0-C2H
Delve into the Dingy Depths and Defeat the Dangerous Demons within!

Played and cleared this one. I don't know if I particularly like this level with night theme but I had fun playing it for sure. My pro controller is shit for doing these downward stabs with link so the double bounce section was tough and it took me a minute to realize just what the level wanted but overall well executed.

Interesting having two totally separate levels in one. I was surprised how much I liked the note block and spiny section, it was the kind of thing that looked like it should be hot garbage but it played surprisingly well, which I think shows how a good maker can make even a hellish set of obstacles fun to tackle.

I probably am not going to do too much more of the side path thing since I feel like not that many people play it vs the effort they take to craft. I'll probably just stick to one main path. Though the side paths let me increase the difficulty which is a plus. The spiny noteblock part turned out pretty well. It's tough but I don't think it's unfair so good to know others weren't totally turned off by it.
 

ragingbegal

Member
Oct 27, 2017
795
A Link into Lordran

Course ID: PCW-75S-LSF

Three monsters. One above. One below. One hidden where no one knows.

This is my first Link level and is intended to feel like a complete experience. I took inspiration for the level design from Dark Souls, so there's a lot of exploration and you should expect to find yourself folding back in on familiar places. There are four pink coins, three you earn from bosses and a safety coin. Admittedly, the course is on the longer side, but there is a recyclable checkpoint meant to help with the length and difficulty.

There is an intended route for finding the bosses, but they can be beaten in any order. One of them is even a multi-phase boss fight. The idea was to create a course that felt like a complete experience for the player.

As of now, the completion percentage is around 15%.

5GYYLKL.jpg


pD8Zp5Q.jpg

PUJru3E.jpg

TS3fl4V.jpg

PtaeKlH.jpg

y1CgqlD.jpg

giphy.gif
 

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,881
Had to make a Link level while it's the cool thing to do.



Ended up having a bit of everything; I wanted to experiment a bit with all the different stuff Link can do. Hopefully not too hard. The checkpoints should make it easy to accumulate the red coins. Even if you do the safety coin first, I don't think keydeath is possible, except on the super basic platforming at the very end. If you die there. then I am truly sorry.

My only complaint here is that there was a little too much waiting in the room with the platforms on tracks for my taste
A Link into Lordran

Course ID: PCW-75S-LSF

Three monsters. One above. One below. One hidden where no one knows.

This is my first Link level and is intended to feel like a complete experience. I took inspiration for the level design from Dark Souls, so there's a lot of exploration and you should expect to find yourself folding back in on familiar places. There are four pink coins, three you earn from bosses and a safety coin. Admittedly, the course is on the longer side, but there is a recyclable checkpoint meant to help with the length and difficulty.

There is an intended route for finding the bosses, but they can be beaten in any order. One of them is even a multi-phase boss fight. The idea was to create a course that felt like a complete experience for the player.

As of now, the completion percentage is around 15%.

5GYYLKL.jpg


pD8Zp5Q.jpg

PUJru3E.jpg

TS3fl4V.jpg

PtaeKlH.jpg

y1CgqlD.jpg

giphy.gif
I played it but didn't beat it. I think the structure you were going for was a little too complex/wasn't clear enough to the player. After beating the bowser jr fight and entering the subworld I went right on through the next pipe, not activating the checkpoint, only to find that I had been sent back to the first checkpoint and the only way to go back was by doing the entire bowser jr section again. That really sucked. I did it because I was interested in making it to the bowser fight since it looks somewhat similar to what I had in my last level. I made it there by breaking the blocks under the checkpoint, which felt unintended. I think the first section was more hectic than it needed to be with the bullet bills, fire bars, and spikes; not too hard but just distractedly busy and the second phase felt like I did it in an unintended way by just slashing Bowser a couple times with my sword and then taking my time to make the muncher and bill launchers fall.

After I beat him, got my coin, and then promptly fell back into the hole leading to the bowser fight. Rather than do it again, I let myself die on the fire bars and respawned, only to find that I hadn't hit the checkpoint before falling in the hole and because of the floor that now detonated beneath my feet as soon as I respawned, I was going to be forced to do it again. So at that point I gave up. I think you are onto something great here but I don't think requiring the player to repeat sections was how you intended the level to be played. Just putting the second checkpoint on the floor to the right of the pit would fix this issue. Not sure how to fix players just running through to the pipe in the checkpoint room. I liked what I played, except for the firebar stairs that are just begging the player to try to damage boost through them, just not enough to play through it twice
Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.

Loved the idea but I didn't make it past the bit with the springs. I was having too much trouble getting the spike ball to correctly bounce off of the vertical one and the horizontal ones. I couldn't figure out how to do it and it was just a little to annoying to go back and get the dog each time. I'm sure there's a trick to it that makes it pretty consistent but I just couldn't get it.
 

zashga

Losing is fun
Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,190
My only complaint here is that there was a little too much waiting in the room with the platforms on tracks for my taste.

Yeah, I tightened it up quite a bit from the first draft, but it would have been good to be able to speed up the platforms between loops. The original version dumped you all the way down to the bottom if you missed a switch, which was... not great. :p
 

GokouD

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,124
Dyle if you stand on the block in front of the spring and wait for the ball to almost reach you before jumping up, it should bounce up. Probably for the best you for stuck there though, it only gets worse haha.
Unfortunately I think this level is just not very good, I made a post about it on reddit that got over 1000 upvotes but it's still my worst performing level by some margin. When it hit the chart it got 70 plays and 5 likes, and sunk like a stone.
 

J-Spot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,318
Dyle if you stand on the block in front of the spring and wait for the ball to almost reach you before jumping up, it should bounce up. Probably for the best you for stuck there though, it only gets worse haha.
Unfortunately I think this level is just not very good, I made a post about it on reddit that got over 1000 upvotes but it's still my worst performing level by some margin. When it hit the chart it got 70 plays and 5 likes, and sunk like a stone.

I'm surprised it dropped that hard, but that's often the fate of harder levels and I had pretty much the same thing happen to my Link's Desert Descent level but I kind of expected that to happen. Personally I thought your level was pretty good. If you want to make it more accessible to the popular tab crowd I'd probably shorten it up a bit so there's less to repeat between checkpoints. I didn't have the same issue Dyle did but I did find the swinging claw bit to be a little awkward, so those might be the areas to look at losing or refining. I don't know if the the gimmick is going to be clear enough with just what you have at the first screen so if you could figure out a short tutorial where all elements are on one screen that could help. Also I'm not sure what's going on with the hammer bro setups off screen (I assume on/off resetting). but I think it'd be frustrating if I got beaned with a random hammer so maybe look for a different way to accomplish whatever's going on up there.
 

bytesized

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,882
Amsterdam
The update got me to jump back on the horse again. Conceptualized this one before the update came out but it took a lot of finnicking and tweaking to make it work.
mcRqE18.jpg

Pipeline Meltdown
W69-22M-FXF

Follow the path the Lava Bubbles carve through the frozen coins!

(I of course just now noticed that I miss typed 'path' as 'pat' in my official description when I uploaded it, doh)

Basically the whole concept is that one lava bubble carves a path for you while another is in hot pursuit behind you, erasing it. And then there's a fun mad dash at the end. I thought it might make for a wacky multiplayer level so I tagged it as such, I dunno.

I think I'm going to do something with decidedly fewer tracks next time.
One of the best levels I've played, although I haven't played the game that much. Congrats
 

GokouD

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,124
I'm surprised it dropped that hard, but that's often the fate of harder levels and I had pretty much the same thing happen to my Link's Desert Descent level but I kind of expected that to happen. Personally I thought your level was pretty good. If you want to make it more accessible to the popular tab crowd I'd probably shorten it up a bit so there's less to repeat between checkpoints. I didn't have the same issue Dyle did but I did find the swinging claw bit to be a little awkward, so those might be the areas to look at losing or refining. I don't know if the the gimmick is going to be clear enough with just what you have at the first screen so if you could figure out a short tutorial where all elements are on one screen that could help. Also I'm not sure what's going on with the hammer bro setups off screen (I assume on/off resetting). but I think it'd be frustrating if I got beaned with a random hammer so maybe look for a different way to accomplish whatever's going on up there.
Yeah, I think I'd take out the whole floating ball/claw section if I did it again, I've watched a couple of streamers play it and that bit is always much harder than I intended it to be. At this point I think I'll just leave it and move onto something else though.
It's not actually hammer bros, it's a muncher/bomb setup to make sure the on/off blocks are in the right state at the start of a section, the thing that falls is a dead muncher. Unfortunately it also fires the first time you go back to get a new ball, which I didn't plan for!
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,063
6qqYuAo.png


Link's Desert Descent
Course ID: 3N2-NJR-6LG
Difficulty: Expert


I don't think I've ever seen anyone combine downward autoscroll with the night desert theme's wind effect. There's probably a reason for that, but I wanted to do something with Link that wasn't just the same thing everyone else is making. It was kind of an interesting experience.
This is my favourite link stage I've played yet, one part because in general the descending autoscroller is just incredibly well done, but also for how it ties using Link's abilities in with an element of pressure and also having more of a looming spectre of death since by design it feels more acceptable to not be throwing too many powerup master swords in.

Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.

Count me as another person who was very surprised by how the spike balls could work here, especially that giant one that just FLIES.

Slowly but surely though I was broken down by the section after the second checkpoint where the ever narrowing gap to alternate between on/off switches got too close for comfort.
On the other hand the crane bit was fine for me.
Inventive stuff, just a bit too overtuned on the difficulty front (something I know all about when making stages)
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,063
A Link into Lordran

Course ID: PCW-75S-LSF

Three monsters. One above. One below. One hidden where no one knows.

This is my first Link level and is intended to feel like a complete experience. I took inspiration for the level design from Dark Souls, so there's a lot of exploration and you should expect to find yourself folding back in on familiar places. There are four pink coins, three you earn from bosses and a safety coin. Admittedly, the course is on the longer side, but there is a recyclable checkpoint meant to help with the length and difficulty.

There is an intended route for finding the bosses, but they can be beaten in any order. One of them is even a multi-phase boss fight. The idea was to create a course that felt like a complete experience for the player.

As of now, the completion percentage is around 15%.

5GYYLKL.jpg


pD8Zp5Q.jpg

PUJru3E.jpg

TS3fl4V.jpg

PtaeKlH.jpg

y1CgqlD.jpg

giphy.gif
17 minutes well spent, the dark souls of mario maker.
I left a "don't give up skeleton" message by a dry bones because I couldn't resist.

I'm gonna alert QuixoticNeutral to this one as he's a fan of the longer stages, it's well designed around understanding that time outs are gonna happen.
 

Croc Man

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,546
I made my first course, Spikes Vs Banzai Bills :
Hg6-7yg-3wf

It's an auto scroll level based around spikes clearing a path through the level for Mario.
Tbh I got a bit over ambitious wanting multiple paths and a win condition so it's a bit messy.
 
Last edited:

GreenMamba

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,280
Well this one took too long to make.
VFPsOy4.jpg

Spike's Timber Tower
WGM-5SD-V0H

"Climb to the top to bring it all down."

Highly inspired by a couple of Matilder's levels. Wanted to make use of Spikes and Spike Balls, so this is my end result.
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487
Dyle if you stand on the block in front of the spring and wait for the ball to almost reach you before jumping up, it should bounce up. Probably for the best you for stuck there though, it only gets worse haha.
Unfortunately I think this level is just not very good, I made a post about it on reddit that got over 1000 upvotes but it's still my worst performing level by some margin. When it hit the chart it got 70 plays and 5 likes, and sunk like a stone.

It is a good level but it was destined to have lower likes and completion due to the more demanding nature. I wouldn't let the performance discourage you in terms of the levels quality. I don't think it's very hard, took me 2 attempts.
 

GokouD

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,124
It is a good level but it was destined to have lower likes and completion due to the more demanding nature. I wouldn't let the performance discourage you in terms of the levels quality. I don't think it's very hard, took me 2 attempts.
Thanks. I think the issue is it's just very 'general player' unfriendly, if you don't already know how the level works in advance it's just not that obvious.
 

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,881
Finished a new level using dash panels and some of their uniquely challenging physics. It's shorter than most of my levels and I couldn't do much about the aesthetics since it's 3D World, but I tried my best. The big trick here, which unfortunately I couldn't find a good way to teach to the player, is that you can cancel your forward momentum after jumping on a dash panel by turning around, which becomes essential in the second half of the level.

A Spree of Spry Sprint Spinning!
KWV-GT3-X4G
Spring from the Speedy Steps over the Sharp Spikes and Soar to the Summit!

Well this one took too long to make.
VFPsOy4.jpg

Spike's Timber Tower
WGM-5SD-V0H

"Climb to the top to bring it all down."

Highly inspired by a couple of Matilder's levels. Wanted to make use of Spikes and Spike Balls, so this is my end result.
Very cool, loved the pay off of falling all the way down the tower and seeing everything you just completed pass by.

I made an exploratory Link level, maybe somewhat metroidvania-ish, nothing too fancy:


I liked the aesthetics and the general feel of the level was very good. However I think the first half of the level is too cramped and I think it would have benefited a lot from raising some of the ceilings a block or two. There's just so much going on, between the poison, cheep cheeps, and dry bones and it doesn't feel good to bonk your head against the ceiling and fall in the lava over and over again.
I made my first course, Spikes Vs Banzai Bills :
Hg6-7yg-3wf

It's an auto scroll level based around spikes clearing a path through the level for Mario.
Tbh I got a bit over ambitious wanting multiple paths and a win condition so it's a bit messy.
Neat idea, I had not seen anyone else taking advantage of that interaction between spikes and banzai bills yet. Your level is hectic, in part because of the banzai bills making such a mess when they die and covering so much of the screen and in part because of the erratic placement of some of the donuts and firebars. I think that was actually a good decision though, as it makes a nice counterpoint to so many common autoscrollers that are so slow and predictable. A very fun first level
 

the_wart

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,261
Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.


This is a great idea executed well... except for the segment where you guide the flying ball through the angled tunnels, which I thought was finicky and unintuitive. I spent a good ten minutes trying to keep the ball off the ground by jumping, which wasn't great. The only solution I arrived at was running ahead to the top of the slope as fast as possible, which is awkward because (IIRC) it results in the ball leaving your field of view.
 

MrSaturn99

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,447
I live in a giant bucket.


As described in the tweet, this is an old auto-scroll Wii U level I carefully redesigned for Switch. While I've had MM2 since launch, I didn't have time to design any levels until recently, so I figured I'd get my feet wet with my favorite concept from that game. The only notable changes I made were setting the firebars onto the conveyer belts (they couldn't be attached directly anymore, so I settled for setting them on top) and the parachute Bob-ombs at the end (I felt the mushroom hill run at the end was too plain, otherwise.)

With this level, I wanted to emphasize the randomness of the Bowser AI -- sometimes he'll jump ahead to impede you, but other times you'll find him lagging behind. This means no two play sessions will be the same, not the least in the shortcuts I provided for both characters. (Note how Mario's at the beginning are for daredevil runs.)

I meticulously designed it so that no matter what happens, Bowser will always catch up to you -- this meant I had to take extreme care with the note blocks/conveyer belts throughout the level. Regardless, with Mario Maker being the game it is, there may've been cracks that slipped through, but I'd like to think such exploits are part of the fun, so go easy on me! If it's well-received, I'd like to do further variations on this concept in the future.
 

CaptainMatilder

Certified FANatic
Member
May 27, 2018
1,864


Trying to get back to the game (kinda). So I made a course containing spike balls and bill blasters shooting them. No other enemy or obstacle. Pretty happy with the result. There are also several bonus coins worth different amount of coins (depending of the difficulty reaching them). Can you find all 9 of them?
The last section after the second checkpoint has some nasty high velocity spike balls, who could surprise you. Be aware! Power-ups are sparse and they are not for free. Nor are there any ?-blocks containing them. The clear rate will probably be somewhere between 5 - 10 %, which makes this one of my hardest courses (no problem for Mario veterans tho).

Well this one took too long to make.
VFPsOy4.jpg

Spike's Timber Tower
WGM-5SD-V0H

"Climb to the top to bring it all down."

Highly inspired by a couple of Matilder's levels. Wanted to make use of Spikes and Spike Balls, so this is my end result.
Brilliant work. Greatly enjoyed the way up and down.
Nice method keeping the spike ball at the end the same falling pace as Mario with the hard blocks.
Highly recommend this masterpiece.

The update got me to jump back on the horse again. Conceptualized this one before the update came out but it took a lot of finnicking and tweaking to make it work.
mcRqE18.jpg

Pipeline Meltdown
W69-22M-FXF

Follow the path the Lava Bubbles carve through the frozen coins!

(I of course just now noticed that I miss typed 'path' as 'pat' in my official description when I uploaded it, doh)

Basically the whole concept is that one lava bubble carves a path for you while another is in hot pursuit behind you, erasing it. And then there's a fun mad dash at the end. I thought it might make for a wacky multiplayer level so I tagged it as such, I dunno.

I think I'm going to do something with decidedly fewer tracks next time.
Awesome course as well. Cool touch having the fire flower at the end and with that the power to destroy those ice blocks yourself.
Great pace and difficulty. I guess in multiplayer this course is one hell of a ride, haha.

Walk The Dog
9HJ-14W-LFF


Here's a level using the fact that spike balls follow you around at night in the ground theme. Guide your trusty dog Spike through each section so he can deal with the muncher and clear the way. Don't worry, he doesn't die, he goes to live on a farm! I feel like I might have over complicated some sections just for the sake of doing something with the mechanic, so please let me know if anything is too fiddly.


Very cool idea. I too was surprised when the spike ball suddenly flew through the cave. Did you know that behaviour or did you find it out when creating your course? Pretty dope, haha. I have to admit the claw part gave me a little bit of trouble at first, but I managed. I totally forgot I could change the direction of the spike ball, since it was following me. Still, awesome course.
 
Last edited:

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487
Finished a new level using dash panels and some of their uniquely challenging physics. It's shorter than most of my levels and I couldn't do much about the aesthetics since it's 3D World, but I tried my best. The big trick here, which unfortunately I couldn't find a good way to teach to the player, is that you can cancel your forward momentum after jumping on a dash panel by turning around, which becomes essential in the second half of the level.

A Spree of Spry Sprint Spinning!
KWV-GT3-X4G
Spring from the Speedy Steps over the Sharp Spikes and Soar to the Summit!

Played this, I like the idea but apart from a way to teach the mechanic I think that the level needs some better indicators for upcoming jumps. I also think some of the jumps just need to be streamlined and a bit easier to make. The portion after the first checkpoint gets brutal. I'm not sure what difficulty you are going for but it is a lil too much for me personally.

You get past a bunch of hard sections then mess up in the middle and fall all the way to the bottom and have to redo the whole thing again. Some of this is fixable with a simple semi solid placed at strategic points so players don't have to redo so much after ever mistake. I also think that you made the beginning too punishing by having insta death for missed jumps. I don't think it hurt the level at all to put a floor in those opening jumps and let the player retry them.

Again I'm not sure what difficulty you're going for here so maybe this is how you intended it but after trying multiple times over 2 plays today I found it too frustrating to keep at. It's a level that I think skilled players can beat eventually but I don't think average players will have tolerance for this as is. I would submit it to streamers and see what they have to say. Also, it was very nicely decorated so good job there.

As a side note, I definitely used your crane design from a level you published way back for the nest level I'm working on. It was so good and fit the theme of what I wanted so well. You have a really good eye for visual design.

A Link into Lordran

Course ID: PCW-75S-LSF

Three monsters. One above. One below. One hidden where no one knows.

This is my first Link level and is intended to feel like a complete experience. I took inspiration for the level design from Dark Souls, so there's a lot of exploration and you should expect to find yourself folding back in on familiar places. There are four pink coins, three you earn from bosses and a safety coin. Admittedly, the course is on the longer side, but there is a recyclable checkpoint meant to help with the length and difficulty.

There is an intended route for finding the bosses, but they can be beaten in any order. One of them is even a multi-phase boss fight. The idea was to create a course that felt like a complete experience for the player.

As of now, the completion percentage is around 15%.

5GYYLKL.jpg

Fun level. It's definitely on the longer side. I haven't played dark souls I had fun with the open ended nature though the bottom path was kind of confusing in regards to how and what was suppose to activate it. I did like how each path felt more distinct and unique in what it was trying to accomplish. It felt solid, I think I would prefer more puzzles than what was here but if you're aiming for accessibility I get why deep puzzles aren't feasible.

I made my first course, Spikes Vs Banzai Bills :
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It's an auto scroll level based around spikes clearing a path through the level for Mario.
Tbh I got a bit over ambitious wanting multiple paths and a win condition so it's a bit messy.

It's a fun level with multiple paths. I would agree it's sorta messy but it's impressive that you made an autoscroll based on enemy interactions work this well. Clear condition is sorta pointless though. For a first level it's a solid outing.

Well this one took too long to make.
VFPsOy4.jpg

Spike's Timber Tower
WGM-5SD-V0H

"Climb to the top to bring it all down."

Highly inspired by a couple of Matilder's levels. Wanted to make use of Spikes and Spike Balls, so this is my end result.

The Matilder influence is apparent haha. I like what you accomplished here though. Felt pretty unique and the visuals were great. The actual platforming was solid too. I had fun with it. The final twist still felt good even knowing what it was going to be. Good job.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,644
Steadily catching up on most of this page now that I'm done with King of Cards. Won't respond to everything just yet, but in general it's been nice to see what everyone is doing with the new elements.



Trying to get back to the game (kinda). So I made a course containing spike balls and bill blasters shooting them. No other enemy or obstacle. Pretty happy with the result. There are also several bonus coins worth different amount of coins (depending of the difficulty reaching them). Can you find all 9 of them?
The last section after the second checkpoint has some nasty high velocity spike balls, who could surprise you. Be aware! Power-ups are sparse and they are not for free. Nor are there any ?-blocks containing them. The clear rate will probably be somewhere between 5 - 10 %, which makes this one of my hardest courses (no problem for Mario veterans tho).


Nice to have you back. I saw this come up on my feed just as I checked in on the game today, and while your levels are generally popular enough that I don't ever expect a speed record to hold up for long, at least I don't have to compete with you directly. I tanked your clear rate a bit as I spent many attempts trying to clear this level in a single segment without checkpoints. As you no doubt noticed during your clear checks, due to some of the destruction on the first pass, the level is subtly different depending on whether you're starting from the beginning or from a checkpoint. I'm sure this happens in some of your other levels too, given your usual structure, but it's more noticeable in this level because it affects where certain spike balls stop rolling, or which scroll stop barriers stay up. In some places, when I ran the level all the way from the start, I was surprised to be sniped by a blaster in a spot I believed to be safe.

In the end I wasn't able to do a single-segment run, as I had too much trouble finding a consistent method for the red blaster segment after the last checkpoint. The best I could manage was one death (though I didn't work on this for very long). It's hard to visualize the safety zones there, and there isn't much time to react to anything—though of course you wanted this last part to be a difficulty bump, and it succeeded. It looked like the arrows and coins were trying to signify the intended solution for getting through this safely, but they seemed to have a particular timing in mind and I just never managed to find it. Even small changes in positioning affect how the spike balls interact when they're firing in both directions over the player's head, so the effect is a bit chaotic, and it must have been a pain to test properly. (On one run, it took me a while to break the wall open before the flag, as one particular blaster hadn't been lowered yet as you intended, and the spike balls kept colliding.)

Obviously, I had enough fun to try to speed my way through the whole thing; some of the repetitions and spawn-blocks are quite inventive, and I like how you flag the power-up placements (though I got myself stuck in a spot that I knew was meant to be a power-up for the second pass through the level, just to see what would happen). I haven't done a thorough coin hunt here yet, so I'll even have a reason to come back to this one later. I can probably do better than the time I ended up posting, but at the very least I hope I set the bar high enough to cause other players ample misery if they want to surpass it.
 
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Oct 25, 2017
2,644
A Link into Lordran

Course ID: PCW-75S-LSF

Three monsters. One above. One below. One hidden where no one knows.

This is my first Link level and is intended to feel like a complete experience. I took inspiration for the level design from Dark Souls, so there's a lot of exploration and you should expect to find yourself folding back in on familiar places. There are four pink coins, three you earn from bosses and a safety coin. Admittedly, the course is on the longer side, but there is a recyclable checkpoint meant to help with the length and difficulty.

There is an intended route for finding the bosses, but they can be beaten in any order. One of them is even a multi-phase boss fight. The idea was to create a course that felt like a complete experience for the player.

As of now, the completion percentage is around 15%.

I impressed at how you managed to put together something this elaborate and polished so soon after the patch—though from playing everything of yours previously, I recognize a few of the gating mechanics and boss setups, so I can see how you're able to assemble them quickly with practice. I'll definitely have to return to this to nail a single-segment route. I followed the guided route the first time through and didn't feel that pressed for time, but I liked how there is so much room for the player to compress the run, like how several of the bosses are vulnerable to some kind of speed kill.

Most of them seem intended, like how slapping the underwater Boom Boom once is enough to drop him off the track. But I wonder about the on/off phase of the two-phase battle—arrows to the top left, bombs to the bottom right—where it's possible to just trap yourself in the top left and hit that switch repeatedly instead of bothering with the bombs at all. Well, whatever works; the freedom to pull off this kind of thing, and the substantial incentive to cut corners on the clock, are what make this level sing.

It's a bit too easy to blindly run straight into the safety coin check, with that prominent arrow pointing at it and no obstructions in the way—but on the upside, falling into that trap on my first attempt made the key door's location instantly memorable.

Thanks to Nocturnowl for the recommendation. This was in my feed regardless, but it was useful to hear it should be a priority. It's very much my kind of length and complexity, and also reasonably easy to compensate. It's just long enough that figuring out how to play faster or more cleanly feels like a meaningful thing to work on, even if you aren't gunning for any sort of record. You don't lose any time to feeling lost or stuck, but there is tremendous room to earn time by playing better.
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487
Been a minute but I'm back with another original level. This one took me ages to complete. SMB3 day time forest theme. I took some inspiration from a lot of different levels crafting this one and I'm really happy with the visuals here. In addition I made it very speedrun friendly and even had some Sonic inspiration for route optimization. I went with the theme of an oil rig city. It's pretty traditional and it's not too difficult though I've been a poor judge of lately. Hope yall will play it and give feedback. I present:

Course Name: Pipeworks Oil Rig
Course ID: B7X-TVN-KGF
 

GokouD

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,124
Time for a little bit of feedback!

The update got me to jump back on the horse again. Conceptualized this one before the update came out but it took a lot of finnicking and tweaking to make it work.
mcRqE18.jpg

Pipeline Meltdown
W69-22M-FXF

Follow the path the Lava Bubbles carve through the frozen coins!

(I of course just now noticed that I miss typed 'path' as 'pat' in my official description when I uploaded it, doh)

Basically the whole concept is that one lava bubble carves a path for you while another is in hot pursuit behind you, erasing it. And then there's a fun mad dash at the end. I thought it might make for a wacky multiplayer level so I tagged it as such, I dunno.

I think I'm going to do something with decidedly fewer tracks next time.
Really cool, your levels always have a very unique feel to them and this one is no exception. I'm surprised there haven't been more levels using the meltable ice blocks yet. I like how you switch it up in the second half and suddenly you're the one melting the blocks.

A Link into Lordran

Course ID: PCW-75S-LSF

Three monsters. One above. One below. One hidden where no one knows.

This is my first Link level and is intended to feel like a complete experience. I took inspiration for the level design from Dark Souls, so there's a lot of exploration and you should expect to find yourself folding back in on familiar places. There are four pink coins, three you earn from bosses and a safety coin. Admittedly, the course is on the longer side, but there is a recyclable checkpoint meant to help with the length and difficulty.

There is an intended route for finding the bosses, but they can be beaten in any order. One of them is even a multi-phase boss fight. The idea was to create a course that felt like a complete experience for the player.

As of now, the completion percentage is around 15%.

5GYYLKL.jpg


pD8Zp5Q.jpg

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TS3fl4V.jpg

PtaeKlH.jpg

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This is seriously impressive, the scale of it and how it all fits together. I don't know how you managed to make so open ended and yet have everything work in terms of routes opening up and events triggering. The generous difficulty level is a very good idea too, I was able to finish it on my first go, which is always a welcome thing with large levels.



Trying to get back to the game (kinda). So I made a course containing spike balls and bill blasters shooting them. No other enemy or obstacle. Pretty happy with the result. There are also several bonus coins worth different amount of coins (depending of the difficulty reaching them). Can you find all 9 of them?
The last section after the second checkpoint has some nasty high velocity spike balls, who could surprise you. Be aware! Power-ups are sparse and they are not for free. Nor are there any ?-blocks containing them. The clear rate will probably be somewhere between 5 - 10 %, which makes this one of my hardest courses (no problem for Mario veterans tho).

Good to have you back! Great level as usual, love the aesthetics and the 'Matilder Twist' was not at all what I was expecting. I found some well hidden secrets. It's definitely on the hard side though, if I'm being critical I think the gaps between checkpoints could be a bit shorter. Because you have to play in quite a slow and methodical way, having to repeat long sections will probably frustrate some players. I didn't mind because I was having fun, but it might have a hard time in the charts.
 

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,881
Played this, I like the idea but apart from a way to teach the mechanic I think that the level needs some better indicators for upcoming jumps. I also think some of the jumps just need to be streamlined and a bit easier to make. The portion after the first checkpoint gets brutal. I'm not sure what difficulty you are going for but it is a lil too much for me personally.

You get past a bunch of hard sections then mess up in the middle and fall all the way to the bottom and have to redo the whole thing again. Some of this is fixable with a simple semi solid placed at strategic points so players don't have to redo so much after ever mistake. I also think that you made the beginning too punishing by having insta death for missed jumps. I don't think it hurt the level at all to put a floor in those opening jumps and let the player retry them.

Again I'm not sure what difficulty you're going for here so maybe this is how you intended it but after trying multiple times over 2 plays today I found it too frustrating to keep at. It's a level that I think skilled players can beat eventually but I don't think average players will have tolerance for this as is. I would submit it to streamers and see what they have to say. Also, it was very nicely decorated so good job there.

As a side note, I definitely used your crane design from a level you published way back for the nest level I'm working on. It was so good and fit the theme of what I wanted so well. You have a really good eye for visual design.
I think I build my levels backwards compared to most people. I always develop the aesthetic look early on and than build the obstacles around that aesthetic. That's totally the wrong way to do it, but for some reason that's what feels best for me. In the main world I only provided a floor for the first jump because of how short it is, it took up so much space with all the dash pads that the first half only made for 8 jumps, so I figured it would be ok to ramp things up given how short it was. In the subworld I built the level first with the semi-solids on the sides and started to flesh out the jumps and whatnot from there, which meant that arrows weren't an option.

Looking at the clear rate, I definitely should have added coin trails, since arrows don't work on semisolids (please fix that Nintendo) though I wasn't even thinking about it while I was building it, since I thought it was pretty reasonable in terms of difficulty. I guess I will always greatly underestimate my levels' difficulty; I know that I do it but I still consistently underestimate them every time.

I didn't include a checkpoint in the second half because I wanted that whole sequence to flow with no safe platforms to rest on. I wanted to push the player and force them to stay on their toes and dash through the entire section. I tried putting the flag above a dash pad but that sucked for obvious reasons and doing it with warp boxes didn't work without requiring the player to stop and leave which ruined the flow I was going for.

Been a minute but I'm back with another original level. This one took me ages to complete. SMB3 day time forest theme. I took some inspiration from a lot of different levels crafting this one and I'm really happy with the visuals here. In addition I made it very speedrun friendly and even had some Sonic inspiration for route optimization. I went with the theme of an oil rig city. It's pretty traditional and it's not too difficult though I've been a poor judge of lately. Hope yall will play it and give feedback. I present:

Course Name: Pipeworks Oil Rig
Course ID: B7X-TVN-KGF
I'm glad you found a way to use that crane in a much better level than that dumpster fire I made. A very pleasant level to play through.

I think there's a neat idea here but as is it's a little too frustrating. You need to give the player a mushroom a little earlier, before the cross-over section because the cross-over is effectively impossible if Bowser gets there before you do. Maybe that was intentional, but I think it was a little too hard, especially when your other obstacles are spike blocks which have deceptively large hit boxes in MM2. I would also suggest cranking up the autoscroll to the next level, as is I think you spend too much time waiting for the screen to scroll, just jumping in place and I suspect that wouldn't cause issues with Bowser either.


Trying to get back to the game (kinda). So I made a course containing spike balls and bill blasters shooting them. No other enemy or obstacle. Pretty happy with the result. There are also several bonus coins worth different amount of coins (depending of the difficulty reaching them). Can you find all 9 of them?
The last section after the second checkpoint has some nasty high velocity spike balls, who could surprise you. Be aware! Power-ups are sparse and they are not for free. Nor are there any ?-blocks containing them. The clear rate will probably be somewhere between 5 - 10 %, which makes this one of my hardest courses (no problem for Mario veterans tho).

Had some trouble with that last section, but a great level overall

GokouD
Starfall Odyssey was pretty fun, downwards autoscrollers seem like one of the rarest things in Mario Maker, so it was nice seeing a good section. I have to admit I was confused by the Link powerup for a moment before realizing you did it to have the music, if only we didn't need to do weird tricks like that...
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487
I think I build my levels backwards compared to most people. I always develop the aesthetic look early on and than build the obstacles around that aesthetic. That's totally the wrong way to do it, but for some reason that's what feels best for me.

There is no wrong way to make a level. It's the end result that matters, not the route taken to get there.

Looking at the clear rate, I definitely should have added coin trails, since arrows don't work on semisolids (please fix that Nintendo) though I wasn't even thinking about it while I was building it, since I thought it was pretty reasonable in terms of difficulty. I guess I will always greatly underestimate my levels' difficulty; I know that I do it but I still consistently underestimate them every time.

I do think you have a tendency to underestimate your level's difficulty but this is a creator's curse. By the time you're ready to upload you forget how trivial some of the difficult parts of your level are. That's why I personally have no issues adding in excess check points and safety nets. Sometimes it's better to be on the side of caution. I have a few levels with difficulties I plainly didn't intend.

I'm glad you found a way to use that crane in a much better level than that dumpster fire I made. A very pleasant level to play through.

You're too harsh on yourself haha. I never did end up beating that level though.
 

CaptainMatilder

Certified FANatic
Member
May 27, 2018
1,864
Nice to have you back. I saw this come up on my feed just as I checked in on the game today, and while your levels are generally popular enough that I don't ever expect a speed record to hold up for long, at least I don't have to compete with you directly. I tanked your clear rate a bit as I spent many attempts trying to clear this level in a single segment without checkpoints. As you no doubt noticed during your clear checks, due to some of the destruction on the first pass, the level is subtly different depending on whether you're starting from the beginning or from a checkpoint. I'm sure this happens in some of your other levels too, given your usual structure, but it's more noticeable in this level because it affects where certain spike balls stop rolling, or which scroll stop barriers stay up. In some places, when I ran the level all the way from the start, I was surprised to be sniped by a blaster in a spot I believed to be safe.

In the end I wasn't able to do a single-segment run, as I had too much trouble finding a consistent method for the red blaster segment after the last checkpoint. The best I could manage was one death (though I didn't work on this for very long). It's hard to visualize the safety zones there, and there isn't much time to react to anything—though of course you wanted this last part to be a difficulty bump, and it succeeded. It looked like the arrows and coins were trying to signify the intended solution for getting through this safely, but they seemed to have a particular timing in mind and I just never managed to find it. Even small changes in positioning affect how the spike balls interact when they're firing in both directions over the player's head, so the effect is a bit chaotic, and it must have been a pain to test properly. (On one run, it took me a while to break the wall open before the flag, as one particular blaster hadn't been lowered yet as you intended, and the spike balls kept colliding.)

Obviously, I had enough fun to try to speed my way through the whole thing; some of the repetitions and spawn-blocks are quite inventive, and I like how you flag the power-up placements (though I got myself stuck in a spot that I knew was meant to be a power-up for the second pass through the level, just to see what would happen). I haven't done a thorough coin hunt here yet, so I'll even have a reason to come back to this one later. I can probably do better than the time I ended up posting, but at the very least I hope I set the bar high enough to cause other players ample misery if they want to surpass it.

Thank you for the thoroughly feedback! You are right, there is a slight difference playing the course in one go or from a checkpoint. Hitting brick- or hardblocks slow the spike balls down and can change their route. Also, the new spike ball (either from a pipe or a blaster) only spawns, when the old one is destroyed or despawned (left the screen) and since a spike ball eating through a lot of blocks takes longer then a spike ball just rolling through an empty space, the timing and the save zones for the player changes. It is quite interesting.

Ya, the last part is only there to add some chaos. I made it the shortest section (with only four screens) and added a mushroom at the beginning. Playing it myself it made more sense and thought it was doable, but that's of course the creator's curse. Of course, there are two softlocks (that I know of anyway) in my course. Not sure, if I should reupload the course, removing the softlocks and change some small stuff to remove some janky stuff at the end. Probably will tho. Unless there will be a significant amount of plays/likes in the next 24 hours. Which is unlikely given the difficulty.

And you are right. Took a lot of time testing the behaviour of the spike balls. Creating those courses where you revisit older parts of the course in a new way is always a freaking nightmare, haha.

Edit: Reuploaded the course (L1P-B53-MSG). Removed two softlocks, changed the position and frequency of powerups and added a fire flower to the last section to make it more forgiving.
 
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GokouD

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,124
Starfall Odyssey

S2N-LTB-6HG


The section in the video is sandwiched between 2 fast paced platforming sections, similar to my recent level Icefall Peak. I've tried to make the platforms as sparse as possible, to accentuate the effect of the starry background. It has a 5 % clear rate so far, which is a bit harder than I was going for!
 

Graefellsom

Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
1,622
Is there supposed to be a new costume unlock with speedventure of link? 30.849 is my fastest time I seem to be able to do currently. I'm struggling to pull of a couple bits fast enough I guess.
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,063
The latest time attack stage is odd because it has these extra big coins one has to go out of their way for and a secret coin triforce room, none of which is beneficial to investigate when racing against the clock.

Unless the test of skill here is resisting one's urge to nab secrets and treasure instead of pure platforming prowess.
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,063
GlqPyNZ.jpg


After Mario Making tuber Ceave rated the Dash Block a damning one fuzzy out of five, I tried to think of some way to do something novel with it.
So of course because it's me I was immediately thinking "but what about dash panels in THE WATER?!".
Lo and behold I've ended up creating one of those speedrun stages, not because I planned to but because I really couldn't think of much else that would lead to people wanting to swift swim, you can't ignore a speed boost when you're on the clock!
I'm bringing back the Sonic esque fear of drowning in a way here, no wait come back!

Fun fact: I have one other stage based upon "but what if IN WATER?!", that being Link in the drink.
But in a fit of absolute insanity, after noting the forest theme can be flooded there was only one sick and twisted homage to make, TADTONES IN 2D! not sure if it'll ever see the light of day because really outside of reawakening horrible memories of Fetchquest Faron, it's obviously not all that interesting.

---
And my previous stage I originally posted after the update now has a fancy image in an attempt to lure anyone who missed it
CfXAEcg.jpg

In the end "Hot Rocks" lost out to me making a nod to DKCR's Boulder Roller stage.
Hopefully it doesn't make anyone smoulder with generic rage, I also feel dumb that I never once thought of using springs to redirect spike balls when making this stage but at least that means I kept consistent clear pipe theming.
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487


That's most of my run at least.


1) You can use your sword to raise the springs and under instead of jumping over them

2) You have to take the bomb out earlier. It should be out on the second platform with the pirahna plant. Dont hug the wall and jump either. Slows you down.

3) you lose time landing on the green pipe after you kill the 2 pirahna plants. Got to clean that up.

There are more optimizations but these 3 will get you under 30.