DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
With a couple of tweaks, this would also be a fun underwater level.
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Super Mario Maker level design layouts and ideas
- Thread starter UncleSporky
- Start date
With a couple of tweaks, this would also be a fun underwater level.
Simbabbad
Member
If you mean images and not videos, remember you can post screen captures on Miiverse, Facebook, Twitter or tumblr.
Not too fancy is what I was going for. It's just a basic sketch so proportions aren't final until I can actually measure jumps in the game.
That's probably true but I hate water levels so I might not bother with those. Same goes for airship levels, although they're not as bad as underwater levels I guess.
This game seriously can't come out soon enough!
I like this one. So what will happen if I jump on the goomba but fail to reach the platform? Do I have a second chance or another source of extra goombas? maybe a never ending question mark block at the beginning of the level that gives goombas
A solution would be placing a pipe at the start of the level where Goombas come out of it.
I don't really like level designs were X thing is mandatory or highly recommended in order to reach your goal.
Goal always should be available no matter if your using a powerup or if you're small Mario.
Some people do not realise not everyone has the same level of skill so that would kill your level's popularity fairly quickly.
DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
That's probably true but I hate water levels so I might not bother with those. Same goes for airship levels, although they're not as bad as underwater levels I guess.
I actually said that because it reminded me of the layout of someone's recreation of the dam level from the NES Turtles game. Funnily enough, considering your avatar lol.
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
this is what people call out of the box thinking.
and yes this is what makes levels better
Gives me an idea for a Lemmings style level where you use p-switches or invisible blocks to guide a stream of goombas somewhere.
Momentum is a tool when making levels. For pure athletic platforming sections, it is probably good practice to design it so Mario can do it at full speed, while giving less skilled players some margin of error. But at the same time, if you're doing a puzzle section, then limiting how fast Mario can go with the level geometry seems like it would be useful.
So think about what you want Mario to be doing and try to make it fluid to get it done. If you want the player to observe the area, then a vertical climb is good for slowing the pace down. If you want a big action sequence, then encouraging the player to run is a good plan.
But not matter what, momentum encouraging or not, do it on purpose.
Captain_Wreckus
Member
So Jocchan tipped me off to this really cool game map-making program called Tiled.
It will be really nifty for planning out levels on your computer.
Save this tileset I made somewhere on your computer:
It's every object in the game for the SMB1 ground theme minus the giant versions of enemies. I made some of the sprites that are unique to SMM like wiggler and Bowser Jr and borrowed some other from other games.
Open the program. Go to new or file > new to start a new map. Change the tile size setting for both width and height to 16px. The maximum size for a map in SMM is 257x28 tiles, so input those numbers in map size. You can make smaller maps if you want. The starting point of a map is 5 tiles wide and the end point is 12 tiles wide. Submaps can be as big as the main map minus the 17x28 tiles for the start and goal.
Once your map opens you can click on the background color option in the map properties list on the left to change it to whatever you want.
Now click on "map" at the top and click "new tileset". Click browse and open up the Mario Maker tileset from wherever you saved it.
You can now paint tiles onto the map just like in SMM. For sprites bigger than 1 tile you'll have to paint in each of their pieces, but since they snap to the grid it's no hassle. You can click view -> show grid to display the grid to give you a better idea of where it is. The program supports layers, so make multiple layers by just right clicking in the layers box and adding another. Use this to put tiles on top of other tiles.
The stamp tool lets you paint tiles tile by tile. The fill tool lets you fill an entire space with your selected tile. Use rectangular select to select a space to fill or to select a set of tiles you want to copy and paste.
That tileset should suffice for all planning needs. All of those objects have an equivalen in the other themes, so just use your imagination if you want to make a castle or underwater level with this.
When you are done with your map you can save it as an image like this:
(I cropped the rest of the map off)
Enjoy!
Thank you very much for this. Saved me 50 bucks buying a stylus to make levels on my iPad.
TheMoon
Member
No.
Doors don't lead to sublevels. Only pipes do. And all pipes are warp pipes as soon as you drag Mario into. Just watch someone edit a level in one of the numerous videos.
Aw, a pity. I know there's one Super Mario Bros 3 level that uses doors quite evilly with a sublevel. But I suppose a Warp Pipe will do if it has to. And of course the way to make a pipe into a Warp Pipe is to drag Mario into it. Makes sense.
CharminUltra
Member
Great idea for a thread! Sub'd. I already have a few ideas jotted down; I might share them later.
Game Maker's Toolkit: Analysing Mario to Master Super Mario Maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0c5Le1vGp4
Really interesting video that ends with a level he made in Mario Maker.
Really interesting video that ends with a level he made in Mario Maker.
Cool level.Been playing around a little bit and ended up with part 1 of a SMW cave style level. Not sure where to go from here besides deeper and enemy placement isn't final.
Just some things:
The piranha plants you used are only for inside pipes. If you place a piranha plant outside a pipe they appear in the middle of the tile.
The background platforms always have the solid roof. You cannot drop into them from above. AFAIK they are a minimum of 3x3 tiles but you can stack them to do visual stuff.
There are a lot of levels in SMB3 that use doors that way, but none of them are big enough to require a sublevel. You're most likely talking about 8-fortress:
This is 8-fortress in Super Mario Maker:
No sublevels needed
However you cannot make this level exactly for the following reasons:
-8-fort has 14 sets of doors. You can only place 4 sets of doors per level and sublevel (8 sets total).
-There are no doors that only appear when a p-switch is active.
Stormwatch
Member
I like the analysis followed by application of common Mario level gimmicks. I really want to play that level.
Cow Mengde
Banned
Super Mario Maker just revealed the sick side of humanity. I like it.
Yeah that's the one. It does need a sublevel, though, the pits on the top level would just dump Mario on the ceiling of the lower one. This does actually make me wonder, does the game lock in the scrolling height of the stage somehow? Like if there isn't anything in the top half, the screen won't scroll up?
Still, for the level ideas I have, Warp Pipes will work. I'm mostly going to use the sublevel for bonus areas initially, anyway. Can't go wrong with a pipe leading to 20-ish coins and a shortcut, after all. That's classic Mario. (Even if I'm going to use the Giana Sisters layout for the bonus stages.)
CharminUltra
Member
I don't know if this can be done with the current tool set, but...
A scrolling, labyrinthine level comprised entirely of pipes and doors. Choose wisely (and in a timely manner) or else you're toast.
Yes, I won't win any stars, but I'll definitely have my laughs.
A scrolling, labyrinthine level comprised entirely of pipes and doors. Choose wisely (and in a timely manner) or else you're toast.
Yes, I won't win any stars, but I'll definitely have my laughs.
There are only 2 pits in the top level and they are completely unnecessary as they aren't even hazards. You can put spikes down there if you want.
Yes. The screen doesn't start to scroll until you hit the area between top and bottom, but I think it depends on the style used. This is actually a common trick in Mario games with more than one screen of height. Previous games had variations on it, too. SMW had screens that would only scroll up if you used the cape and NSMB had levels that would only scroll up if you used lakitu's cloud.
someone managed to recreate every level of SMW in Super Mario Maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzMFHlIGVeA
CharminUltra
Member
someone managed to recreate every level of SMW in Super Mario Maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzMFHlIGVeA
someone managed to recreate every level of SMW in Super Mario Maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzMFHlIGVeA
Heh. c:
But then, thank god for sublevels by using the pipes because I would assume they made this level with the longest level size available and boy, that was short as hell...
Aren't there also no boomers in SMM?
Here is SMM's max level size compared to the 1-1's of the Mario games the styles come from.
http://i.imgur.com/cDuK6r7.jpg
Right, but you can just replace him with Bowser Jr.
evilromero
Member
Does Bowser's SNES design in SMM bug anyone else? Why didn't they use his design from the actual SMW? Granted he's mostly in the clown copter but he looks so much cooler in that game. There's even the full-body shot of him falling out after he's defeated. The redesign looks strange to me, almost like a fan's attempt at a 16-bit Bowser.
Banjotanooki
Member
Agreed. Doesn't match World's Bowser whatsoever.:
At least they could have given him a full body in that same sprite form:
evilromero
Member
Agreed. Doesn't match World's Bowser whatsoever.:
At least they could have given him a full body in that same sprite form:
That looks ten times better and much closer to the amazing illustrations of the character back then in games like Mario Kart.
Chezzymann
Member
That went on for way too long. Is there any way to determine how many hits a boss can take?
Tathanen
Get Inside Her!
This is really great.
[Edit] I'm assuming it went so long just cause it was Super Size Bowser. Could speed it up with faster "ammo" distribution or normal-sized Bowser I reckon.
TheMoon
Member
Still no.
This was a really good video. I'm going to try to remember a lot of this.
Haha, I didn't realise that.
Yeah,the piranha plants and background textures are only there for effect. I'll make final descissions once I have the SMW palette available in the full game.
I recommend many to watch this. The tight focus on a fixed gimmick and keeping enemy types to a small handful seems to the common finding those who have bothered to analyse Mario levels have found. But like he said, the toolset in Mario Maker is really going to cause you to think outside the box to come up with original gimmicks.
If people haven't I recommend checking out Super Luigi U. That's a great example for short challenging levels that focus on one gimmick.
Great video. I liked his earlier 4-part level analysis and once I have a general idea of a level I will try to build it in a way to ease the player into the mechanic.
I also generally try to not have too many different enemies in one level and try to unly implement things that would make sense in that environment.
For example, I wouldn't use Bullet Bills in my cave level but spike traps are fine since they can replicate stalagmites and stalagtites for example.
It's really fun to build upon an idea and realize it in a coherent stage. I'm so pumped for this game, it's getting weird. Not sure what the last game was that I was this hyped about. Probably Destiny.
Agreed. Doesn't match World's Bowser whatsoever.:
At least they could have given him a full body in that same sprite form:
While I agree completely, I assume the issue is to do with Bowser's size. Mario 1 and 3's Bowsers are much smaller than World and NSMB's Bowser's. With NSMB they can just seamlessly scale down the character model, but with World they had to just make an entirely new sprite, and I suppose it made more sense to them to make it look more like modern Bowser.
But see, that makes no sense at all, to me. Everything else basically has been done to fit the aesthetic of that style, or match existing sprites from that game. Why not match Bowser to the existing sprite?
Absolutely agreed.
The Dutch Slayer
Member
GameXplain live in a few with an hour of MM
https://gaming.youtube.com/gamexplain/live
[edit] NEW LINK
https://gaming.youtube.com/gamexplain/live
[edit] NEW LINK
That was very interesting.
I'll probably do something like that too, it's a great way to "learn" how to level design.
Is there a way to watch it now that it ended?
The Dutch Slayer
Member
I'm going to approach my first few levels by creating an interesting new world "theme" and sticking to that, something doable with the initial set of tools, and play around with the different level themes in doing so.
Meanwhile, once I've gone 9 days of practice:
"TOY LAND" (Super Mario Bros. 3 style), with 4 levels:
1. "Music Box" (ground/cave - lots of mushrooms and note blocks),
2. "Play Pool" (sky/water - make your way past giant enemies in a big swimming pools),
3. "Fear Factory" (ghost house - Metroid/maze-like with conveyor belts, Kuribo's stiletti and Boos),
4. "Toy Train" (castle/airship - designed like a moving toy train, with a clown copter section)
Main enemies: koopa troopas, chain chomps, wigglers, magikoopas
Meanwhile, once I've gone 9 days of practice:
"TOY LAND" (Super Mario Bros. 3 style), with 4 levels:
1. "Music Box" (ground/cave - lots of mushrooms and note blocks),
2. "Play Pool" (sky/water - make your way past giant enemies in a big swimming pools),
3. "Fear Factory" (ghost house - Metroid/maze-like with conveyor belts, Kuribo's stiletti and Boos),
4. "Toy Train" (castle/airship - designed like a moving toy train, with a clown copter section)
Main enemies: koopa troopas, chain chomps, wigglers, magikoopas
You all remember the escort mission in Earthworm Jim and hitting the dog around over gaps and all that, right? Now you can relive this in Mario Maker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGLnacPPLeo
I bring it up because I remember there were people in this thread talking about escort mission levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGLnacPPLeo
I bring it up because I remember there were people in this thread talking about escort mission levels.