Super Mario Maker

is a 2015 side-scrolling platform game and game creation system developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U, released worldwide in September 2015. Players can create, play, and share courses online, free of charge, based on the styles of '' Super Mario Bros.'', ''Super Mario Bros. 3'', ''Super Mario World'', and '' New Super Mario Bros. U''. The game was revealed as the final challenge of Nintendo World Championships 2015.

Upon release, critical reviews praised its user interface and course editing tools. By May 2016, more than seven million courses had been created by players worldwide, which had been played more than 600 million times. was released in December 2016. ''Super Mario Maker 2'' was released for the Nintendo Switch in June 2019. On November 25, 2020, Nintendo formally announced that course upload support would be discontinued on March 31, 2021 and that sale of the game on the Wii U's Nintendo eShop would be discontinued on January 12, 2021. The ''Super Mario Maker'' bookmark portal site was discontinued on January 13, 2021.

Gameplay

''Super Mario Maker'' allows players to create levels in the style of the ''Super Mario'' series, and publish them to the Internet for other players. The courses are based on the gameplay and visual style of '' Super Mario Bros.'', ''Super Mario Bros. 3'', ''Super Mario World'', and '' New Super Mario Bros. U'', which all share the physics of the latter. The gameplay mechanics and enemy behavior vary between game modes. Some elements are limited to specific game styles, and other elements can be merged into other game styles, such as having Boos in ''Super Mario Bros.''

In addition to traditional ''Mario'' elements such as Goombas, warp pipes, and power ups, players can uniquely manipulate the behavior of elements. For example, enemies can be stacked, hazards can emerge from question blocks and warp pipes, shells can be worn as protective helmets, and cannons can emit chosen objects. These new combinations are enabled by editing tools working in tandem. Players can enlarge an enemy with a Super Mushroom, give an enemy a pair of flying wings, combine different attributes, and more. The Soundfrog adds audiovisual effects, though microphone-recorded sounds are removed from uploaded courses. New editing elements are unlocked gradually across nine days of course creation. The Mystery Mushroom, exclusive to the ''Super Mario Bros.'' theme, has the power-up of a Super Mushroom and dresses Mario in one of about 150 costumes. Each of these costumes can be unlocked by playing through the 100 Mario Challenge, by clearing special Event Courses, or by scanning a corresponding Amiibo figurine. The 8-bit Mario figurine adds a Big Mushroom that makes Mario giant while making enemies look like Mario, with hats and mustaches.

After a created course is played to completion, it is then allowed to be published to the online Course World. There, all players can browse and play various user-generated courses, or participate in the 100 Mario Challenge with a set of randomly selected user-created courses with 100 lives. Alternatively, players can play the 10 Mario Challenge, with a selection of pre-made courses and only 10 lives. Players are initially limited in the number of uploadable courses, but by receiving stars from other players, they can earn medals which allow them to upload more courses.

Development

Before developing ''Super Mario Maker'', Nintendo had previously explored the concept of a video game editor in the 1990s. The company filed a patent in 1994, for console hardware allowing players to pause a game, edit parts of the game, resume gameplay, and to save and share the changes. ''Super Mario Maker'' was conceived as a tool for Nintendo's internal development team to make ''Mario'' levels. The team, however, quickly realized the tool's potential as a standalone game and pitched the idea to senior game designer Takashi Tezuka. Meanwhile, Tezuka had been wanting to make a Wii U follow-up to ''Mario Paint'' that utilizes the Wii U GamePad. Upon seeing the ''Super Mario Maker'' tool, Tezuka realized that a course-making tool was more marketable than a mere art program. He noted to ''Polygon'' that building courses is "not as difficult or out of reach as drawing is" but that he "was inspired to bring the fun of ''Mario Paint'' into this course editor". This game is the directorial debut of Yosuke Oshino, who previously worked as a programmer on ''Pikmin'', '' Pikmin 2'', and ''New Super Mario Bros. Wii''. The game's soundtrack was composed and arranged by Koji Kondo, Naoto Kubo, and Asuka Hayazaki.

The game was announced at E3 2014 with the title "''Mario Maker''". Although first revealed officially via Nintendo's E3 Presentation on June 10, rumors of that title began earlier that month after a photo was taken of Nintendo's incomplete trade show booth which prominently featured the title. The game was rebranded as "''Super Mario Maker''" at E3 2015 during the Nintendo World Championships.

Marketing and release

Prior to release, Nintendo allowed customers to play ''Mario Maker'' at Best Buy stores across North America on June 17 and 20, 2015. It was demonstrated with a new name, ''Super Mario Maker'', on June 14, 2015, during the final round of the Nintendo World Championships event preceding E3 2015. The four courses created by Nintendo Treehouse for the Championships are playable in the final game.

Nintendo partnered with Facebook to host a special "hackathon" event. 150 Facebook employees were tasked with constructing courses using ''Super Mario Maker'', and the winning team created a course to be featured in the game on its launch. Several notable video game designers showcased courses they had created, such as Michel Ancel, Koji Igarashi, Tim Rogers, and Derek Yu

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases