Hey
Gotdatmoney and
QuixoticNeutral! Thanks a lot for taking the time to check out some of the levels I posted and for your thoughts and feedback (long jumps will work). I just watched Quixotics videos and it was cool to see you take your time and not sprint to the goal and move on. :)
Glad you enjoyed it. I know how frustrating it can be for traditional-style makers to make tons of secrets and alternate routes that go completely ignored, since the incentive systems in Mario Maker are all about the clear, so I try to be a little bit more thorough when it's clear that an easy-going level was set up as a place to be explored or replayed.
I picked up this game on Monday during the Mar10 Sale. I'm loving it so far. I've already made 3 courses there all pretty traditional platforming, but I tried to pick interesting themes and limit my use of object/enemy types. If you give these a try and have any feedback, I'd love to hear it.
Sudden Valley Construction Inc. - [201-04M-QMG]
This desert is littered with cranes and shoddy construction projects, so be wary of falling platforms and the union-busting bullet bills. For the final boss, demolish the HQ building and reach the goal!
Chomper's Forest - [833-HCS-KRG]
Make your way through the forest to collect the 5 red coins guarded by the big Chain Chomp. Then jump down the tower and quickly make your escape!
Thanks again for hanging out for so long the other night. You've already seen me play everything, but as I said, this is a strong start that will resonate with the play style of a lot of the regulars here. The longevity of SMM is all about finding the right like-minded people/communities to sustain each other's interest.
I realized afterwards, when going over the video to check something, that I forgot to answer your question about the Z-shaped tracks. So in Mario Maker, mostly due to the influence of super-accurate Super Expert levels in the first game, you'll often come across notation that is meant to spell out to the player what to do and how to do it. I honestly think these are overused in levels where they don't belong, as they are mainly useful to make blind runs possible in speedy levels where you don't have much time to process what's in front of you before you fall and die. But if you play a lot of Mario Maker, you'll come across this a lot, so you might as well use it.
- Z means spin jump (since it's now bound to the shoulder buttons, rather than A like it was in SMW; I think it's called Z largely because of Smash on the GameCube controller, where Z was where the R button is now). It's there to remind people that a spin-jump-only obstacle (a low ceiling, the top of a Thwomp, etc.) is directly ahead.
- A square that is open on one side (like a C or U) means "throw object from this spot in the direction of the opening" (e.g. throw right or up, respectively).
- An empty square usually designates an invisible block. (Then what's the point of making it invisible, you might wonder? Well, this is often a workaround for when the spot needs to start out empty for the level to work, like letting the player or an object fall through, but the creator wants the player to know that a block will be there on the way back up.)
- Now that yellow P-blocks in the game, you'll also see empty P-blocks, which look like yellow targeting reticules, designate spots where you are supposed to jump, like spots in mid-air that would be hard to determine for yourself (e.g. when bouncing off a rapidly moving target). In older levels you would see this done with coins, but doing this with P-blocks has come into fashion recently because they don't disappear when you touch them.
You typically won't see these indicators in traditional levels; they're rather ugly and "un-Nintendo", and again, they exist for compact speed runs or Kaizo-style levels where you have no time to rest—levels that are all about execution rather than figuring out what to do on your own. However, some traditional makers like to put in the Z anyway as a sort of tutorial/reminder for beginners to use the spin jump, in case the player doesn't really know how things work in SMW/NSMBU and doesn't remember that it's safe to bounce over certain enemies like Thwomps and Piranha Plants. I personally don't prefer this, but I can see why makers do it if their aim is to keep their clear rates high and reach a larger audience.
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I can send you a lot of other recommendations as you're getting started. Since you're clearly interested in taking advantage of mix-and-match object interactions and moving parts: one resource I find absolutely indispensable is the
Common Contraptions guide (Google Docs). This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on common setups (like switch activation mechanisms) and other things in the editor that are undocumented or not obvious, and is basically an inexhaustible list of things to play around with in the editor. If you're unclear about the rules of a specific interaction or object behaviour, chances are, it's been tested here.
For something in video form that is a little more compact, one of the best starter packs is Tobias Bergdorf's
Item Breakdown series on YouTube. These are featurettes of a few minutes in length that just explore the rules/interactions of a single item at a time and offer a few ideas, and should be much less overwhelming to newer makers who are still in the "play around with everything" phase of discovering the game.
This is a ton of information to absorb, and after hundreds of hours I'm learning new things or consulting references like these all the time myself. But if you're diving into the deep end anyway, you might as well get a sense of how deep it goes.
discordapp.com
