I bought a Wii U because I have a then-6 year old son and I wanted him to enjoy playing games with me that didn't involve shooting other people full of holes.<p>My fondest memories of my childhood aren't playing Contra or Street Fighter, but games like Chip N' Dale and Duck Tales.<p>The Wii U's game category has been much slower than others, but I feel like every single game Nintendo proper releases is pure gold, and there's plenty of 3rd-party games that have seen hundreds of hours of family gameplay (Rayman Legends).<p>Anyways, I hope this release brings about a new generation of Really Hard Mario levels!
So much potential in this - a few years ago myself and a bunch of friends were obsessed with ROM hacks for Super Mario World for the SNES; some of them were just really well-designed levels, and some of them were absolute hell, basically requiring the use of an emulator to save states and rewind. It created a completely different feel of game, and the simple and consistent physics of a Mario game was the perfect limitation for weird and strange things to happen.<p>Here's a video of one of one of the difficult levels: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teAqRZX4hbY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teAqRZX4hbY</a>
This could be enough to push me over the edge and buy a Wii U. It is very cool that Nintendo have embraced user made content, after being so against it for what seems like forever.<p>edit: a couple of replies made me realize that I was off the mark slightly with my comment. I should have focused on how their attempts to support user made content have seemed to run into their legal department's over the top desire to "defend" their character IP.
For those who are thinking about picking up a Wii U, Nintendo is selling refurbished consoles for $200. For all the reports I have read, they are basically brand new systems (in appearance).<p><a href="https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/us/po/browse/productDetailColorSizePicker.jsp?categoryNav=true&navAction=jump&navCount=0&atg.multisite.remap=false&productId=prod150200&categoryId=cat140077" rel="nofollow">https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/us/po/browse/productDetailCol...</a>
This is a hardly a new idea but nice to see it applied to a famous franchise like Mario.<p>Little Big Planet is 2D platformer released in 2008 whose maps were designed built in house through their own level editor. They provided a (Stephen Fry narrated, dear lord) interactive tutorial and a complete system to share levels and play with your friends.<p>There _were_ some performance issues with some of the more complicated levels and the PS3's limited RAM maintaining a big ole physics engine.<p>But since this is just Mario, level complexity shouldn't be a problem. Still, I don't know if Mario provides enough variety to remain interesting for years.<p>THEN AGAIN - there is a kid born every day who's never played a Mario game before, maybe things should stay simple.
I'm kind of interested in the last screenshot (<a href="http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-maker/screenshot7.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-maker/scr...</a>).<p>Is that just post production, or do they actually allow the editor to define a set of moves and abstract over time, a la Brett Victor?
There has been an unofficial tool for editing Super Mario World levels available for many years now.<p><a href="http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/Lunar_Magic" rel="nofollow">http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/Lunar_Magic</a><p>I wonder how Mario Maker will compare in functionality and ease of use.
Darn, it's only available for WiiU. I feel like most hardcore level makers would work from PC. Obviously, that's not really their target but would have been cool to have it on PC.
If you have an iPad, PixelPress Floors is a great option - <a href="http://projectpixelpress.com/floors/" rel="nofollow">http://projectpixelpress.com/floors/</a>
I'd love for them to toss in a music maker like Gameboy Camera's Trippy H or Mario Paint Composer. To create original compositions using Nintendo's sound palette would really complete the experience.<p>Lovers of the series and fans of the genre can agree that a side scroller's music makes the whole game's flow fit together. An avant garde remix of Mario's theme would be the perfect accompaniment to some of the experimental levels people will create.
I wonder if you can put a spring thing that allows you to jump over the pole. This is kinda amazing, you can even update the graphics. I'm guessing 30 dollars and a download
Hopefully they add additional options (yoshi, invisible blocks, fire flowers, etc.) otherwise I will probably pass. It does seem like an early build though, so that's a good sign that they will.
I read about this awhile ago and I didn't think it sounded all that fun. But looking at the pictures, it actually looks like it could be really cool. I'm definitely going to get this.
Sonic had debug mode 20 years ago:
<a href="http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Debug_Mode" rel="nofollow">http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Debug_Mode</a>
Okay but how long will it take before you get bored with this? Somehow I can't imagine this to hold anybody's attention for longer than 5 minutes.