Mario Maker

[evildevil97]

I find it absolutely hilarious how every time Nintendo talks about the release date, the new commercial included, it's worded as "the 11th of September". Can't give us bad memories...

[Kreegs]

I find it absolutely hilarious how every time Nintendo talks about the release date, the new commercial included, it's worded as "the 11th of September". Can't give us bad memories...

It does mean that someone at Nintendo Marketing was on top of it though.

[The Shoemaker]

I find it absolutely hilarious how every time Nintendo talks about the release date, the new commercial included, it's worded as "the 11th of September". Can't give us bad memories...

I remember at E3 someone mentioned this to a Nintendo representative. I believe I remember them saying they chose the date because it landed on a Friday like the rest of their releases. They essentially said that people shouldn't be afraid of the date and that it was important to show that we can carry on our daily lives on that day. It is good that they keep phrasing it the way they do though, whenever I hear "the 11th of September" I never think of 9/11. :p

[The Shoemaker]

This one is kind of neat, using the clown car and fire flower together to make a shooting mechanic. I also like that they were able to add the boss battle music at the end by using continuous sound effect blocks.

[The Shoemaker]

One last video for today. This one goes over how many of each item you can put in one level. Generally it's 2000 blocks of any type, 100 power ups and 100 enemies, and 10 Warp pipes. You can put an infinite number of power ups in blocks, so technically you can have 2100 power ups. You can put enemies in blocks too, but I'm not sure if they count towards the 100 limit. So you can possibly have 2100 enemies, but I'm thinking it's 100. Also, you can have 1 sub world, which acts as a whole new level, so in one whole level you can have 4000 blocks, 4200 power ups and either 200 or 4200 enemies.

[Kong Wen]

I just heard a terrible thing about this game.

It doesn't have slopes.

WTF? Did they think it would be too hard for people to implement? Sliding is a core mechanic in SMB3 & SMW. Since the skins are interchangeable on the fly, maybe they didn't want to include slopes because they weren't a mechanic in the original SMB?

Some people believe that slopes are in the game, and Nintendo simply hasn't shown them in any marketing material or video over the past several months. Some people are hoping they'll release slopes as DLC (which I find just as laughable as the fact that they're not included in the first place).

Others are pointing to this as a sign that Nintendo isn't anticipating that Maker will be used as much for legit stage design as it will be for novelty levels and automated gimmick levels. This is possible, considering that's pretty much what has dominated their advertising (stages with hundreds of Bowsers, power-ups clouding the screen, coins pouring out of every block, etc.). Those stages are fun to watch in YouTube highlights, but they won't form a backbone of community playable levels, which is ultimately what'll be needed to keep this game alive.

[Sharecrow]

I just heard a terrible thing about this game.

It doesn't have slopes.

WTF? Did they think it would be too hard for people to implement? Sliding is a core mechanic in SMB3 & SMW. Since the skins are interchangeable on the fly, maybe they didn't want to include slopes because they weren't a mechanic in the original SMB?

Some people believe that slopes are in the game, and Nintendo simply hasn't shown them in any marketing material or video over the past several months. Some people are hoping they'll release slopes as DLC (which I find just as laughable as the fact that they're not included in the first place).

Others are pointing to this as a sign that Nintendo isn't anticipating that Maker will be used as much for legit stage design as it will be for novelty levels and automated gimmick levels. This is possible, considering that's pretty much what has dominated their advertising (stages with hundreds of Bowsers, power-ups clouding the screen, coins pouring out of every block, etc.). Those stages are fun to watch in YouTube highlights, but they won't form a backbone of community playable levels, which is ultimately what'll be needed to keep this game alive.

Wow - that's a pretty egregious omission. A dedicated level builder with an awful lot of time on his or her hands may be able to fake some by creating hundreds of gradually vertically adjusted separate floors, but why would they put you in a position where you need to do that? If that's true, that would make this a truly broken and incomplete product in my opinion. It'd be like making Doom levels without doors. Some functionality is still there, but it really is a core change to how the levels can be built and how the game works.

[The Shoemaker]

Wow - that's a pretty egregious omission. A dedicated level builder with an awful lot of time on his or her hands may be able to fake some by creating hundreds of gradually vertically adjusted separate floors, but why would they put you in a position where you need to do that? If that's true, that would make this a truly broken and incomplete product in my opinion. It'd be like making Doom levels without doors. Some functionality is still there, but it really is a core change to how the levels can be built and how the game works.

I personally don't really see slopes as a huge omission. We've know for a while now that there are no slopes, and in my mind they add two things. 1. sliding mechanic 2. cleaner aesthetics for levels. I don't think slopes will make or break the game.

While I think slopes would be an odd DLC choice, I do think Nintendo will offer DLC in this game. I see it being similar to Splatoon, releasing a couple packs of tools periodically to keep people interested in the game. It goes along with what they're doing with the game as well - considering it takes 9 days to go through all the content. I think it would be free as well, because putting a price on tools seems almost artificial. You wouldn't be buying them so much for yourself, but to use them in levels for others.

I also don't think Nintendo is hoping for the community to make a bunch of gimmick based levels. I think it just makes for better advertising to show the stuff that has never been done in a Mario game before, rather than showing well designed levels.

[Kong Wen]

I personally don't really see slopes as a huge omission.

From a design standpoint, they are huge. They add significant flexibility for the designer to add flow and mobility without using jumps (side-benefit: allowing the designer to control when jumping is and is not appropriate). Sliding is also a huge tool in the designer's toolbox because it allows several new modes of directing enemies/obstacles towards the player, and gives players options for how to approach certain obstacles (sliding to eliminate enemies).

It's honestly so important a feature that I'm seriously boggling about what the rationale for omitting them could be. They're just tiles. Could it be that they couldn't translate the sliding mechanic somehow?

Aesthetics are at the bottom of the list of reasons omitting slopes is a terrible choice.

I think it just makes for better advertising to show the stuff that has never been done in a Mario game before, rather than showing well designed levels.

Partly that, and probably partly because maybe 1% of the people who buy the game will actually be able to create "well-designed" levels.

[The Shoemaker]

I agree slopes are great, I don't agree that their omission will hinder the game significantly. Just another one of those features that could expand the game and it's a shame it's not in. I'm not sure what it was, were slopes just too weird on a grid plane? At the very least I'm surprised there's no diagonal blocks, slopes could look sloppy if you have to draw them yourself, but straight diagonal slopes would work fine and would be very similar to SMB3.