Super Mario Maker 2 came out just a few days ago.
This game lets you try your hand at level design, by giving you the tools to make your
own Mario stages.
And then you can upload your courses to the web, and see what randos online think of your
design skills.
The game gives you all the tools you need to make auto-scrolling levels, boss battles,
crazy puzzles, silly jokes, and more.
But when you first open “make mode”, you’re almost certainly going to be asking yourself
the question: “uhh, where do I even begin?”
So I thought I’d put together a tutorial that can help you get your first level made
and published.
And it should hopefully be a legitimately good, Mario-style level, and not just your
name written in coins, a bunch of pipes that shower you with cash, or twenty eight goombas
on a seesaw.
And then, once you’ve cleared that hurdle and made your first stage, you’ll have a
better understanding of what works and what doesn’t, you’ll know more tricks you can
employ, you’ll have tried most of the game’s tools, and you’ll be well on your way to
making an amazing stage, getting hired by Nintendo, and looking for apartments in Kyoto
by the end of the week.
Sound good? Then let’s get started.
Step One. Choose a main mechanic.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in Mario Maker 2, is to just fill your level
with every single object in the tool box.
You know, put a giant spike column here, throw in a few bumpers there, mix in a couple see
saws, and finish off with a gauntlet of Banzai bills.
These levels are often completely unfocused and, critically, they don’t have enough
time to introduce each idea or explore it to its full extent.
So instead, look through the toolbox and find just one mechanic that you can use as your
central theme for the stage.
Perhaps it’s a note block.
Or a trampoline.
Or on/off switches.
Or the snake block.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t use any other items in your level: it just gives us
a strong foundation to build on.
For this stage I’m making, I’m going to check out these swinging claws.
They look like fun.
Step Two. Consider every evolution.
The next step is to think about how this one mechanic could be made more interesting or difficult.
So the most basic way to present this swinging claw is to have one in the middle of a large
gap: and then have Mario jump into the claw, swing over, and jump out to the other side.
But perhaps we could have multiple claws in the gap.
Maybe at different heights.
Perhaps put a platform to jump over in the middle of them.
Or a floating enemy. And so on.
We’re trying to find ways of saying “okay, so you know how to deal with this mechanic:
but how do you fare when I do this?”
Some twists will be boring, some will be way too hard.
So make these different permutations in a test bed yourself, and find out which ones
provide the best experience.
Step Three. Introduce the mechanic.
Okay, so let’s get building the actual level.
The first step should always be to introduce the mechanic to the
player in a safe and controlled manner.
So while the stage will generally involve swinging over perilous, insta-death, bottomless
pits - for the very first instance of these claws, we’re going to give Mario the chance
to fall onto safe ground, and try again.
But it’s important to make sure that the player can’t just cheat their way across.
They have to prove that they’ve used and understood the mechanic before they can move on.
So I’m going raise the wall, and raise the claw, to force Mario into the claw’s grip.
Step Four. Ramp up the challenge.
Remember those evolutions we explored earlier?
It’s now time to bring them in.
Or, at least, the four or five best ones.
So after mastering the mechanic in its most basic form, the player will now have to
contend with all sorts of extra challenges, twists, and complexities.
Ideally, the mechanics should ramp up in challenge quite smoothly, with a gentle difficulty curve.
It’s not always possible to get a perfect hierarchy of challenge in these things, but
something that definitely makes things harder is when the obstacle extends beyond the camera.
This means the player can’t get a good look at what’s to come and plan their movement:
and instead has to play reactively to whatever dangers crop up.
Leave those for the end of this section.
Oh, and make sure you give the player time to rest.
Don’t just jump from one challenge to another, but create moments of downtime.
This provides moments to take a rest, and gives the level a modulated pace of tension
and release that is way more fun to play than just constant non-stop action.
Step Five. Find combinatorial mechanics.
Okay, so now the level has a main mechanic and it ramps up neatly.
Sweet. That’s the first half sorted.
Chuck down a checkpoint, and let’s move on.
Now, the goal is to find other parts in the toolbox that combine well with your primary mechanic.
With the swinging claw, I found that you can put it on one of these tracks.
And from there, you can have the tracks fork off into two lines - which is controlled by
an on/off switch.
You can also have the claw drop off the end of a track, and then automatically latch onto
a track that runs below.
Swinging claws can also hold things other than Mario, such as trampolines, enemies,
and exploding bombs.
Perhaps you could chuck a bomb into the claw and have it blow through a wall, so Mario
can make progress.
What happens if a bullet bill fires into a claw?
Hm, interesting.
This is all about experimentation and playing around.
Just like how Jonathan Blow made levels for Braid by playing around with the game’s
basic ruleset and hunting for interesting consequences, you too are trying to find surprising
outcomes of combining Mario Maker’s parts.
Step Six. Create the second half.
So now the player has shown that they have mastered the basic mechanic, we can use these
combinatorial set-ups to make the second half of the stage even more interesting.
The process is largely the same: we want to start by giving the player a chance to explore
this idea in a safe environment.
And then ramp up in complexity throughout the stage.
So I’m gonna start with the claw on a simple track.
But then have multiple tracks at different heights.
And introduce ideas from there.
Sometimes an idea just won’t come together.
I had this mad plan to have it so a claw picked up a bob-omb, and then you have to hit the
on/off switch at the right time to make the claw fall down to the track below and carry
the bob-omb to a wall so it can blow a hole through.
But with the timing, the camera, the way the claw drops stuff when Mario is underneath
- it just didn’t quite work.
Don’t be afraid to kill your best ideas if they’re being uncooperative.
Or change them substantially.
The end goal is often a good chance to make one final test.
Most of the Mario Maker game styles have a flagpole, or similar, which rewards the player
with more points if they touch the top.
So you can make a really difficult final platforming puzzle to get to the top and reward your best
players: while those who can’t hit those highs can just touch the bottom of the goal.
Another idea worth considering, is to go back to the first half of the level and drop in
small clues and hints of what’s to come.
It makes the latter half feel more cohesive to the level as a whole, and can also be used
to avoid surprises.
So in the first half, I introduce the on/off block, which should help players know what
to do when they come across the same block at the end of the level.
Step Seven. Add in enemies and items.
A Mario level is never just an endless gauntlet of platforming mechanics.
There are also enemy encounters, which can be used to ramp up complexity, or provide
a change of pace.
But, as with everything in game design: less is more.
Sprinkle in a few enemies, rather than filling the screen with bullet bills and goombas and
bob-ombs.
And don’t forget items, like coins and 1-up mushrooms, which can be used to show players
the way to go.
Items are a good way to reward the most skilled, or reckless players.
Make getting from the start to the finish a relatively easy-going experience: but then
add in extra coins and pick-ups in areas that require more skill to reach.
Step Eight. Playtest and bugfix
Don’t wait until your level is available to the world online, to get your stage in
front of people.
You know your level inside and out: you’ve been working on it for hours, after all, and
you know every single pixel, like the back of your hand.
But someone who plays the stage for the very first time could easily be confused, lost,
or find the stage way too demanding.
So get your friends, your mum, your brother, and their friends to try your stage first.
Watch what they do, ask them for their feedback, and make changes to your stage.
You can also playtest your own level by purposefully trying to break the game.
If you can bypass a lot of your challenges and ignore all of your hard-work, then you
might need to add in some extra parts to block access.
Here are three things you always need to check:
First: Make sure that Mario can’t simply sail over your obstacles entirely, with his
utterly massive jump.
You might need to stretch out gaps and add in blocks and slopes to stop this from happening.
Second: While you, as a Mario expert, probably always run at full speed through your levels
- many newbie players won’t.
So make sure your stage can be completed at Mario’s normal speed, by forcing yourself
to play through your stage without touching the run button at all.
Third: What happens if you don’t get something right first time?
Imagine a jump like this, where you bounce on a Koopa to clear a gap.
That’s cool if you make the gap, but what if you don’t and end up killing the Koopa?
The level is now impossible to finish.
That’s just bad design.
There are some easy ways to fix this, though, such as having enemies, p-blocks, trampolines,
and so on, infinitely pop out of pipes.
Or just using indestructible stage elements like, in this case, a note block.
Step Nine. Do your research
Now you’re in a level-making mood, this is the perfect time to boot up your favourite
Mario games and play through some stages.
You’ll no longer just be a passive player: but you’ll be actively looking for level-making
tips and strategies.
So look at how Nintendo introduces, evolves, and twists its ideas across each level.
Consider the placement of enemies and items.
Look at how it paces each stage with moments of action, and moments of rest.
There’s no need to stop at Mario, mind you.
As I’ve shown on Game Maker’s Toolkit, there’s plenty to learn from games like
Mega Man and Rayman, and games I’ve yet to cover like Celeste and Shovel Knight.
Mario will be the most useful because Mario Maker, obviously, has the same mechanics and
player physics, but good level design is good level design, and is almost always universally
applicable.
So replay these games with a more analytical eye, and see if theres anything you can learn
to make your own course even better.
Step Ten. Start again
Okay, so now you’ve made your first stage you’re ready to try new things.
You could repeat this tutorial with a different mechanic, or flex your creative muscles and
see what else you can produce.
Perhaps you want to be more like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and explore multiple
mechanics throughout your stage.
Perhaps you want to try the weirdo twists you get when you enter night mode, toy with
the water levels in the forest and castle theme, or change the clear condition.
Or maybe you want to build a level around a thematic concept, or a Mario skill, rather
than strictly around a mechanic.
It’s all up to you, now - but hopefully these basic tips will prove useful no matter
what you make.
Introducing mechanics, proper pacing, adding surprising twists, and rewarding skill - these
are all things that every good level design will include.
So, make some cool stuff and leave your level codes in the comments below.
I’ll play as many stages as I can next week - on July 10th at 7PM BST, on a livestream
here on YouTube.
You guys and gals can help me out by playing levels in the comments and giving a thumbs
up to the ones you like best.
Thanks for watching and happy building!