SUPER MARIO MAKER
THE BEST CASE FOR USER-GENERATED CONTENT IN GAMES, BUT ALSO THE WEIRDEST.
Super Mario Maker was arguably the best video game ever made before it even released. As a mere concept it’s the greatest game ever made. Picture this: eleven giant Goombas emerging from a green pipe right above Mario’s spawn point. A giant trapped Bowser harried by hundreds of self-bouncing trampolines. A level that’s just one thwomp suspended over an eerie abyss. Luigi suffers a midlife crisis, related by golden coins. This is Mario Maker: it’s ten years of Nintendo fever dreams brought to life. Miyamoto would never pull these moves, but in
Mario Maker everyone is doing it. With a built-in level maker, thousands of players are uploading thousands of stupid Mario courses every day, and while few of them are actually good – and maybe only a small handful actually brilliant – the mere fact of them existing is its own reward, because
Mario Maker feels like an alternate reality. In which crazy parallel world would the traditionally protective Nintendo allow this to happen? In which spectral universe would Miyamoto let you play as a Goomba? Welcome to Mario Maker, the weirdest game on the planet.
Level design is a simple drag and drop affair, and it’s relatively easy to create and playtest your courses on the fly. You start with upload slots, and gaining stars unlocks more. At the time of writing, gaining stars (done so when someone signals they’ve enjoyed your course) is very di cult: the economy is weighted in favour of early adopters and, weirdly, autorun levels where you don’t actually ‘play’ at all, and making a dent in the already crowded scene is tough.
Still, just playing with other people’s abominable experiments is fun enough, because even poor level design can’t ruin the simple joy of Mario’s movement, or the cheerfulness of the entire enterprise. And there are loads of great levels out there — ranging in difficulty and craziness — but you’ll need to do some searching to end them. And the search is the funnest part of Mario Maker — it’s like sifting through the wreckage of a generation’s misspent youth.