Super Mario Maker. It's a thing.

And it's a totally powered up thing. Way back in the day, the guys at Nintendo had to draw a bunch of concepts on paper. But you can make Mario courses with the Wii U Gamepad. It's like 1990s Nintendo course designing with a Super Mushroom.

I've been having so much fun with Super Mario Maker. It's basically got two options. One lets you make courses, the other lets you play courses made by others. Pretty straightforward.

This works really nicely, too. I try to make my courses good, which can take a decent amount of hours. Not because the game's interface is bad, but because I want to fine-tune the course's features. My point here, though, is that playing others' creations is a great way to take a break from creating your own courses.

I wasn't extremely hyped about this game from the time I found out about it until I bought it. I wasn't sure that making stuff would feel like a game though.


But I guess I was wrong.


I got a little more interested in it around release, and I am so glad I picked it up. It's definitely a fun game. I suppose it's a reflection of how fun Nintendo employees have when they make Mario games.

And you can pretend you know what you're doing, even pretend to be Miyamoto. But you're probably not gonna make something that good.

The array of tools is pretty big, although I'd certainly like a few more. It's got most of what you'd need for a Mario course, starting with a game type. Your options here are the original Super Mario Bros., SMB3, Mario World, and Mario U.

You also choose a world type, which gives you the options of ground, underground, water, ghost house, airship, or castle. Most of the basic course structure items are there, too, such as different block types, enemies, and various obstacles and other objects.

If you're a fairly hardcore Mario fan, you might have noticed some world types are missing, like forest or snow. And some course objects are missing too, like slopes and many enemies. It's not a huge issue since there is so much you can do, but I'd like to see some DLC with a few more options eventually.

And the online.

The online is there too. They've got a mode called 100 Mario challenge which gives you 100 lives and 8 or 16 user-made courses to play. This is a great way to discover courses and users that make good courses. Unfortunately, most of those courses won't be good enough to want to follow its creator.

But occasionally a gem shows up that feels like it's from an actual Mario game.

That explanation might make it seem like there are a lot of bad courses in comparison with good courses, but...


It's true. Most of the courses aren't that great. But as you discover people who make decent levels, you can follow them to make sure you can find their newest uploads.

People tend to overuse the tools they have available or make super difficult courses. And expect to see a lot of 'do nothing' courses on the popular list, which make Mario automatically get to the finish using moving platforms and other things. They're clever for sure, but when you want to play some Mario platforming, you're not looking for courses using any of the above techniques.

But there are some great courses online as well. It's just kind of hard to find them at this point.


I'm certainly enjoying this game though. And if you are only slightly interested in it, get it. I wasn't extremely excited about it and I've had so much fun already.