Are You A Master Mario Maker 2021 - WE HAVE A WINNER! (pg 68)

I didn't get to spend as much time speed running this rounds levels as last time but there were some really fun ones in the mix!

Just waiting on the final set of votes for this round and then everything will be ready for the results stream tonight!

What time? I’ll try join

Voting Closed!

Join me at 9PM on the GRcade Twitch Channel to find out the results from Round 2! :toot:

Sure its on the GRcade channel

Didn’t even consider when I opened up the partition that it moved sideways. Glad I came last without having a deduction because that would have been more to take

So that's the Round 2 results stream complete, thanks to those everyone who joined in with the chat!

Anyone who missed it you can check out the VoD on the GR Twitch channel now (and I'll make sure it gets over to the YT channel as well for life long posterity! :lol:

For those who just want to hard facts here are the results:

Round 2 Results

Current Standings

Another great set of levels, well done everyone! :toot:

EDIT:

Rubix wrote:Didn’t even consider when I opened up the partition that it moved sideways. Glad I came last without having a deduction because that would have been more to take

Yeah it was an unfortunate situation, like I said on the stream I don't want to be deducting points from anyone as the whole thing is supposed to be a bit of fun!

Im guessing people prefer an easier level, may have to rethink my next level and start over

Rubix wrote:Im guessing people prefer an easier level, may have to rethink my next level and start over

I definitely prefer a level you can complete on your first try relatively easy, but has more routes and difficulty built in for repeated plays. I think Pedz's level was one of my hig rest rated this time as it was dead easy to get to the end of, but going back revealed a really tricky speed play route that was easy to remember, but hard to complete.

There's definitely a consideration to be made around how difficult a level should be, but I'm not convinced that it's as simple as "easy = good". There's a satisfaction to completing a tricky level which you just can't get from something easy, but it has to be hard in the right way.

What "the right way" is will obviously differ from person to person but for me I think that as long as what the level is requiring of me is clear and well communicated then I can enjoy it being mechanically challenging.

EDIT: And yes different routes and fall-back options are always a good idea. Making it easy to retry a challenging part is another key thing, if you need to repeat lots to get back to the hard bit, or have to sit through a load screen when you could have given the player a "non-death" punishment is another thing to consider.

For me the difficulty I hate is insta deaths - I realise insta deaths are part of Mario, but I always find it hard/frustrating when every part of the level is you mess up and you insta die. It's why I often tend to prefer levels with powerups in - it gives you a little bit of leeway rather than dying the second you touch anything.

For what it's worth the horizontal scrolling did influence my ranking and it was something I'm sure any of us could have done! I liked the split path concept and it's a shame that allowing them to be crossed between had that unintended side effect. Otherwise I'd say there were a few too many single-block jumps where wider platforms could have been used, which would make it easier but I think mario just flows better when you have a little more room for error - especially if you already have the threat of rising lava for example. I'd say the same for switch blocks too, placing two side-by-side makes an easier target that's still satisfying to hit. I think that would have made me more keen to try and speed run Rula's level too if you didn't have to be quite so precise with the boomerang to hit some of the switches when throwing it mid-jump.

Difficulty is a very hard thing to judge without seeing other people play a level, I definitely fell victim to making something much harder than I expected in the last competition! I suspect this coming round the levels might tend to more difficult anyway because jumping off bullet bills is probably going to feature a lot, but I think that's probably less avoidable given the theme.

Qikz wrote:For me the difficulty I hate is insta deaths - I realise insta deaths are part of Mario, but I always find it hard/frustrating when every part of the level is you mess up and you insta die. It's why I often tend to prefer levels with powerups in - it gives you a little bit of leeway rather than dying the second you touch anything.

My biggest frustration with insta deaths in Mario Maker is not anything to do with the level design but simply the time-to-respawn and the visual/audio cues of dying. Games like Super Meat Boy or Celeste have very quick respawns so you can throw yourself at tricky platforming and quickly learn through repetition, but in this you have an extended death animation and a final downer jingle reinforcing that you did a bad mario. It ill-suits tricky platforming that is otherwise fun imo.

I think the main mitigation you can do in level design is to ensure there is a checkpoint soon before and after a tricky section. Unfortunately the checkpoint part max limits how much you can do that so you either have to compromise on checkpoint locations or on level length. I recall my Zelda level from the last competition and it not having a checkpoint before the boss because I'd used it already earlier - I think that was the single biggest failure of the level, and the best redesign to that would probably have meant cutting a whole early section of the level so there wasn't too big a gap between checkpoints.

(And of course if you're making a level based on the link powerup then the way powerups work bring their own design problems!)

Thanks for your honesty, like I said above I didn’t even think about it, they both were separate ways up and at the last minute I opened it up so you can nip through to the other side without realising that this now makes the screen move side to side.

Totally my bad and I’ll take that on the chin. It goes back to what Jenuall said yesterday, you start tweeting to much and you can make it worse.

I think I will scrap my current one and start over, it was a speed run with lots of hard jumps but I’ll keep it and release it outside of AYAMMM.

After watching Jenuall play my level again I realise the irony of me saying I hate insta deaths. I forgot that some people might have a lot of issues with cape stuff so my bad!

That's another issue with Mario Maker though - it's perfectly possible to make a level that's pretty straightforward if the player is familiar with the power-ups used, but really hard if they can't quite remember how it works. It's not really a problem with the player or the level then - it's just a consequence of the sheer number of options in the game.

Qikz wrote:After watching Jenuall play my level again I realise the irony of me saying I hate insta deaths. I forgot that some people might have a lot of issues with cape stuff so my bad!

Yours was the only level k couldn't finish due to not really getting how the cape works. I got the part leading up to that down fine, i could fluke the on off switches, but I just couldn't fly up the middle to cross the bridge, especially with the stress of the lava.

Victor Mildew wrote:
Qikz wrote:After watching Jenuall play my level again I realise the irony of me saying I hate insta deaths. I forgot that some people might have a lot of issues with cape stuff so my bad!

Yours was the only level k couldn't finish due to not really getting how the cape works. I got the part leading up to that down fine, i could fluke the on off switches, but I just couldn't fly up the middle to cross the bridge, especially with the stress of the lava.

Like I said on the stream I think your level was actually a really good creation Qikz, it explored the use of the cape power up well within the restrictions set down by the "vertical only" guidelines. Me being a bit gooseberry fool at the cape doesn't invalidate the good design!

Also I think I mentioned that the "one level" setup of Mario Maker means there was not time to re-learn the cape, in a real Mario game that wouldn't have been the players first encounter with the cape so there would have been time to build up their skills to that point.

The only think I think I would have changed would have been some indicator as to where the ON/OFF switches were in the section where you had to hit them - getting all the way to the top and then realising you are off by a block or two was a tad frustrating and some kind of guide below to help the player line up the cape jump might have helped?

I actually had no issues with the cape at all and had more issues with the donut bouncy things

I think that's a key thing in Mario levels, have a tutorial part to learn something you're going to need later.

Have a little run and fly bit to land on an easy platform, then expect a harder version of that bit it later that you're ready for.

Are You A Master Mario Maker 2021 - WE HAVE A WINNER! (pg 68)

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