Mario: Yahoo! The Mario universe has a long history of being an incredible franchise. But among all the kart racers, party games, and football tournaments, my personal favorites have always been the classic 2D platformers. Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3, Super Mario World, and so many other of these classic games hold top spots on my favorite games of all time. So when Nintendo sent me a free copy of Super Mario Maker, I was super excited to really be able to dive into this game. I mean, being able to create your own Mario courses and share them with the world? It's a dream come true for gamers like me! And after creating numerous courses, and having a blast playing other user's levels, I decided to really look into how this game came to be. And noticed that there were a whole lot that changed since its announcement in 2014. And the more I researched, the more I found. Which led to the creation of this video. So on this episode of Beta64, I'm gonna talk about the development of Super Mario Maker. [Super Mario Maker Main Theme Plays] Super Mario Maker began as an idea long before the game's announcement. In fact, Shigeru Miyamoto mentioned an interest in creating a game that allowed users to create Mario courses since 2009, though he likely considered the idea much earlier than that. Custom Mario courses have actually been around for many years, likely starting with Auto Mario in 2007. [Music plays, with Japanese vocals, with Mario sounds playing alongside it] But an official Super Mario Bros course designer had yet to have been made by Nintendo. As you can likely tell, Super Mario Maker has a lot of similarities with Mario Paint, released on the SNES in 1992. And with the release of the Wii U, and its new gamepad controller, Takashi Tezuka thought it'd be a perfect console to run a followup of Mario Paint. At the same time as this, Nintendo was also developing an internal tool for the Mario development team, to make it easier to actually create Mario levels. And after a while, they noticed the incredible potential this tool could hold as a full game. So they pitched it to Tezuka, who found the course building game would be a lot more marketable than a drawing tool. And, inspired by the idea of a Mario Paint followup, he decided to combine the aesthetic style of Mario Paint with the course designing tool that the team had made. And at E3 2014, Nintendo revealed the combination as "Mario Maker." The E3 2014 video announcement for Mario Maker shows many differences from the final game. First off, the logo for Mario Maker resembles the Mario Paint logo more than the final does. And once you jump into the game, you'll notice that the art style in this version is much more of a recreation of the original Mario Bros, than it is a direct port. Notice that almost all of the blocks have gradient colors, and the background has a blocky look to it. The coins emit sparkles when they're collected, and are also gradients. And the trampoline looks completely different than what they used for the final game. The hills in this theme are also more saturated, as well. Also, when destroying an enemy after reaching the goal post, the enemy actually explodes in the demo, instead of just popping away. None of this is in the original Super Mario Bros. game for the NES. And neither is it in the final Super Mario Maker. Instead, they chose to make it more of a direct port in the final version, keeping with the original art style of the NES. Another thing; When the level is completed in the video, it shows an interesting ending: [A male voice says "Congratulations!" while clapping sounds play] , instead of the final version's simple "Course Clear!" screen. While this ending is playing, the timer also doesn't stop to give the player points for the time remaining, like in the final game. And speaking of time, though the text "TIME" shown in the demo is accurate with the original NES game, the final version of Super Mario Maker actually uses a clock icon, instead of the actual word. Now, let's move on to the course maker area, or, at least, one of them. There are actually at least 2 different versions of the course maker, in the E3 2014 announcement video. So let's start with this one, which I call the "Eye Maker", because this version has an eye icon in place of the Mario button, which is used to see the player's position during a playthrough. There's also a lot more differences, when compared to the final version. First, there's a hand tool and an eraser tool in the E3 demo. In the final game, there is only an eraser icon, that takes you into eraser mode. You don't have to select the hand to leave eraser mode in the final game. Instead, you just tap the eraser icon again. Another thing: the hand. In the final game, though the hand does make an appearance, the one in the E3 demo is a lot more pixelated. In fact, most icons in this E3 build are more pixelated than what's shown in the final game. Especially the Undo-Dog. Starting from the bottom, there's a trash can icon used instead of a spaceship, which erases an entire level in the final game. Also, the clapperboard looks a bit different, and the scroller in the bottom uses a castle icon, instead of a "G" to symbolize the end of the course. There is also no "S" showing the start of the level. The slider is blue instead of gray, as well. Also, assuming that this is the start of the level, there is no arrow sign that is automatically put at the start of the course, like in the final game. Now, let's move our gaze to the top of the screen. The first thing you'll notice is the object selector slots. They look completely different from the final game. Though the icons are more or less the same, with the gradient style included. Except for the trampoline, which we saw before, went through a complete overhaul before the final release. The ground blocks are also in blocks of 4, instead of by itself. And has an outline around it, when placing the object. There's a new block as well, which carries a mushroom. So instead of placing an object into a question mark block, it looks like there would have been a specific block for each item. You'll also notice that there's no Save Bot, or menu, to go to different modes. This is because they hadn't added it in yet, not because they weren't planning to. There's also no selector to pick another tray of objects, either. And there's no way to set the level scroll speed or time limit. And speaking of time limit, every level in this video has a time limit set to 999, which is impossible in the final game, as it only goes up to 500 there. There's also no option to select the stage type, or place a sound effect. The icons used for showing the direction of a moving platform are different too, as it's a yellow circle instead of a square. The last thing I'll mention is the theme selector, which uses a blind string instead of a dropdown menu. During this time in the development, the demo only had the Super Mario Bros, and New Super Mario Bros. U themes. We already talked about the different looks of the Super Mario Bros. theme, so let's look at the New Super Mario Bros. U theme. In this video, you may notice that Mario and all the ememies seem... off. That's because they're all 2D pre-rendered sprites, and not 3D models. Now that's actually not that big of a deal, because believe it or not, the final game also uses pre-rendered sprites. But what makes this build look different? Well, first off, there's no transitions between animations. Which is actually very noticeable when Mario reaches the goal. And it also seems that the framerate of these animations is lacking compared to the final game. But luckily, before release, the development team cleaned everything up, and thank goodness, because honestly, this build looked really bad. Also, one last small thing is this text for earning points, which is pink in the E3 version, instead of white in the final game. Now let's go back to Course Maker. Here, we're going to view the second version, and compare it to the first one we saw. This version here has the same object and theme selector as the last version, as well as the same clapper board, Undodog, and trash can. But the hand and eraser icons have been changed slightly. The hand actually rotates back and forth, and the eraser button is a bit less pronounced, compared to the Eye Maker version. And speaking of eye, this icon is replaced with the same Mario icon that appears in the final game. Also, this second maker version still has the castle icon for the end of the level, but it now has an S for the start, and the line connecting them now has tick marks in it. In fact, it actually has a lot more tick marks than the final version has. There are also some differences that both versions of the E3 course maker share. One is that when you choose the size of a pipe, they're completely outlined in the E3 demo, but not in the final game. Also, when placing or selecting an object in the demo, a voice says what the object is. (Music, with a voice saying "Trampoline" twice, which has been distorted to fit the music's pitch and tempo) But in the final version, a voice only says what the object is when it's placed. (Music, with a voice saying "Pipe", which has been distorted to fit the music's pitch and tempo) Now, you may think that we're almost done, but actually, there are tons of other changes that we haven't even mentioned yet. First, in the demo, the coins are brighter, the blocks and Goombas are darker, there are no trees, and the icon for having a mushroom in a block is completely different because, well, it's a different block that's not in the final game. Not only that, the moving platforms are thinner in the demo, and the icons for the direction of the movement is completely different, too. Also, while the icons for non-placeable objects are grayed out in both versions, the demo actually uses an extra sign, to show that the object can't be placed, until some other course objects are removed. There are a few smaller changes, too. Like Mario, who's actually slightly shorter in the E3 demo, when compared to the final game. Very slightly. See here on the top of his head? There's a small blank space in-between him and the dark line in the demo, but not in the final game. But if that's not enough evidence for you, check out his feet. The final game covers the entire bright spot on the top of the block, while in the E3 demo, his feet only reach halfway. So not only is he roughly a pixel or two shorter on the top, he's also a few pixels shorter on the bottom. Also, moving platforms are placed in the center of a block on the grid, while in the final game, they're placed on the edge. This is why it's impossible to place a Goomba in the middle of a platform in the final game, like is shown in the E3 demo. It also seems that the shadows in the final version are actually more pronounced, compared to the demo, but the final shadows are less opaque, and thusly more see-through than the shadows in the demo. It also seems like it's possible in the demo to make a split in the ground, an impossible task in the final game, as the ground automatically merges together. At this point in the video, the theme flips to the New Super Mario Bros. U side, so let's compare the differences again. First off, the animation when flipping a theme is different. In the demo, the objects actually flip, and the background just switches over, while the final game does this cool little blocky peel-away animation, and tells you what the theme is on the top-left. The New Super Mario Bros. U theme also doesn't have any flowers or bushes added in. Some new changes in this version include brighter coins and blocks, bigger and brighter moving platforms, smaller and darker Goombas, as well as different looking breakable blocks. Some icons in the object selector are changed, too. The icons for ground, Koopa Troopas, and Hammer Bros, as well as Piranha Plants, are all noticeably different, while the sprites for moving platforms, question blocks, and trampolines were changed slightly in one way or another. The last difference I saw was of Mario. His starting pose was definitely changed between E3 and the final game. The last difference that's shown in the E3 2014 announcement video is the weird mushroom, which actually has an interesting story of it's own. The idea for this item came from a weird glitch that happened during development. Takashi Tezuka said in an interview that there was a bug in the game that caused Super Mario to become skinny. While this glitch was fixed, the team thought it'd be a cool idea to add this into the game, and thusly, the weird mushroom was born! But it did change. In the final game, the mushroom causes Mario to look completely different, and have the abilities of Luigi. But the E3 demo would instead cause Super Mario to become skinny, like the original bug it was based off of. Between E3 2014 and '15, a trailer for Mario Maker was shown at the 2014 game awards. Most of the changes in this seen in the course maker, so let's check out the differences, and I'll try to be brief. First, on the top of the screen, the object selector is now split into three slots of four, and there's an arrow pointing down, so now there are more objects to choose from. There's also some sort of an "X" thing on the side that's replaced with the number in the final game. And the object selector's color is red which is an impossible color to choose in the final game. The icon for semi-solid platforms and mushrooms are also slightly different. In this build, there's an option to switch between the final 4 themes, and types of courses now, though the selector IS different compared to the final game. The time changer now also makes an appearance in this build, though it's font is definitely thinner. The hand and other editor icons look more cartoony than pixelated in this build too, which brings the Undodog's icon to it's final look The slider on the bottom now uses the letters "S" and "G" like the final game, but has a much harsher shadow, and also no ticks. The clapper board is still a bit different from the final version too. There's also a grabber icon at the start of the level, used to raise the platform, but the final game uses a simple dot to accomplish the same thing. In this trailer, we also get our first glimpse at the Super Mario Bros 3 theme. Some changes here are different starting arrow sign, different ground icon, different colored fire flower, and a slightly brighter Koopa and trampoline. Next is the Super Mario World theme which has a changed ground icon as well as a slightly thicker semi-solid platform icon. The sign is also missing board lines that are visible in the final game. In New Super Mario Bros. U, the arrow sign is a bit different too, and these icons are a little more zoomed in that it should be. Whew, that's a lot of changes. But now lets move on to E3 2015, which we actually attended and got to play this build of Super Mario Maker. Sadly there aren't nearly as many things to discuss in this last build of the game. In fact, the only place that we really saw a bit of change, besides the missing Coursebot, was the Course World. First, the buttons are stretched more in the final game compared to the E3 2015 build. Also, the text in the buttons are all capitalized in the final. The most interesting difference has to be Mario's nose. Which looks completely different between the two versions. Also when going into courses, the E3 2015 build has only one arrow with box around it instead of two arrows to go back in the final game. The spaceships are in a different order too. The button to download a level in this build says "Save" instead of "Download" like in the final game. And the background is a bit different too. One last thing is the icons next to the categories, or rather, the lack of them. What's really interesting is that while the icons aren't in the E3 2015 trailer, They are in the build that we played at E3 2015. Now before we move on, this screenshot I found on IGN of Super Mario Maker, around the time of E3 2015, shows the word "Menu" on top of the menu icon. This is not in the final game or in the E3 2015 trailer. So it must be from a different build of the game. Bet ya didn't think they'red be that many changes of Super Mario Maker, but we haven't talked about unused stuff yet. Most of these happen to be unused graphics, except for a line of text that refers to the game under the codename "Block." Alright, lets get started with these two placeholder images for courses. Which would have likely used like this for testing purposes. There's also an image entitled image.jpg, which shows Nikki who originated with Swapnote Nikki is actually an unlockable costume for Mario in Super Mario Maker. But, that's really the only connection she has with this game. Because of it's generic file name, it was likely just used as an test image during development. These next few sprites were originally to be used when the player grabs a big Mushroom, thanks to the 30th Anniversary Mario amiibo. This first sprite is of an early underground Goomba, that's been changed to look like Mario. Not only does it have a different mustache, but it's also not wearing a hat, like in the final version. Plus, Goombas aren't even recolored when underground, anyways. So apparently, not only does this show us an early Mario Goomba, but it also tells us that Goombas would've originally been recolored if underground. The next sprite is of an unused Luigi cannonball. You can see what the final version looks like in this footage here. This version is not only facing a different direction, but it's also in a completely different pose. These two sprites for Bowser and Bowser Jr. are carrying Peach and Luigi on their backs. While the final Mario versions of these sprites do carry Peach and Luigi, the Bowsers also wear a hat and a mustache too which is missing in these sprites. The last unused Big Mushroom altered sprite is of the Clown Car Which actually gives it a completely different Mario look This unused sprite is actually a lot more impressive than the final version. Which simply adds a mustache. Near these unused Clown Car sprites is a completely unused object called a Big Steely. Which was first seen in the original Super Mario World for the SNES, but later appeared in other games like Super Mario 64. Also, right next to this sprite is a teardrop. I don't know what it was meant for or why it's right next to this sprite, but it is, so I thought I'd mention it. Some other cut things in Super Mario Maker include the Angry Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3 which was discovered by NWPlayer123 NW also found that you can originally place Bullet Bills without a launcher, and even use Kuribo's Shoes in New Super Mario Bros. U The strangest unused graphics in Super Mario Maker have to be these mountains of unused Splatoon icons. Why these icons are in Super Mario Maker is unknown, but it seems that perhaps they run on similar builds. These icons include tons of early weapons, and even more early gear. Many of these look quite different from the final version of Splatoon. But here are just a few comparisons. There's even a place holder icon for Splatoon weapons like Bomb Chasers, now Seekers, All Markings, called today Echo Locators, and King Squids, now known as the Kraken. The last removed stuff I want to talk about are the Mario Costumes which are listed in the file CharaMarioTable.byaml Within all these used costumes are 13 that were never seen in the final game. These include Baby Mario, Balloon Fighter, E.Gadd, Golden Retri likely the Golden Retriever from Nintendogs, Mashiko, otherwise known as Mary O. from the manual guide, MarioUS from Super Mario Bros. USA, also known as Super Mario Bros. 2, Mr. Saturn, Muncher, Nabbit, Pink Rabbit from the Japan exclusive Collectible Badge Center, Popo from Ice Climbers, Tetris, and WindowsLogo. Though none of these costumes have graphics in the game associated with them, some still have their sound effects. Take a listen. This list was removed from the game after the 1.01 update. So it's unknown if we'll ever see these costumes again, even as DLC. So that's the beta of Super Mario Maker. Though many of these changes that we saw were cosmetic, the amount of differences in this game is truly staggering. These changes though were really for the best. And in the end, Super Mario Maker has become an incredibly polished game that is loads of fun to play. So this has been Beta64 with the beta of Super Mario Maker. Thanks for watching.
