In the beginning there was chaos. When the first Mario Maker got released hundreds
of thousands of people got their hands onto the game for the first time, at the same time,
and together we started to build up the gigantic online level pool that super mario maker has
today. The only problem, very few people had an idea
back than on how to build a good stage. The quality of the average mario maker level
during the first couple of weeks was horrible. And now, now mario maker 2 is just around
the corner, the level pool is empty once again, and we all get a second chance to do better
this time! So, as preparation for the upcoming sequel,
we are going to take a look today at how to design a good mario level. We will take a closer look at how the stages
in traditional mario games are structured, we will try to replicate this structure by
building our own small stage, and we will discuss tons of different facets of mario
levels. So are you ready? Let’s do this! Okay so first things first. There is no universally truth to making good
levels. There is not just one way to design a level
so that it is worth a players time, and to further complicate everything there are many
different types of levels, that require different designs in order to work. A puzzle level is fundamentally different
from a metroidvania level or a speedrun challenge stage. So this video is only going to focus on traditional
mario levels, but even if we only talk about traditional stages, there are several ways
to design them, and none of them is the “right” approach. So don’t think about the stuff we are going
to talk about today as some sort of only way to design traditional stages, but more like
one way to look at it, something to keep in mind while building a level. Okay, so most traditional Mario levels consist
of several parts. Each stage has a setting, it has a beginning,
it has an end, it has a main element and supporting elements, it features secrets, it has a certain
difficulty, platforming challenges, and between those it has a lot of breathing room. So let’s talk about all those different
elements, and how to put them to good use. First let’s talk about the setting. That one is quickly explained, each stage
features a certain coherent setting in which the level takes place. Sometimes it’s flying airships, sometimes
it’s a dark cave in the desert, sometimes a lava filled castle, or huge mushrooms in
the sky. Just a simple theme that sets the mood, ties
everything together, gives the level a unique feel, and helps not to make it feel random. That’s something we should always try to
do when building a mario maker level. An example for such a theme would be an overgrown
castle ruin, or underground ice pyramids, or maybe a stage where mario has to platform
on top of crazy monty mole driven tanks. So that’s about as complicated as mario
levels get, but there are other platformer games, where the different levels not only
have a different setting, but each level actually tells a small story. Tropical freeze for example features the famous
example of the ice factory, through which our brave kongs have to platform, while the
evil level constantly produces ice cream in a fun, but scientifically questionable way. One way to think about those stories that
a level itself tells is to think about them like sentences. Like a normal non story setting for a stage
can be described with only a couple of words: a flooded cave, an overrun airship, a frozen
mine, and so on, while a setting that tells a small story requires a complete sentence
to describe. For example, Mario has to find three keys
to unlock the entrance to an ancient vault, where not only unbelievable riches await him,
but also a terrible turtle. Such a level would have a progression in it’s
setting. First, it’s, finding the vault, then searching
for the keys to enter it and finally fighting off the terrible guardian, inside the treasure
room. Another example for a small stage that progresses
in its setting would be: Mario has to destroy a factory where Bowser creates terrible super
goombas. In such a level mario could first have to
enter the factory, then he finds out what’s going on inside, next he searches for a way
to destroy the place and finally he has to make a quick escape while the whole stage
collapses. It’s generally a good idea to start by thinking
about a setting for a stage, because once the setting is clear it becomes much easier
to make a lot of other decisions. For our small example stage we will go with
the simple theme of a burning castle. Basically a traditional castle stage, but
everything is themed around fire. Next we have to decide onto which elements
we want to use in our stage. So generally speaking classic mario levels
often feature one main element, and a couple of supporting elements. Those are used to build the actual platforming
challenges in the stage. This stage for example uses those stone eye
thingies, which are called stone eyes, as its main element, meaning that most of the
levels challenges are built around stone eyes. And then there are a couple of other supporting
elements that work well together with the main element of the stage. Here for example Waddlewigs, koopas, goombas,
piranha plants and sand fountains. That’s it, there aren’t more elements
in the level, only those six pieces are used to design the whole stage. Most traditional mario levels work like this,
here for example the main element are moving mushroom platforms with hungry piranha plants
on top of them, and only goombas are used to support this idea and this stage uses wigglers
in poisonous swamp water as its main element, with swinging mushroom platforms and koopas
to support it. So if we want to make a traditional mario
stage, it’s a good idea to decide which main and supporting elements we want to use
before we put down a single brick block. Focusing on only a couple of elements is a
good idea for several reasons. It helps us to stay focused while building
the level, it allows us to properly introduce all ideas, it reduces noise in the level and
makes it easier readable, and finally limiting ourselves to only a couple of core ideas often
helps not to get overwhelmed by all the possibilities in mario maker, and helps us to actually find
out about all the amazing things possible by just mixing together a couple of elements. So let’s talk about possible main elements. Those could be basically everything, it could
be a single huge platform that carries mario through the entire stage, it could be bullet
blasters that periodically try to crush mario, goombas that carry cannons, simply moving
platforms, drivable monty mole tanks, or anything else we can come up with. So once we got a main element we need to decide
for a couple of supporting elements. So picking those is actually kinda tricky. It doesn’t really matter what the main element
of a stage is. Anything we want to work with works, but once
we decided for a main element picking the right supporting elements becomes really important. The thing is, the supporting elements have
to do a couple of jobs in the stage. First: we need them to bring variety to the
challenges, second we need them to build our secrets, we need them to design small fun
moments during breathing sections, if we want to include small puzzles in our stage, then
they have to allow us to do that as well, and they have to fit thematically to our setting
and our main elements. Picking the correct supporting items really
depends on what we are trying to do with our setting and our main element. So for our burning castle level, we are going
with simple ordinary vertically moving platforms as the main element of the stage. We are going to use tracks on the side of
the platforms to make their movement easier to read, and that’s it. A super simple main element. Since those don’t fit our theme of a burning
castle very well, we will use bullet bills that shoot hot lava bubbles, jet engines and
standard lava bubbles to support our setting. In case you are unsure of what supporting
element to pick, Koopas always work because koopas are awesome! Their whole design is basically set up to
support everything going on in traditional mario stages! Give them wings and they can intercept each
and every platforming challenge, put some coins, bricks or enemies somewhere together
with a koopa and we have created a fun little moment, force mario to throw a shell at a
hard to reach spot and we have created a small optional challenge, we can use their shells
for puzzles, or just put them on the ground as a small additional challenge. Koopas are really great at supporting basically
everything, which is probably why nintendo uses them so often in the mainline mario games. Okay, We got our main element, we know how
to support it, what’s next? Well, next let’s talk about how to build
the beginning of a level. We need to introduce at least our main element
here. So, it’s probably not necessary to create
a huge area dedicated to introducing the gameplay mechanic of platforms, since, well it’s
fair to assume that someone playing mario maker is familiar with how the main items
work. If we have a bit of an unusual main element
however, like maybe a mole car, it’s definitely a good idea to build a small safe area at
the beginning where everyone is able to learn how it controls. Here’s an example of how NSMBU introduces
it’s elements. So this stage is built around only 3 elements. The main challenge here are the swinging platforms,
which are supported by lava bubbles and dry bones. The dry bones and the swinging platforms are
introduced right at the beginning of the stage. The swinging platform just safely swings above
safe ground, and features a question block with the stage’s power up for mario. The dry bone comes directly afterwards. This little dead skeleton koopa is placed
in such a way that it is almost impossible to run into it by accident. This dry bone isn’t meant to teach the player
how dry bones work, that happened one castle earlier, this dry bone is just here to tell
mario to expect more dry bones in the stage. It’s basically a walking sign post, saying
this stage features dead skeleton turtles. And finally the lava bubbles are introduced
here. Those bubbles are actually placed so far down,
that they can’t possible hit mario. Their job is once again only to indicate to
mario that later in the stage there will be lava bubbles that will actually try to murder
him. Generally speaking it’s just good practice
to show the player everything they’ll have to survive once, before it’s actually used
against them, just so that they know what to expect. So here’s the introduction area for our
small demonstration level. Here we have blasters at the bottom that can
never reach our plumber, but tell him that the blasters in this stage are going to fire
fireballs, here is a moving platform in a safe environment, up there are the burners,
not only informing mario about their presence in the stage, but also featuring a small optional
challenge, for more skilled players. And here we have a lava-bubble just jumping
up and down in the wall, so everyone knows to expect more of them later. Hm … you know what, this are is getting
a bit noisy, and hard to read since we are introducing so much at once here, let’s
introduce the bubbles a bit later instead. Hooray! Alright so we have our setting, our elements,
everything is introduced: Next it’s time to build the actual challenges! So first things first, this may sound a bit
counter intuitive, but the actual main platforming challenges only make out a quarter to half
of the stage in a traditional mario level, the rest is breathing room. Let’s quickly go over the fuzzy clifftop
stage to show this. So this stage is built around fuzzies on tracks,
and those expanding block thingies. First the stage introduces both elements,
this fuzzy just travels over our heads to his final destination. Then there is a very short breathing section
followed by the first mandatory challenge of the level. After this challenge we have quite some time
to breathe, before we are confronted with the second challenge. Once again it’s platforming on platforms
while dodging objectively perfect fuzzies, and then it’s time for the checkpoint. Next we have a short relaxing section on one
of those rotating wheels, followed by a short breather, the easiest challenge in the stage,
and another long breather. And then there is the final mandatory platforming
challenge. If we take a look at how this level was structured
then we should immediately see something interesting. So first, there are only four mandatory main
platforming challenges in the stage, two before, and two after the checkpoint. In between those challenges there is always
breathing room, that features different things, from small fun moments, to secrets, to optional
challenges. If we add the introduction and the end of
the stage, then the mandatory challenges only make up for a little less than half of the
stage. The rest of the level isn’t dedicated to
straight platforming challenges. So this level was in the sixth world, meaning
it was closer to the end of the game. Earlier levels often only feature 2 mandatory
platforming challenges, while the rest of the stage is dedicated to other things. That’s one of the main things people sometimes
disregard when they build a traditional mario stage although it is one of the defining traits
of mario, which differentiates mario from other platformer games. Very, very few platformer games focus as strong
on the downtime in between challenges as Mario does. So when we try to design a traditional stage,
we should try to design at least half of the stage as breathing room. But what should these breathing areas contain? Well that’s where we put our secrets, puzzles,
fun moments, exploration areas and optional challenges. Let’s take a closer look at how the fuzzy
clifftop designs those. First there is this small area, where we can
platform to, that features a yum yum apple for yoshi and a couple of coins. There is the optional challenge to reach the
star coin, there is a fun moment where we throw a koopa shell towards a couple of coins,
there is this optional challenge, where we can freeze this beautiful fuzzy, and take
a ride to collect a couple of coins. After the checkpoint there is this pipe, which
is easy to miss, and can only be reached comfortably if we haven’t lost yoshi so far. This pipe takes us to a new optional challenge. The whole wheel thing part is incredibly easy
if we just make our way through, butthe part is directly behind the checkpoint. So if we respawn and want to grab a new growth
accelerating mushroom, then it provides a good small optional challenge, since it’s
really easy to lose this mushroom to the bottomless pit. As a side-note that’s something almost all
mario stages do. Instead of directly handing out a new power
up after a death, it’s always tied to a small mini challenge, where the new mushroom
needs to be earned. The next section has this hard optional challenge
built in, where we need to jump off this fuzzy in order to reach a one up. This part here is both, an optional challenge
and a fun moment. The challenge here is to reach the spot with
yoshi, and the fun moment is that we can swallow an ice ball, and freeze all the piranhas at
the top, which makes them drop onto their siblings at the bottom and opens up the path,
and finally there is a hidden area, close to the exit pipe. Hooray! Let’s try to build similar breathing areas
and optional challenges for our small example level. Here for example we can simply add a hard
to reach question block with a one up mushroom, for a bit of optional difficulty. This is what the mushroom regaining post checkpoint
setup could look like. It’s easy to accidentally throw this poor
little mushroom into the lethal hot liquid here, and while we are at it, why not use
this to hide a small little secret area at the top as well. Here we use a camera position detector, to
trigger a pow block and to shower mario with tons of disgusting coins as soon as he finds
this evil little secret room. This is what a small optional challenge somewhere
in the level could look like. Here the reward would be a helpful fire flower. Here we have another small optional challenge,
here mario has to race fast to reach this delicious one up mushroom, before it falls
into a fire trap and becomes unreachable. Finally, we could add a small section like
this one somewhere. Here a p-switch gets triggered offscreen as
soon as mario enters this area, which allows him to collect tons of nasty coins, and to
climb upwards, where he is able to devour a delicious one up mushroom, provided he is
fast enough to reach it before the timer runs out, and all the coins disappear again. Alright so now we have tons of breathing areas
in our level. Finally let’s talk about the actual challenging
parts in between. So first, it’s generally a good idea to
vary these challenges, and to try to mix the elements we use in the level in such a way
that they always pose a slightly different challenge to mario. And second and much more difficult to achieve,
we have to get the difficulty right. So generally speaking it’s a good idea to
think about how difficult we want the stage to be, before we design it, and then try to
end up building the stage around exactly this difficulty. The problem is, it’s extremely difficult,
to build a stage around a certain level of difficulty. The best way to judge how difficult a level
turned out to be, is the clear-rate. Meaning the percentage of how many deaths
it took someone on average to beat the level. If we are aiming to emulate about the same
difficulty of a mid to late game mario stage, then we should probably shoot for a clear-rate
somewhere between 30 to 12 percent. That would mean that on average it takes a
player 3 to 8 lives to beat the stage once. Higher skilled players probably lose less
lives, lesser skilled players more, but on average something between 3 and 8 lives. I’m totally guessing here, but I’d say
that sounds about right for an official mario level. So how do we make sure that we end up with
a level with a clear-rate between 30 to 12 percent. Well to be honest, there is pretty much no
way to ensure this beforehand. The best way would be to grab a couple of
people of different skill levels and have them play the level, in other words playtesting
it before releasing it, so that we actually are able to see how people who didn’t design
the stage play it, how often and where they die, and to then adapt all the areas that
ended up being too difficult. If you have access to a couple of people that
are willing to playtest a level for you, definitely do that! But most people probably won’t be able to
do proper playtesting with many different people before uploading a level, and then
it just kind of comes down to experience. The best way to approach this, is by designing
a stage with a goal of a specific clear-rate, and if the level ended up having a much lower
clear-rate as we shot for, then to hop into the death analysis mode, and to find out where
we judged the difficulty wrongly. And then we learn from it for the next time. Think about it more like a challenge, like
is it possible to build a mario maker level that has an exact clear-rate of 20.0%? One thing to keep in mind when trying to reach
a certain clear rate, is that we basically always judge our course to be easier than
it actually is. That’s for two reasons. First we already know the level when we play
it for the very first time, since we put everything there, while a new player has no idea about
the level layout, and second it’s really easy to underestimate how much we gradually
master our own stage, while playtesting it. Whenever we put a couple of new elements down,
we platform past them a couple of times, which means when the level is finished and we actually
start to upload it, we probably have beaten most parts of the stage already dozens of
times individually, which makes the level appear way easier to us than it actually is. So when in doubt I’d always recommend to
reduce the difficulty, when going for a traditional stage. Also there are those really strange moments
when building a stage, no idea how to describe them, like when we put down a new challenge,
and then we playtest it and we die over and over again, until it suddenly clicks, and
from then on we never die again at this part of our own stage? No idea if you guys know what I mean, but
if you know what I mean, those sections basically always end up being too hard. That’s when we simply got a challenge burned
into our muscle memory, and such parts basically always end up being frustrating to newcomers. Actually now that I come to think about it,
we actually had such a part earlier, when we took a look at the optional fire flower
challenge. The three jet engines here are set up in a
horrible way, that will probably lead to a lot of frustration, that’s something we
should probably make a bit easier. Okay so finally how does a traditional mario
stage end? Usually with two things, first an echo of
the main element of the stage. The same way the main element gets introduced
at the beginning of a level it gets a goodbye at the end. Usually in a safe environment, not as a challenge,
but as a reminder of all the challenges that the player mastered up until this point. And second there is usually a small optional
challenge to hit the top of the flagpole. Alright so now we hopefully have a stage,
that features a setting, main elements, supporting elements, challenges built around a specific
difficulty, lots of breathing room, filled with fun little distractions, a beginning
and an end. Ladies and gentlemen we have created a unique
and hopefully playable level! Hooray. There is just one final thing left to do for
us, and that is to playtest the stage. So it’s a good idea to play the level at
least three times before we finally upload it. Once normally just to take a look that everything
works as intended, once we should speedrun through, mainly to find out if there are small
annoyances for speedrunners in our stage. We actually have an example for this in the
beginning area of our fire castle. This platform cycles in such a way, that it
blocks the path forward when running fast. There is no reason for the platform not to
start traveling into the other direction first, which makes the beginning a lot more satisfying
to speedrun through. When speedrunning through the stage we are
basically looking for tiny improvements like that, stuff that makes the level more enjoyable
when played fast. And finally and most annoyingly, it’s a
good idea to try to beat our stage again, without pressing the run button. The reason for this is simply to get a playthrough
of the stage without all the muscle memory we built up while testing, which should help
us to find hiccups in the difficulty. And then we upload the stage and hopefully
earn a lot of hoorays, and very few boos! Hooray! Okay, so before we end this little video just
one more thing for all you discord users out there. Everyone's favorite crow, psycrow went through
the trouble of setting up a beautiful little Mario Maker 2 discord server. The server is focused around building crazy
contraptions, theorycrafting amazing mario maker tech, flaming hammer bros, discovering
glitches and talking about things in general that have the potential to make marios live
a living hell. There are a lot of legendary mario maker creators
in the channel, and it’s a really cool place to discuss all the weirder mechanics in Mario
Maker. So for anyone who is interested in joining
a server that focuses on tearing apart mario maker 2 as soon as it gets released, there
is a link to the server in the description. And with that being said, thanks for watching
this little video, I hope you enjoyed it, if you enjoyed it don’t forget to leave
me a thumbs up, and maybe you feel especially well designed today, and want to hit the subscribe
button as well. I hope that all of you have a wonderful day,
and to see you soon. Goodbye!
Incredibly interesting video, even if you don't play Mario Maker (Like me). As he also goes in detail about the level design of traditional 2d Mario games.
Good to see Ceave here, all his videos are pretty entertaining if you’re into gaming challenges.