Super Mario Maker directors share tips to improve your levels

Game Informer recently caught up with Super Mario Maker director Yosuke Oshino and senior director Yoshikazu Yamashita. While speaking with the site, the two developers shared tips to help players improve their levels.

One of the first tips from Oshino and Yamashita is to play through a bunch of courses:

“I’d advise you to play through a lot of courses. Play the 10-Mario Challenge and Course World, and if you find a course you like (I’d recommend a shorter one first), save it and try messing around with it. As you learn how the courses you like were made, and how they can be changed to make them better (or worse), I think you’ll gradually build up a toolbox of ideas on how to build courses.” – Yamashita

“It might also be a good idea to look at what kind of courses people are making with the 10-Mario Challenge, or to go on Course World and check out the world rankings to see how people on there make their courses and get all those favorites.” – Oshino

Oshino also discussed the importance of keeping your target audience in mind:

“I think it’s important that you think about who you want playing your course, and how you want him or her to play it. Think about a course length they’d prefer, and what kinds of enemies or course elements they’d like. I also think people like courses which have that, ‘Let’s try that one more time,’ element to them without being unfair, no matter if they’re easy or difficult.” – Oshino

Also from Oshino, experimenting with different combinations is encouraged:

“[W]hen you combine multiple parts together, you’ll suddenly open up a great deal more opportunities. I found a new way to combine parts myself just the other day. I think players might just invent new ways to combine parts that not even we thought of, too.” – Oshino

“I like the ‘generational change’ of putting Bowser on the back of a large Bowser Jr. (i.e., when you combine Bowser Jr. with a Mushroom), or taking the Queen (high-heeled) Goomba’s Shoe you get by shaking a regular Goomba’s Shoe and adding wings to it to make a Para-Queen Goomba’s Shoe.” – Oshino

Game Informer has a couple of additional tips from the Super Mario Maker developers here.