Super Mario Maker

Super Mario Maker, tentatively called Mario Maker when announced at E3 2014, is a 2D platforming and level creation game for the Wii U. Originally set to be released in early 2015 as part of the 30th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., it was released proper on September 12, 2015.

Players can design and share their own 2D Super Mario courses, as well as viewing, playing and commenting on courses made by other creators. To build a course, players can select a theme based on one of four previous Mario games: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U. Each theme has distinct mechanics and their own variety of objects, blocks, enemies and items. Gameplay typically uses the Wii U GamePad, and the Wii Remote, Wii Classic Controller and Wii U Pro Controller are also compatible. The game has compatibility with amiibo, which can be scanned to unlock different costumes for the "Mystery Mushroom", a unique power-up that turns Mario into one of many forms based on various Nintendo characters and franchises.

Super Mario Maker starts players with only one row of course elements - as long as they spend at least five minutes using the tools they have, another set of elements will be available for the next day; a Day 1 patch makes these other elements available immediately for player who spend enough time placing them on the course. Players can also add sound effects and their associated visuals to courses, and even record their own sound effects and add them to the game (though they are replaced with a generic parrot/chicken squawk when uploaded to Course World). There are also 68 sample courses that can be unlocked through course creation and play as well.

"Course World" is the hub for shared player-made levels, and includes compatibility with the now-defunct Miiverse service: Players can download, play, and even alter courses made by other players via Course World (though altered courses cannot be uploaded, in order to prevent theft); they can also comment on uploaded courses and give stars to levels they liked. Players could also bookmark courses on the official Super Mario Maker Bookmark website, then access the bookmarked courses in the courses section of Course World. Version 1.20 added an "Event Courses" section that allows players to play courses created by Nintendo and potentially obtain Mystery Mushroom costumes this way.

On November 7th, 2017, Nintendo terminated the Miiverse service, which removed support for comments on uploaded levels; Super Mario Maker was removed from the eShop on January 13th, 2021. The bookmark website was discontinued on March 30th, 2021, with the ability to upload new courses discontinued the next day. Thankfully, players can still play courses that were uploaded prior to that date.

A port of this game was released for the Nintendo 3DS in December 2016; a sequel, titled Super Mario Maker 2, was released for the Nintendo Switch on June 28, 2019.

"So I turned to random levels, most of which fall into one of three categories: a level with ten million of something, the kind of obnoxious difficulty a Roald Dahl villain would come up with, or ten million of something being obnoxiously difficult."
 * 2½D: The New Super Mario Bros. U style.
 * Ability Required to Proceed: Stages can be set up to require certain power-ups or items to proceed through them.
 * Abnormal Ammo: Whether it's 1-Up Mushrooms, enemies, or coins, you can make Bill Blasters shoot plenty of things aside from Bullet Bills.
 * Airborne Mook: In addition to standard flying enemies like Paratroopas and Lakitus, you can take an enemy - any enemy - and slap a pair of wings on them, plop them into Lakitu's cloud or even seat them in a Koopa Clown Car.
 * Anachronism Stew: With regards to the game styles and the compatible powerups and enemies for each one - enemies and objects that didn't exist in the game whose style you're currently using are given new sprites tailored to that game's aesthetic (e.g., Wigglers and Monty Moles are deliberately given large Off-Model eyes). Some enemies that did appear in older emulated styles, such as Bowser, have their sprites for those styles changed to better fit the levels and/or reflect their updated designs.
 * Asteroids Monster: Big Goombas split into two normal-sized ones upon being stomped as usual.
 * Combat Stilettos: You can turn Shoe Goombas into high heel Goombas, and then proceed to use said giant high heel to stomp all your enemies into dust. These "stiletto" Goomba's Shoes have all the spike-proof stomping power of the original plus an ability to Ground Pound, creating dust clouds that can defeat enemies.
 * Degraded Boss: You can use multiple Bowser Juniors and Bowsers in a stage to serve as minibosses, obstacles, or particularly beefy enemies, but only up to three each.
 * Easter Egg: While making courses, try "knocking" on any doors present by tapping repeatedly.
 * Fake Difficulty: Sturgeon's Law naturally dictates that a significant amount of the created levels employ this, often via simply cramming the level full of every enemy possible - the game and its sequel have developed a reputation for these in particular. Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation describes the typical fare he encountered in his review:


 * Flunky Boss: Bowser and Bowser Jr. throw Bob-Ombs and Koopa Shells at you if they're flying in a Koopa Clown Car.
 * Giant Mook: Any enemy can be increased in size by giving them a Super Mushroom during level creation.
 * Guest Fighter: Tons. Thanks to the Mystery Mushroom powerup, you can play as a plethora of characters from not just other video games, but even other forms of media, ranging from Wario to Fox McCloud to a Felyne to Shaun the Sheep.
 * Helpful Mook: Lakitus can toss power-ups or coins.
 * Homing Projectile: Bull's-Eye Bills are fired from red Bill Blasters, and pursue Mario for a certain amount of time.
 * Kaizo Trap: Averted, thankfully. Once you touch the goal you're home free, no matter what death traps are placed beyond it - if you can reach the goal, anyway. Creators still set up contraptions at the end of the stage to provide a more "unique" level clear animation, including ones that knock the victorious player into pits or lava.
 * Luck-Based Mission: As with Fake Difficulty above, it comes in many forms. One particularly notorious type is referred to as "pick-a-door" or "pick-a-pipe", where all but one of the paths presented in a section of the stage leads to death or a soft-lock, and is often the entirety of the level in question.
 * "Enemy spam" levels are this by definition.
 * Meaningless Lives: Mostly averted. When playing single levels, players can make as many attempts as they wish. The 10 and 100 Mario Challenge modes give players a set number of lives to complete a group of stages - the 10 Mario Challenge uses eight sample courses, while the 100 Mario Challenge chooses from player-created levels with a clear rate depending on the chosen difficulty (8 courses on Easy, 16 courses on Normal and Expert, 6 courses on Super Expert). In both cases players start with a sizable cache of lives, and can only obtain a maximum of three extra lives per stage - which aren't added to the life counter until after the stage is beaten.
 * Mook Maker:
 * Bill Blasters and pipes can be used to generate various mooks - the color of the object determines how fast they spawn.
 * Lakitus can serve this role as well, allowing you to swap out the standard Spiny for other non-boss Mooks or even power-ups and goodies.
 * Palette Swap: The Mystery Mushroom costumes are essentially this. Each one acts as a second hit point for Small Mario in the Super Mario Bros. style, but without altering his height; otherwise, the differences between costumes is usually tied to appearance, animations and sound effects. Many stages, including some of the official partner-endorsed Event Courses, were built around the Small Mario-sized form, sometimes with a theme matching that particular costume.
 * Save the Princess: The Excuse Plot used for each of the challenge modes - Bowser kidnapped Peach, beat this random selection of levels to rescue her, don't lose all your lives, good luck.
 * Video Game Settings: Each style has six different theme types - Ground, Underground, Underwater, Ghost House, Airship, and Castle.
 * Big Boo's Haunt: The Ghost House theme has an entire set of new sprites and music created for the SMB and SMB3 styles, as ghost houses made their debut in World.
 * Green Hill Zone: The Ground theme has the aesthetic of this trope, being the standard peaceful-looking grasslands.