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Return to the Mushroom Kingdom

Description / Why Mario?

It's easy to go too hard in Mario Maker. The entire online community is full of almost impossible levels. I wanted to use the engine to build something that felt apart of the Mario series. I looked at other titles in the franchise and dissected what made each part important. What did it teach the player? When did it punish them?

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These were my paper map levels 1-1 to 1-5. All of which followed this motto throughout.

Sprint 1

This sprint was focusing on the first level 1-1. In addition part of level 1-2 was completed. 

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  • World Layout

  • Enemy Placement

  • Powerups, Coins, and Blocks

  • Secret Areas

Sprint 2

This sprint finished levels 1-2 and 1-3. 1-2 was an underground level, while 1-3 was an underwater level. (1-3 became my favorite stage)

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  • Finished Underground Level

  • Created Water Level

  • Block, Enemy, Coin, and Powerups Placed

Sprint 3

This sprint I worked on the stage 1-4 a scrolling level. In addition there were changes made to the first 3 levels to balance them after some play tests.

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  • Changed to Unidirectional Pipes Stage 1

  • Added Enemies to Stage 2

  • Added Meaningful Areas to Stage 3

  • Created World and Enemy Placement Stage 4

Sprint 4

This sprint focused on completing the Boss stage. A good portion of things that I wanted to use don't exist in this Mario and were compromised for other things.

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  • Created Level Layout

  • Placed Powerups and Coins

  • Created Secret Paths

  • Created Optional Boss Fight

Sprint 5

This play through was done by a non Mario Player. I decided to test whether level 5 was difficult as their first level and if they could overcome it by playing the previous levels. I felt that if I conveyed the controls and mechanics through my level design then they could learn how to beat the final stage.

Final Playthrough

This final video is a collection of all the content that was created for the game. Some tweaks with power ups blocks and coins were made from the previous play through.

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A walk through all of my levels takes around 11 minutes for myself.

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