Mario Maker Is Great. Here’s How It Could Be Awesome

Nintendo

For decades, Nintendo fans have asked for a game that lets them create their own Super Mario levels, and so of course this has never happened. Until this week, that is; Nintendo has announced that it will bring Mario Maker to Wii U in 2015.

The demo version that Nintendo showed on the E3 floor this week is surprisingly good. You can’t truly grok just how good it is until you try it on for yourself. But Nintendo’s only showing a little slice of the game. And whether Mario Maker is merely good versus mind-blowing is all down to what they do with the rest of it.

Wii U’s GamePad controller, with its touchscreen and stylus, is as expected a perfect control scheme for Mario Maker. You begin with an empty Mario level, and beginning to build out your platforming level is as easy as dragging items, terrain and characters down from the menu bar on the top of the screen. (You can also simply click an item, then click where you want it on the screen.)

The version shown on the E3 floor — which I believe has been stripped down significantly from the real game, so that players don’t spend too much time on it — lets you place enemies from the first Super Mario Bros., although you can tweak them a little bit more than that game allowed. You can put wings on a Hammer Brother and have him pop out of a green pipe, for example, if you are a jerk.