Is Super Mario Maker Beaten Yet?
March 12, 2024 10:55 AM Subscribe
Is Super Mario Marker beaten yet? Back in 2015, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, which allowed users to create their own Mario levels and upload them for others to play. Over 8 million levels were created for the game. On March 31, 2021 Nintendo "discontinued" the game, which meant no new levels could be uploaded. Then the second shoe dropped: Nintendo announced the Wii U servers would be turned off forever on April 8, 2024, effectively removing all of these user levels from existence. Upon hearing this news, the Super Mario Maker community began to rally around a single goal: clear every single level uploaded to the servers before the shutdown date.
Most people are familiar with Super Mario Bros., but Mario Maker opened up a Pandora's box of complexity. The game now has many creative and amazing levels, including as this level that requires a knowledge of a sorting algorithm to complete.
Some of the hardest expert user levels are inconceivably hard at first glance. Is it even possible to beat every single level of this game?
As of February 2023, there remained 41,113 uncleared levels. By December 2023, there were less than 20,000 remaining levels.
As more and more players took up the challenge, clearing thousands of easy levels was the first priority. There was an expectation that players would eventually "hit a wall" and progress would slow to a crawl. The only saving grace was the initial upload requirement - Nintendo required the creator to beat a level themselves before they could upload it to the server.
Some creators make "dev exits" which were hidden secrets or routes that allowed them to skip the most challenging sections of their levels. Others relied on quirks and tricks that had to be reproduced precisely to proceed. And many of the toughest levels simply required tedious grinding and memorization. "Cheese" is the label for a shortcut a player finds to skip parts of a level through a creative approach, and some of the tougher levels were able to be defeated this way.
As the deadline nears, the goal has almost been reached. Once the number got below 10,000, the expectation was that progress would slow to a crawl. Instead, even more strong players came back to contribute to the cause and some of the hardest levels continued to fall.
Step by step, benchmarks were set and reached - both around year of submission and country of origin. On February 16, 2024, all levels from 2016 had been cleared. Over the past few weeks, less than 1,000 levels remained. In just the last 24 hours, the remaining number was reduced to 50 levels.
We now stand at the precipice: as of now, only 9 levels remain uncleared. These are the remaining levels and the Team 0% Discord channel is the place to stay up to date on the play-by-play. Victory seems inevitable, but these final levels are truly some of the most difficult, requiring repetitive frame-perfect actions and extremely tight timing requirements.
Finally, although the Wii U servers are going offline, the levels are not truly disappearing. And of course, anyone interested in building their own Mario levels may still do so in Super Mario Maker 2 for the Switch.
Most people are familiar with Super Mario Bros., but Mario Maker opened up a Pandora's box of complexity. The game now has many creative and amazing levels, including as this level that requires a knowledge of a sorting algorithm to complete.
Some of the hardest expert user levels are inconceivably hard at first glance. Is it even possible to beat every single level of this game?
As of February 2023, there remained 41,113 uncleared levels. By December 2023, there were less than 20,000 remaining levels.
As more and more players took up the challenge, clearing thousands of easy levels was the first priority. There was an expectation that players would eventually "hit a wall" and progress would slow to a crawl. The only saving grace was the initial upload requirement - Nintendo required the creator to beat a level themselves before they could upload it to the server.
Some creators make "dev exits" which were hidden secrets or routes that allowed them to skip the most challenging sections of their levels. Others relied on quirks and tricks that had to be reproduced precisely to proceed. And many of the toughest levels simply required tedious grinding and memorization. "Cheese" is the label for a shortcut a player finds to skip parts of a level through a creative approach, and some of the tougher levels were able to be defeated this way.
As the deadline nears, the goal has almost been reached. Once the number got below 10,000, the expectation was that progress would slow to a crawl. Instead, even more strong players came back to contribute to the cause and some of the hardest levels continued to fall.
Step by step, benchmarks were set and reached - both around year of submission and country of origin. On February 16, 2024, all levels from 2016 had been cleared. Over the past few weeks, less than 1,000 levels remained. In just the last 24 hours, the remaining number was reduced to 50 levels.
We now stand at the precipice: as of now, only 9 levels remain uncleared. These are the remaining levels and the Team 0% Discord channel is the place to stay up to date on the play-by-play. Victory seems inevitable, but these final levels are truly some of the most difficult, requiring repetitive frame-perfect actions and extremely tight timing requirements.
Finally, although the Wii U servers are going offline, the levels are not truly disappearing. And of course, anyone interested in building their own Mario levels may still do so in Super Mario Maker 2 for the Switch.
Well! I was considering getting Super Mario Maker for my Switch, but I think I won't, since they will one day just unceremoniously yoink my creations from existence.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:00 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:00 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
Just commenting to say this is a very well-written and structured FPP, and it was a delight to read while also being informative! Thanks for sharing!
posted by Wandering_Boots at 11:12 AM on March 12 [28 favorites]
posted by Wandering_Boots at 11:12 AM on March 12 [28 favorites]
Team 0% videos have been showing up in my YouTube recommendations for the past little while. After watching them, I have much respect for their ability to withstand frustration. I had thought some of the levels might require use of glitches that had long since been patched out of MM1 in order to beat.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:16 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:16 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
Last call to play my levels! One of them, "Doors To Doom", won a level design contest. The prize? A Yellow Devil keychain from the Mega Man Powered Up merchandise line in Japan.
posted by Servo5678 at 11:27 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
posted by Servo5678 at 11:27 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
Mario Maker 2 levels were so fun to make, I poured tons and tons of hours into my levels. I made some really good ones, some with neat concepts that needed work, and some weird ideas and concepts that were a bit rough. It sucks they're always locked to Switch for however long Nintendo decides to keep it. I try not to get attached to anything Nintendo related too muc hthese days. They previously deleted all of my childhood pokemon that I mistakenly trusted to their online Pokémon storage service. I daisychained them for decades to new versions and it was fine but once I gave Nintendo a little control, they decided to delete everything to reclaim the 2mb of filesize it took to store a list of pokemon.
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:30 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:30 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
I bought a Wii U specifically for Mario maker. I am making sure my memory is maxed out with downloaded levels ( over 100). And my kids will still enjoy making their own.
I would be very surprised if we don’t see some sort on online extension to the Wii U, similar to how Mario Kart Wii lives on as CTGP. Although Nintendo’s recent crack down on Switch emulator may damped enthusiasm. I think there should be a law allowing 3rd party mods for orphaned systems
posted by CostcoCultist at 11:37 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
I would be very surprised if we don’t see some sort on online extension to the Wii U, similar to how Mario Kart Wii lives on as CTGP. Although Nintendo’s recent crack down on Switch emulator may damped enthusiasm. I think there should be a law allowing 3rd party mods for orphaned systems
posted by CostcoCultist at 11:37 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
YouTuber videogamedunkey has a whole series of videos of him playing through a slew of various crazymaking Mario Maker levels with running (hilarious) commentary. One of my favorite things on YouTube, highly recommended:
Extreme Mario Maker
SUPER DUPER MARIO MAKER GO 4 DEAD with Franklin (which takes a random detour into Left 4 Dead)
Super Mario Maker 2
Super Mario Maker 2 (Expert Mode)
The Hardest Mario Level of All Time
posted by Rhaomi at 11:45 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
Extreme Mario Maker
SUPER DUPER MARIO MAKER GO 4 DEAD with Franklin (which takes a random detour into Left 4 Dead)
Super Mario Maker 2
Super Mario Maker 2 (Expert Mode)
The Hardest Mario Level of All Time
posted by Rhaomi at 11:45 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
We made a blog to promote MeFite-made Mario Maker levels back when Mario Maker 1 came out, and it has a few fun courses to play through! Last chance everyone (although there's a few MM2 levels in there as well, they'll be playable for a little while longer at least).
posted by JHarris at 11:47 AM on March 12
posted by JHarris at 11:47 AM on March 12
We also bought the Wii U specifically for SMM and the kid played probably hundreds of hours of it, both playing levels and also constructing levels, and I would guess that troubleshooting those levels is probably part of what made them interested in real game design and balance.
The amount of creativity that went into that user generated content was astonishing and I'm sure my kid is not the only person for whom this was their first foray into "balancing games is harder than it looks"
I'm glad they're being archived. I'm sad and angry that a 3rd party has to do it.
Also - those last nine levels ... that's some skill, right there, and dedication - but its important to remember that you needed to be able to clear the level to upload it, so somebody has beaten it, at least once.
[this is a fantastic post]
posted by anastasiav at 11:49 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
The amount of creativity that went into that user generated content was astonishing and I'm sure my kid is not the only person for whom this was their first foray into "balancing games is harder than it looks"
I'm glad they're being archived. I'm sad and angry that a 3rd party has to do it.
Also - those last nine levels ... that's some skill, right there, and dedication - but its important to remember that you needed to be able to clear the level to upload it, so somebody has beaten it, at least once.
[this is a fantastic post]
posted by anastasiav at 11:49 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
How hard would it have been for Nintendo to port the levels to Super Mario Maker 2? I get that the game is 9 years old but it also feels that these things get sunsetted when there isn't really a reason to.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:49 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:49 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
I had thought some of the levels might require use of glitches that had long since been patched out of MM1 in order to beatI'm wondering the same thing. There are definitely SMM levels that cannot be beaten any longer because they relied on tricks that Nintendo decided were bugs and patched out, such as the "phantom jump" trick. I joined Team 0%'s Discord in order to find out more. It seems like they are tracking "impossible" levels, either because they require a patched-out glitch or because the level creator used their own hack to clear the level for upload. Supposedly Nintendo has been doing some work in the background deleting some of the levels, which has reduced this list, while other people (against the policy of the team) have been using their own hacks to beat the impossible levels. In the latter case, they've also been keeping track of which levels appear to have been beaten with hacks, so it seems like they will consider their task complete when all the possible-without-hacks levels have been completed. Supposedly, as of right now, there are 9 legitimate levels left to beat.
(Just to clarify: for the purposes of this, a 'glitch' is considered an idiosyncrasy or bug in the game that allows players to perform actions that Nintendo never intended to be possible, while a 'hack' is altering the behaviour of the game or game system (such as running it in an emulator).
posted by WaylandSmith at 11:51 AM on March 12
I just wanted to add, I have been continually impressed with how wholesome the Super Mario Maker community is, especially in regards to the content creators and streamers who focus on those games. It's really encouraging to see a little corner of the gaming community that explicitly stands against the toxicity that seems pervasive in other areas of it. An extra special shout-out to Carl, who has brightened my day countless times with his humour, kindness and dedication to using his popularity as a way to spread science education. While Super Mario Maker 2 is still going, I know some day it, too, will be shut down and I don't know of anything that exists, currently, that will fill that space.
posted by WaylandSmith at 11:59 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
posted by WaylandSmith at 11:59 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
Once again, Internet Archive is preserving a piece of digital cultural history.
posted by onbehalfofinstrumentality at 12:24 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
posted by onbehalfofinstrumentality at 12:24 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
8!
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:11 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:11 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
Is anyone with better search skills than me able to link to (or tell me how to find) videos of people attempting those levels? I'm curious what they look like in action. Kind of interesting that some have 10s of thousands of attempts while one has fewer than 900.
posted by jermsplan at 1:13 PM on March 12
posted by jermsplan at 1:13 PM on March 12
Well! I was considering getting Super Mario Maker for my Switch, but I think I won't, since they will one day just unceremoniously yoink my creations from existence.
So how would we create an evergreen system? Maybe a torrent and signature system.
You'd point your system at a torrent tracker. It would give you access to signed torrents (with revocation capabilities), representing an "official upload", and verify the downloaded blocks with the signature.
When the game is in active use, you can create your own local server to mirror to improve your own download speed. You can even create your own tracker and point at it. When the game is retired, they first discontinue uploading (and signing) of new content, and later they discontinue their own tracker; however, you can still find other trackers hosted by the community and the game continues to work using it.
The content is always validated by a private signature that Nintendo keeps secret, so typing in a custom tracker or a custom torrent mirror can't expose people to non-Nintendo approved content.
This would permit Nintendo to disavow supporting the game and let it continue to work, where people just have to type in a community tracker (and maintain their own set of content mirrors!) into the game once Nintendo servers are down.
posted by NotAYakk at 1:45 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
So how would we create an evergreen system? Maybe a torrent and signature system.
You'd point your system at a torrent tracker. It would give you access to signed torrents (with revocation capabilities), representing an "official upload", and verify the downloaded blocks with the signature.
When the game is in active use, you can create your own local server to mirror to improve your own download speed. You can even create your own tracker and point at it. When the game is retired, they first discontinue uploading (and signing) of new content, and later they discontinue their own tracker; however, you can still find other trackers hosted by the community and the game continues to work using it.
The content is always validated by a private signature that Nintendo keeps secret, so typing in a custom tracker or a custom torrent mirror can't expose people to non-Nintendo approved content.
This would permit Nintendo to disavow supporting the game and let it continue to work, where people just have to type in a community tracker (and maintain their own set of content mirrors!) into the game once Nintendo servers are down.
posted by NotAYakk at 1:45 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
I honestly didn't know SMM even existed until one of my favorite Let's Play channels played a series of levels to say farewell to one of the co-hosts that included a ton of embedded references to games they'd played on the channel (and stuff they'd done together in real life). It was so wholesome it was practically incapacitating.
posted by praemunire at 2:19 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 2:19 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
NotAYakk, or they could just make the level downloadable on it's own, outside of Nintendo's ecosystem, and make their findability mechanism something separate. If you could download and upload levels into files that could live on a PC, it'd eliminate a lot of concerns. There might be issues with that sure, but my point is, there ARE solutions to this problem, if Nintendo had any interest in solving them. They just don't see it as a priority.
posted by JHarris at 3:03 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 3:03 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
It's down to seven now.
The last one in the list is titled "The Last Dance" and it sure would be amusing if that's the final one beaten.
posted by egypturnash at 6:08 PM on March 12
The last one in the list is titled "The Last Dance" and it sure would be amusing if that's the final one beaten.
posted by egypturnash at 6:08 PM on March 12
6!
posted by matrixclown at 7:14 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
posted by matrixclown at 7:14 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
the only flaw with this fantastic FPP is that it wasn't posted on Mar 10...
posted by freethefeet at 8:38 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
posted by freethefeet at 8:38 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
As we are already down to the final six, I will leave this video here - one of the remaining uncleared levels is Trimming the Herbs. Notable because it comes with a completion video uploaded by the creator.
What makes this level so interesting is that it is quite short and doesn't look specifically harder than many of the much crazier levels that have been completed. Over 58,000 attempts and no clear yet - it has the most attempts out of any level remaining.
posted by lubujackson at 10:29 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
What makes this level so interesting is that it is quite short and doesn't look specifically harder than many of the much crazier levels that have been completed. Over 58,000 attempts and no clear yet - it has the most attempts out of any level remaining.
posted by lubujackson at 10:29 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
Now down to 4!
Here's a video of tatsu1236 clearing one of the final 10 levels: ～ęinherjar～.
posted by lubujackson at 12:54 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
Here's a video of tatsu1236 clearing one of the final 10 levels: ～ęinherjar～.
posted by lubujackson at 12:54 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
3 Levels Left
If you're looking for level clear videos, the Team 0% Twitter is using the #Team0 hashtag to track level clear videos
posted by anastasiav at 7:48 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
If you're looking for level clear videos, the Team 0% Twitter is using the #Team0 hashtag to track level clear videos
posted by anastasiav at 7:48 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Trimming the Herbs hanging in there.... Approaching 80k attempts.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:35 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
posted by kaibutsu at 9:35 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Here is the video of the antepenultimate level being cleared.
posted by egypturnash at 8:01 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 8:01 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
Most of these levels look absolutely miserable to play in any way besides maybe doing a TAS, but then again I thought the same thing about stuff like Super Meat Boy or the Hell levels of Cave Story. Some people love this stuff.
Trimming the Herbs has 92,333 attempts now.
posted by egypturnash at 2:46 PM on March 15 [1 favorite]
Trimming the Herbs has 92,333 attempts now.
posted by egypturnash at 2:46 PM on March 15 [1 favorite]
I love that this is a collective effort and that it's almost completely succeeded. As much as I want it to completely succeed it would be amusing if there was one level that couldn't get cleared, provided is was just legit hard and not reliant on hacks or dev exit.
posted by mollweide at 5:13 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 5:13 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]
I kind of agree. I wouldn't be bothered if that final level just never gets beaten and someone sends the creator a trophy that reads: "A Winner Is You! You are the Mario Maker!"
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:57 PM on March 15 [4 favorites]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:57 PM on March 15 [4 favorites]
March 18, almost 200k runs and the herbs remain untrimmed
posted by Jacen at 5:45 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 5:45 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]
It might be worth investigating why this level, of the millions made for Mario Maker, is the one that's thwarted so many attempts to finish it, even though it has a clear video made by its creator, even though it can be finished in 17 seconds, even though it doesn't look at hard as many kaizo levels. What level design secrets can it reveal?
posted by JHarris at 10:18 PM on March 18
posted by JHarris at 10:18 PM on March 18
Trimming the Herbs is like eight very tight frame-perfect moves in rapid succession; there’s absolutely no margin for error. The main page of Is Mario Maker Beaten Yet has a link to a video about this.
(Sorry the YouTube link is in a weird place, I’m on my tablet and MeFi’s post editor does weird things to selections.)
posted by egypturnash at 7:08 AM on March 19 [2 favorites]
(Sorry the YouTube link is in a weird place, I’m on my tablet and MeFi’s post editor does weird things to selections.)
posted by egypturnash at 7:08 AM on March 19 [2 favorites]
Very interesting video on the state of how players are doing with the last level, some info about the maker etc.
posted by lubujackson at 10:15 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
posted by lubujackson at 10:15 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
And followup, here is a FAQ someone made about the level and GrandPOOBear is live-streaming multiple top players as they attempt to beat it.
posted by lubujackson at 10:22 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
posted by lubujackson at 10:22 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
If you're interested in this topic, check out youtber Summoning Salt. He mostly talks about speedruns, but explains everything and humanizes a very niche topic that sometimes is very technical
posted by Jacen at 10:53 AM on March 19
posted by Jacen at 10:53 AM on March 19
It turns out that Trimming the Herbs' upload clear it seems was tool-assisted? So The Last Dance was probably the last fairly-uploaded level.
posted by JHarris at 2:32 PM on March 22
posted by JHarris at 2:32 PM on March 22
Game over! Unsatisfying, but here's the statement from Ahoyo, the creator of Trim the Herbs:
TTH was made to be unreasonably difficult and to cause a ruckus. I put effort into promoting it in 2017 so that it could be played, dissected, and scrutinized. Once that would happen I would announce that TAS existed for SMM. I did not expect that it would go unnoticed or perceived as easy from watching the video, or that it would take nearly seven years to be uncovered. The sunk cost fallacy of wanting to follow through with the failed troll, combined with new IRL responsibilities, allowed the nonsense to continue. I knew about Team 0% so I let things be until they would uncover it. I delayed uploading bombs5 until the uploads shut down because bombs5 is also illegitimate. I deserve no credit for either, and will not deny Team 0% their victory.
From attempting to upload bombs5 I developed tendon issues in my thumb. After some breaks and noticing they weren’t healing properly, it became unrealistic to continue. Once I accepted this, I felt a sense of relief.
Someone had messaged me about a TAS they were working on for the Wii U. In a video they sent, it seemed to me like they had it working, but they told me they were abandoning the project. The TAS was replicated by my friend after two days of building.
.
Because I had already resigned to leave streaming and pursue other things, and suddenly had a working TAS, I thought that the bomb guy should go out with a bang, so TTH was constructed. The PogChamp contest was made because I wanted there to be a venue for kaizo enthusiasts to gather. The judges were doing a live viewing of the contest levels, and I let them know that I (intentionally) broke the timer rules and that after showcasing TTH, they should disqualify me.
The past week, when the time bomb finally blew up, things escalated quickly, and the community was divided, which was not my intention. I’m sorry for the drama it caused within the community, and I regret the ordeal, but at least it was interesting. However in the end the truth matters most. Congratulations to Team 0% for their well-earned achievement! SMM is cleared, and The Last Dance was the last level!
posted by lubujackson at 3:03 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]
TTH was made to be unreasonably difficult and to cause a ruckus. I put effort into promoting it in 2017 so that it could be played, dissected, and scrutinized. Once that would happen I would announce that TAS existed for SMM. I did not expect that it would go unnoticed or perceived as easy from watching the video, or that it would take nearly seven years to be uncovered. The sunk cost fallacy of wanting to follow through with the failed troll, combined with new IRL responsibilities, allowed the nonsense to continue. I knew about Team 0% so I let things be until they would uncover it. I delayed uploading bombs5 until the uploads shut down because bombs5 is also illegitimate. I deserve no credit for either, and will not deny Team 0% their victory.
From attempting to upload bombs5 I developed tendon issues in my thumb. After some breaks and noticing they weren’t healing properly, it became unrealistic to continue. Once I accepted this, I felt a sense of relief.
Someone had messaged me about a TAS they were working on for the Wii U. In a video they sent, it seemed to me like they had it working, but they told me they were abandoning the project. The TAS was replicated by my friend after two days of building.
.
Because I had already resigned to leave streaming and pursue other things, and suddenly had a working TAS, I thought that the bomb guy should go out with a bang, so TTH was constructed. The PogChamp contest was made because I wanted there to be a venue for kaizo enthusiasts to gather. The judges were doing a live viewing of the contest levels, and I let them know that I (intentionally) broke the timer rules and that after showcasing TTH, they should disqualify me.
The past week, when the time bomb finally blew up, things escalated quickly, and the community was divided, which was not my intention. I’m sorry for the drama it caused within the community, and I regret the ordeal, but at least it was interesting. However in the end the truth matters most. Congratulations to Team 0% for their well-earned achievement! SMM is cleared, and The Last Dance was the last level!
posted by lubujackson at 3:03 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]
"YouTuber videogamedunkey has a whole series of videos of him playing through a slew of various crazymaking Mario Maker levels with running (hilarious) commentary. One of my favorite things on YouTube, highly recommended:"
Note that he's also got a separate series for playing through really difficult challenges from Luigi's Balloon World (a Mario Odyssey DLC where you can hide a balloon somewhere in a level and players have to find it in a set time limit). Similarly perfect blend of earned braggadocio and hilarious pratfalls:
Luigi's Balloon World
Mario's Balloon World
Waluigi's Balloon World
Related: Mario Odyssey Tips and Tricks
posted by Rhaomi at 4:50 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]
Note that he's also got a separate series for playing through really difficult challenges from Luigi's Balloon World (a Mario Odyssey DLC where you can hide a balloon somewhere in a level and players have to find it in a set time limit). Similarly perfect blend of earned braggadocio and hilarious pratfalls:
Luigi's Balloon World
Mario's Balloon World
Waluigi's Balloon World
Related: Mario Odyssey Tips and Tricks
posted by Rhaomi at 4:50 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]
Here’s the clear video of “The Last Dance” by Mario streamer ThaBeast721. The reason he’s sad despite getting the world record is that another streamer got First Clear about two hours before he completed it.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:20 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:20 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]
Do the levels have to be beatable in order to be published? Is there some way to ensure that? Is that not a halting problem or something...
posted by little onion at 9:12 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
posted by little onion at 9:12 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
The creator of the level has to beat it in order to publish it.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:42 PM on March 23 [3 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 10:42 PM on March 23 [3 favorites]
Trimming The Herbs now has been manually cleared!!! \o/
posted by anastasiav at 6:46 PM on April 5 [10 favorites]
posted by anastasiav at 6:46 PM on April 5 [10 favorites]
Amazing. Also, the creator of Trimming The Herbs apparently confessed to using a tool assisted run to create his completion video in the first place, something previously thought not possible on the Wii U. From the site:
101% Clear
Originally, it was believed that a level called Trimming the Herbs would be the final uncleared level. However, after over seven years, the creator of Trimming the Herbs revealed that the level was, in fact, a convoluted sort of troll. Despite a general belief both then and now that tool-assisted speedruns (TASes) were not possible on the Wii U, the creator had access to a hardware-based TAS prototype which was used to develop and clear-check TTH. It was apparently intended to be revealed to the public as such, but the level remained relatively obscure even in the community it was designed to troll and was eventually forgotten (until Team 0% uncovered it). Since the level was not uploaded legitimately, it was excluded from Team 0%'s list of uncleared levels. As a result of this shocking revelation, Team 0% considers Super Mario Maker 1 to have been 100% cleared on March 15, 2024, the day that Yamada (aka "kazeihinn") cleared The Last Dance.
However, this isn't quite the end of the story. Trimming the Herbs isn't impossible for a human, and on April 5, 2024 (only a couple days before the SMM1 servers shut down for good), after over 100 hours of practice and attempts, a player by the name of Sanyx91SMM2 did what the original creator could not: he achieved the first true clear of TTH. Since TTH was excluded from the team's goal due to the nature of its original upload and 100% was already achieved, we choose to treat this clear of the "secret final boss" of Super Mario Maker as the 101st completion percentage to signify his dedication to going above and beyond in the effort to truly complete every level in the game.
posted by jermsplan at 8:41 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]
101% Clear
Originally, it was believed that a level called Trimming the Herbs would be the final uncleared level. However, after over seven years, the creator of Trimming the Herbs revealed that the level was, in fact, a convoluted sort of troll. Despite a general belief both then and now that tool-assisted speedruns (TASes) were not possible on the Wii U, the creator had access to a hardware-based TAS prototype which was used to develop and clear-check TTH. It was apparently intended to be revealed to the public as such, but the level remained relatively obscure even in the community it was designed to troll and was eventually forgotten (until Team 0% uncovered it). Since the level was not uploaded legitimately, it was excluded from Team 0%'s list of uncleared levels. As a result of this shocking revelation, Team 0% considers Super Mario Maker 1 to have been 100% cleared on March 15, 2024, the day that Yamada (aka "kazeihinn") cleared The Last Dance.
However, this isn't quite the end of the story. Trimming the Herbs isn't impossible for a human, and on April 5, 2024 (only a couple days before the SMM1 servers shut down for good), after over 100 hours of practice and attempts, a player by the name of Sanyx91SMM2 did what the original creator could not: he achieved the first true clear of TTH. Since TTH was excluded from the team's goal due to the nature of its original upload and 100% was already achieved, we choose to treat this clear of the "secret final boss" of Super Mario Maker as the 101st completion percentage to signify his dedication to going above and beyond in the effort to truly complete every level in the game.
posted by jermsplan at 8:41 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]
Kyle Orland at Ars Technica rounds up more technical details of the Trimming The Herbs TAS.
Before TTH creator Ahoyo admitted to his TAS exploit last month, the player community at large didn't think it was even possible to precisely automate such pre-recorded inputs on the Wii U.posted by mbrubeck at 9:04 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
That's true, if the method of making tool-assisted speedruns for Wii U games becomes better known, there's a bunch of games I'd like to see get amusingly broken at the next GDQ.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 1:07 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 1:07 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
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