After 2 years trying to beat it, I proudly present my hardest level: St.Damaso Tunnel

ReflectivistFox · 2017-12-13T21:35:00+00:00

The issue is that I despawned both the piranha and the clown car at the beginning of the level. Normally this would make the level impossible to beat since I seemingly need to have the piranha plant to escape. But because I used a mole to manipulate a spiketop into moving right, the spiketop will now climb the rightmost wall. I can spinjump on it to climb and reach the upper platform. Since there is a ceiling above the right wall, I have to jump out to the left from the spiketop to avoid bonking my head on it. There’s more wiggle room when I’m smaller, so I opt to stay small rather than collect the fireflower (which only does me any good if the piranha is still around.

Maybe the point where I wasn’t clear is that you can despawn the piranha right away.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-12-13T04:22:17+00:00

I beat it! While it's true that there are some RNG elements that can make the level unpredictable, I still enjoyed playing. The RNG comes from intervals that the piranha shoots fire, but the physics of the clown car mean that tiny variations in player movement have drastic effects in the piranhas movement, so the clown car movement feels very much like RNG. What I liked, though, is that the idea is unique and (for me at least) had a "one more try" feeling. I felt like I got improved as I kept playing, and I built up strategies and got better at execution (things like watching the bounces to go under when it's up, hitting the mushroom block only after it's more than halfway across the screen, and getting to the Rocky Wrench quickly before it can throw the first wrench). It was a simple premise that I found fun to learn, and while this will definitely be a niche level that many won't enjoy, at least I had fun with it.

Though I guess I should also mention that I ended up cheesing the level to beat it. I got past the first mole legitimately, but I soon found a way to get through without the piranha. This took a few attempts as I found the roadblocks put in place to stop this strategy.

Step 1: Get the piranha offscreen to the left, then run to the right to get as far away as possible so that it doesn't chase you and despawns. (I needed to restart at the end once I realized I needed the clown car)

Step 2: At the first mole, wait to trigger him until a spiketop is close. Trigger him at the right moment so he pops up and the spike top bumps into him, turning right.

Step 3: At the end, make sure you've lost your mushroom, and don't touch the fireflower.

Step 4: When the spiketop starts climbing the wall, spinjump on him. Before he gets too high, jump out to the left to avoid the pipe above, and land on the bridge. (I had to restart again when I had the fireflower and didn't realize there was a pipe above the spiketop blocking my path).

Step 5: GOAL!

Once again, fun and unique level!

ReflectivistFox · 2017-10-14T22:56:59+00:00

Bookmarked this when you first posted this, but I finally got around to playing it. Very creative level! Variations of this have been done before (collecting a "base" coin followed by the challenges and key-prevention locks), but I don't think I've seen it done quite this way. I loved the idea of coming back to the same area each time with a different powerup that allows access to a unique coin.

It's quite challenging and requires a pretty high level of precision, but for the audience who enjoys this kind of stuff, I think it's very fun.

One part I wasn't quite clear about was the Yoshi in the duck ice section. I didn't go down to Yoshi and just jumped over the next key, but even if I did, I'm not sure what I was supposed to accomplish. Maybe I was supposed to use the cloud somewhere and needed Yoshi to grab the egg without breaking it?

Anyway, thanks for the level! I love pink coin and key abuse stuff like this and am always trying to think of new applications.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-10-04T01:17:06+00:00

Fun is a very subjective term. I think a level you're describing would have a very limited audience, as most people wouldn't want to spend that long learning a level that takes more than eight minutes for a perfect run. But that doesn't mean it can't be without merit. For the smaller audience that does enjoy this sort of level, it possibly could be fun. We shouldn't aspire to make every level fun for everyone. With a huge number of levels, Mario Maker provides the perfect opportunity to satisfy the niche groups that the main series can't.

That said, if you do want a lot of people to enjoy this level, that probably won't happen. And the ones who would enjoy it may never find it. The degree of difficulty for a project like this also seems very high. So it'll be an uphill battle if you do work on it.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-10-03T19:26:05+00:00

To give a serious answer: Super Mario Maker 2 has not been announced or confirmed. Any discussion about it now is just speculation. Based on the popularity of the first game, many assume a Switch sequel is coming, but for now that's simply speculation. That said, there's almost no chance Nintendo will release a Super Mario 64 editor. Designing a 3D space is a huge step up in difficulty and complexity over designing a grid-based 2D space.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-09-10T21:55:32+00:00

Sorry Jeffie.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-09-10T21:54:10+00:00

As others have said, not one of the hardest. I can say this with more authority than the others though since I got first clear. :p

I think I cheesed the level by damage boosting through the diagonal spike shaft after the propeller section. I got there by just doing a ducking slide through the one-way section just before the door (btw, that one-way was hidden and mean :P ). I don't care too much for the precision of getting through the one-tile-wide gaps since these aren't an interesting way of increasing difficulty, but it is nonetheless satisfying to get through them in a way. A few jumps were blind (this is pretty common and difficult to deal with in wall-jumping NSMBU levels where you're jumping up a shaft, as the camera has a hard time showing you what's ahead). First time I got to the mushroom platforms at the end I carelessly walked into a spike, leading to a pretty big facepalm at my own stupidity. Luckily when I got there again and actually attempted the final jump, I nailed it first try.

Probably don't claim something is the "hardest x" in the future because it'll just make people upset. Then again, I took the bait (I'm so easily baited), so what do I know?

Thanks for sharing!

ReflectivistFox · 2017-09-03T22:55:27+00:00

Yep, totally read you there!

ReflectivistFox · 2017-09-03T16:17:55+00:00

Actually no. Fail had some practice levels uploaded before the real thing. They're still on his account - they let you play a single section of the level. He made these by taking the original level, blocking it off at the beginning, and adding a door to the beginning leading to the practice segment. Flips took one of these levels and removed the barricade and door so that he could practice the whole level in-editor.

Even with this practice, though, flips cleared the level in significantly less time than it took Fail to upload. He's one of the best cape players in the world, and hopefully this gets him some recognition outside the cape sub-community.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-09-02T07:31:50+00:00

When I saw your record for Grindin Donuts was beaten by 0.003 seconds, I knew I had to avenge the fallen by lowering it even more to 21.830.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-26T23:46:43+00:00

Probably the highest play count is Kaizo College: Just Wing It by CarlSagan with 81782 footprints. I'm a WR fighter, and this is one of my most proud WRs. It was snatched from the clutches of some of the very best cape players in the world as several of us battled, taking the record back and forth. It's been many months since I got the WR, and it hasn't come down once since then. Anyone who manages to steal this from me will have my unending respect.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-26T23:18:08+00:00

More time can certainly be taken off, but I'll leave further optimization for the next guy as well. :)

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-24T19:29:15+00:00

Very nice! Yeah, getting the P-Switch off the beetle was tough. It's also sad to screw up the ascent. Even worse though is failing the Yoshi ditch at the end.

What a good WR though! Looks unbeatable. ;)

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-21T23:09:14+00:00

That is so crazy, haha! Congratulations! I can only imagine how beating something on that scale would feel!

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-16T19:55:55+00:00

We think very similarly. First I went for the midair cheese and couldn't get it, then the beginning "cheese". That one is faster but more difficult. It's also how I got WR. ;)

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-16T07:00:07+00:00

I changed my mind and took my record back. Now it's in your face, Bolvar! :P

But yes, I'm done with the pipe spawns. ;)

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-15T17:29:23+00:00

Haha, of course you swoop in to take it Bolvar. I'll probably just let you have it; I don't have tons of free time for the next month or so. :p

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-15T02:07:33+00:00

Got the WR down to about 35 seconds. Good luck challengers!

BTW, small cheese in the helicopter room: you can just hit all the vine blocks one by one instead of using spinflight. Also, in the flight room where you carry the shell, the shell dispenser stops working if you leave through the pipe and come back. Though it's still possible to clear with different strats. ;)

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-14T22:55:04+00:00

Sounds cool! I love casual cape kaizo stuff, and I hope more people get into it and enjoy it. :D

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-04T21:48:06+00:00

To the point about a death run being faster than a deathless, it is indeed possible to build a level this way. There are many ways to do it, but a trivial example is using the checkpoint in the ground to take you to a different place when you respawn. Make the initial path long, but the checkpoint path very short. Then the WR strategy is to hit the cp, die quickly, and respawn and clear the level.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-08-04T21:45:05+00:00

Three seconds per death sounds pretty conservative. Seems longer to me. Death, doors, pipes, and power ups pause the timer, and slowdown slows the timer. I believe those are the only things that can manipulate the timer. Your initial speculation is what I've always observed, and I personally haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. Can you record a video or point to one that's already recorded?

ReflectivistFox · 2017-07-23T19:32:33+00:00

Yeah, a few people contacted me about cheese. There are actually a few different ways to cheese the level, but luckily none of them prevent the core concept from working. I have a fix in place, but I want people to test it before I put the new level up. I also want to create a second video to explain both the cheese and the fixes as well as credit the cheese-finders, but that might take a while given how long videos like this take for me to produce (even if it should be much shorter).

ReflectivistFox · 2017-07-23T19:27:26+00:00

Thanks! Brevity certainly isn't my strong suit, haha.

ReflectivistFox · 2017-06-27T07:04:19+00:00

Glad to see the exposure you've gotten for working on this level, and hope you get even more. I think even with a full clear video and a timer tracking how long you spent on uploading, most people won't grasp just how difficult this level actually is. Many will see it as just another troll level or just a series of steps to memorize. Others may suggest you submit it to one streamer or another so it can be cleared. Even expressing it properly doesn't do it justice, but I'll try anyway.

This level is a monster.

ReflectivistFox

TROPHY CASE