If you’re looking to crank up the difficulty factor in your Super Mario Maker 2 creations then you’re probably looking for some tips on how to make a troll level. This is essentially a trickier kind of level that uses misdirection, lesser-known traps, lesser-known skills/abilities, hidden areas, hidden blocks and the need for pin-point perfect timing to dial things up the challenge to 11.
However, there are essentially two kinds of troll level. Ones that are solid, but designed to challenge, entertain and eventually reward gamers for their determination, knowledge and skill, and ones that are either impossible or nearly impossible and designed just to frustrate players.
AdvertisementFor anyone looking to make the first kind, hopefully you’ll find some good tips to follow below. For anyone looking to make the second kind, you just need to follow the same tips, but take them to extreme levels of Machiavellian deceit and cruelty. If you do fall into the viscous Super Mario Maker 2 troll side of the spectrum then you might want to prepare yourself for much lower levels of popularity than the creators building seriously challenging, but ultimately fun or funny levels.
How to make a troll level
In simple terms, below are the main points to follow to make a troll level, but there’s much more detail for each point below:
- Misdirect players to make it hard for them to work out the real route.
- Use lesser known traps to catch players out.
- Force players to use or learn to use lesser known abilities to complete your level.
- Use hidden areas that gamers have got to work hard to get to or find.
- Use hidden blocks and actions to triggers ways through your level or ways to stop players progressing easily.
- Make players use perfect execution to get through sections.
- Think about how you can use humour and other mini rewards to keep players interested in your level.
How to create misdirection in your troll level
What you’re trying to do here is the Super Mario equivalent of close up magic. Tempt players with obvious answers that mask the real route to the next section. Distract gamers with a big jump that requires perfect execution, but leads to a dead end while the real route is through a warp tunnel off screen.
The starting point to misdirection is branching your level regularly. This means when you start each section, construct more than one route route with only one of them being correct. Your dead-end branches can then either lead to death traps where the only option is to get killed, or lead nowhere, which means players will have to retrace their steps to find the right route.
They can also lead to areas that will go nowhere, but there’s something in there that they need to get in order to make it through the real route like a power up, Yoshi, bomb, switch, key or whatever else you can think of. Equally, you can send people back to earlier areas or even an earlier checkpoint if you want to punish them a little. Finally, there’s the dreaded soft block, which will trap them with no way of to die, so they’ll either have to ride out the clock to return to their last check point flag or quit the level and start right from the beginning.
AdvertisementThere’s a lot of misdirection in the troll level example below. It’s from Super Mario Maker, but it’s a great source of tips for 2 and while it was probably a little too brutal with its checkpoint flag placement there are some good tricks you can learn from. Our favourite is the key misdirection at 12:39 where the only way to climb up the vine is without the key, which initially seemed like would be… well, the key. The other cool one is where there are two Koopa Clown Cars on a wire at 4:51.
Other options for misdirection in a Super Mario Maker 2 troll level include multiple pipes to travel through, with the real one very well hidden, using power ups and coins to tempt people to do something or to choose the wrong path, using arrows to send people the wrong way and then the right way and then the wrong way again, and making the right way to go appear to be impossible when in all reality it can be done.
However, the most devious of all troll misdirection has got to be the repeat, which is where you take an earlier section and recreate it later in the level to fool players into thinking that they’ve been sent backwards. Some will get killed on purpose to return to their last checkpoint flag when they really just need to press on. It’s a good move to make your traps slightly different to act as tells that they’re in the repeat.
You can find out more about Super Mario Maker 2 at Nintendo, and you can follow along with the the latest from Nintendo with the official Twitter page at twitter.com/NintendoAmerica.
How to use lesser known traps in your troll level
The idea is to use traps that people aren’t expecting or don’t know how to deal with. These include using pipe and Bullet Bill blasters to fire out unexpected enemies or items that catch players off guard, triggering events on blocks or areas that should be avoided, using theme specific tricks like vines against a wall in the Super Mario Bros. theme (you can’t move left or you’ll fall, ideally onto fire or some other death knell), or hiding an enemy behind a mushroom.
AdvertisementLesser known Super Mario Maker 2 abilities
There are a host of lesser known abilities that you can incorporate into you troll level to force players to work harder to complete it. The classic is the short period of invulnerability that Mario has just after getting hit by an enemy if he’s powered up. This means that players need to sacrifice the power up to get past a saw or other trap.
Other lesser abilities, power-ups and buffs to use include the shellmet to break blocks and protect Mario from perils from above. You can also use it to move things like snappers if they’re placed above the player to reveal a way through. Yoshi’s boots or the Goomba’s Shoe give Mario protection under foot and then there’s the Mario spin that can give the player the extra block distance in a jump.
You should also think about what Bob-ombs break and don’t break, how springs can be placed or thrown, the way you might fire something out of Yoshi’s mouth, how players can carry items needed in different parts of your level and how Pows cans be used. Then there’s the different capabilities Mario has in different forms like how small Mario can walk under certain areas that big Mario can’t and the extra jump you can get off Yoshi’s back.
Hidden blocks and items
This is a big part of making a troll level. It pretty much speaks for itself. At its simplest this is block blocks that appear when Mario jumps and hits them, but you can do a lot with that, whether it’s creating a route to make it through a section or soft blocking a player in.
You can also hide pipes behind pipes, trigger hidden items like power ups when Mario steps on a block or comes through a warp pipe, hide spikes behind checkpoints, and hide keys in pretty much anything.
Finally, you can also hide the finish post to make completing your troll level even more fiendish.
Perfect execution
This is a fairly simple tip, but the idea is just good old fashioned platform level challenge. The frenzy of enemies you throw into a section of your level for players to avoid or the perfect jump they have to make can give your levels traditional challenges as well as the more head-scratch troll elements above.
Be funny and fun
While you obviously want to make people think, tear they’re hair out and test their skills, providing at least a little entertainment along the way is also worth thinking about. This can be the classic big flying fish drop or messages written in blocks. Super Mario Maker 2 sound effects and visuals can also be used to make your levels more fun to play even if they are rock hard to beat. There no definite answers here. The point is to think about it at least a little as you’re creating your level.
More Super Mario Maker 2 hints and tips
You can see more hints and tips for the game right here at Tuppence Magazine, including how to play as Luigi, how to zoom out to View Mode and how to save a level. It’ll be a part of our guide to Super Mario Maker 2, but if there’s something that you need more help on drop us a comment at www.facebook.com/TuppenceMagazine/.
You can also see more details on all of the enemies in the game and how to make big enemies to beast out your courses.
If you’re looking for more ideas for your troll levels or you just want to see some of things discussed in action a good place to check out some videos is on DGR’s YouTube channel.
