Essential tips for your first few hours of Super Mario Maker

Comment on someone's course - but be constructive!

There's a handy feature in Super Mario Maker that lets you comment on other users' levels through Miiverse, allowing you to leave feedback about whether you liked or disliked what you played. And it's not just for overall comments - you can make individual comments at specific points in the level by opening up the menu while playing and hitting the 'comment' button. If you like a particular bit of something you played, say so. And if something's too hard, let the creator know - just be nice, and be constructive.

And leave a star if you really liked it, it helps a lot

If you really dug a level you played, make sure to leave a star for them. Not only does it show your appreciation, it helps them increase their upload limit, allowing them to put up more amazing content. So it's a win-win for everyone.

Remember Kishtenketsu

Recent 3D Mario games are built upon a design philosophy espoused by Koichi Hayashida. Its Kishtenketsu, a story structure traditionally used in Eastern narratives (Hayashida was particularly inspired by four-panel manga comics). The four steps are: introduction, development, twist and conclusion. In Super Mario games, each new concept is taught, embellished, twisted in some way and then discarded at the end of a stage. Its definitely worth keeping this in mind as you build a stage: start simple, then increase the challenge before throwing in a curveball to keep things interesting. Better still, try to include one last flourish en route to the flagpole as a final reward.

Dont overdo it

Once youve unlocked everything, the temptation is to go mad with power and build the most outlandish stage you can. This rarely makes for an enjoyable experience. That isnt to say you should necessarily stint on the challenge, but lobbing in as many enemies and hazards as possible will likely frustrate players, rather than encouraging them to have another try.

Embrace constraints

By limiting your early experiments to a handful of elements, Nintendo encourages creators to consider ways to make familiar ideas unique even something as simple as attaching wings to a Goomba. As you unlock more content, impose limits: such as a stage using four or five ingredients rather than the whole palette. Really think about how you can combine them in new and unusual ways.

Toy with expectations

The beauty of Super Mario Maker is its variety of ways to surprise those who download and play your levels. Its always smart to offer some kind of spin on an established idea: basic interactions prompting unexpected sound effects, or Lakitus throwing coins or power-ups rather than Spinies. Again, the trick is not to change absolutely everything. Your first cluster of Question Blocks should reveal coins and power-ups, but the next one might prompt a Cheep Cheep to emerge. You could include a musical stab suggesting imminent danger before a Super Star bounces into view, or tease a short cut that leads to an enemy-filled gauntlet. Remixing classic Mario stages always goes down well, too. Failing all that, you could just have a winged Bowser swim into view as soon as the stage begins.

Up is the new right

You cant beat a good auto-scrolling Airship stage as far as were concerned, but theres no need to be a slave to the traditional left-to-right template. Vines provide ample opportunity to give your stages a bit of verticality: dodging enemies while running and jumping is one thing, but doing it while climbing is a challenge few level designers seem prepared to set. Meanwhile, pipes arent just a way to descend to underground areas. Let them stretch up from the surface and ask players to wall-kick up and over them.

Learn from the best

Thats learn, not steal. Not that you can, of course: download someone elses work, edit it and try to claim the glory for yourself and youll rightly be told that its not possible to upload courses originally created by other people. Clever old Nintendo. Still, its certainly worth trawling the levels at the top of the Star Ranking list for inspiration. Even lesser stages sometimes contain ideas that can be refined or twisted in some way, so dont focus your search exclusively on the most popular levels. Try to gauge what works and what doesnt, and use that to inform your own designs. Beyond that, its worth taking the time to study the daily stages automatically uploaded into your Course Bot; these are, after all, Nintendos own courses, and though most are fairly simple in concept, theyre the blueprints to which you should always refer in times of creative crisis.

If in doubt, use amiibo

Were tempted to say this is the cheapest route to success, but for the fact that it requires significant financial investment. But yes, if you dont mind the hollow sensation that follows, featuring an amiibo character or six the rarer the better, naturally is one of the simplest ways to ensure a rush of stars from your Super Mario Maker peers. So why not go the extra mile? A labyrinthine underground cavern would make for a fine Metroid substitute, and it shouldnt be too difficult to approximate a stage from Kirbys Dream Land.