Peaceful Meadow is the first level I made for
Mario Maker 2. I immediately loved the forest theme the instant I saw it and knew that I wanted to make something out of it. This level's intentionally pretty easy and straight-forward, though the earlier versions were a lot more awkward with some strange difficulty spikes. I've redesigned a lot of sections and removed a lot of the unwanted danger.
Tower to Heaven is the second level I made, and was the first to become really popular. It's another relatively-easy stage, with an emphasis on simple vertical puzzles as you climb up a sacred tower, eventually reading the floating land in the sky. I had a lot of fun thinking up simple layouts for the different rooms of this one.
Celestial Sanctuary is the third level I made. After two easy levels, I wanted to make something with a focus on horizontal movement and more dangerous platforming. Throughout the stage, the player swaps between running underneath and over the top of the cloudy ruins. I like swinging claws a lot and used them a decent amount here. The sky tileset is a bit hard to decorate, and I'm not that big a fan of the bricks strewn about, but I like the simple and effective level design here. This level was notoriously hard among my levels due to some awkward ceilings.
Holy Mountain was my fourth level. It's pretty blatantly inspired by
Celeste, with many bits of level design taken straight from it. I loved the game a lot.
This is another one of my harder levels, though generous powerup placement alleviates some of the pain. Things get more dangerous near the end.
The making of this was a time where the game's engine limitations of "only subarea can be vertical", "must end level in main area", and "can only have two areas in a level" made things harder than they should have been.
Spectral Mansion originally started out as a remake of a level I made back on the 3DS. Starting off in a graveyard, the player works their way into a haunted house, where they must find the keys in different challenge rooms before making an escape.
I tried to make something a little different than I usually do with this one. The aesthetic shows off a big reason why I really like using the
SMB1 game style: the underground tileset can be very easily worked into a dark outdoor area with a little bit of imagination.
There's a really obscure secret in the garden section. I hope someone can find it.
Muncher Jungle is the first level I made with a clear, concise mechanical focus: enemies with munchers on their heads.
This is heavily inspired by a level I made on the 3DS, with the opening segments taken straight from it with later segments being all-new.
Ancient Artillery is a level featuring a lot of sprinting past desert hills and dodging projectiles. I find the idea of a warzone whose battle never ends really intriguing and thought it would make a good theme.
As another level with a focus on a small set of enemies, I think I did pretty well with this one. I like the desert tileset a lot. This is a pretty fun one to speedrun due to some of its slight complexity in its subarea's rooms.
Dark Grotto is my take on all those dangerous athletic levels that you'd see. I tried to focus on a handful of setups with increasing difficulty and I think I accomplished my goals well.
Another one of my harder levels, this was one I really enjoyed working on. I kept this level unuploaded for a while, constantly tinkering with things, because I couldn't think up a good name and description.
A Journey Beyond the Stars is a long space-faring adventure through the four distinct elements of the solar system: a grassy green planet, frozen space junk, a mining operation based in a meteor herd, and the intense solar heat.
This one is, artistically, one of my favorites. I put a lot of effort in this one. It's pretty long, it's pretty aesthetically varied, and it has a lot of secrets to find. It's definitely one of my most difficult, especially at the end. This actually was originally planned to be a standard sky theme, focused entirely on the grass part, before I played an outer space level that inspired me to turn it into a solar system trek.
Cliffside Mine is a high-speed level focused on horizontal movement across a decrepit old mine.
I like to think of this as the daytime version of Dark Grotto. Aesthetically it's very similar, with many obvious differences in the details. I tried to make use of the recently-released spike ball element in this level.
I'm pretty fond of this one. It's challenging but it's still nice and breezy. Satisfying to speedrun. I originally had a big dumb obscure secret involving the Master Sword, going out of bounds, and finding a hidden passage off-screen, but I felt it was a bit excessive and dropped it.
Temple of the Moon is somewhat of a return to form for me. Inspired by a level featuring beautiful hallways with pillars, I set off to make my own take on the theme. This is another easy one, with some puzzles to be done and secrets to be found.
My bias for the snow theme shows off again here. I wanted to make a counterpart "Temple of the Sun" level using the desert theme, but to this day I haven't come up with any ideas.
Realm of the Beholder is somewhat of a departure. This hazards-free level was made mostly as a drawing board for stuff I thought was really cool, with abstract, patterned geometry.
There are many inspirations for this one. The creator Hippy♀Aino (7P5-PG9-HBG) was a huge inspiration for the namesake setpiece of this level. She and EVILMOOMIN (CH0-DDD-1HG) have creative use of tracks as linework and decoration, which I tried to simulate in my own way. Lastly, the game
N and its sequels feature silhouette designs with lots of interesting shapes and patterns.
Niflheimr is, as of this moment, my latest creation. It's a simple platforming level in the snow (go figure), taking place in a snowy afterlife where the dead wander, lost and forgotten.
This level was primarily inspired by its color scheme. I find the use of greys and whites really charming, with splashes of yellow for coins and blocks. It's a semi-easy one. Design-wise, this features consistent forwards movement, with detours being short and quickly returning to the main path.