Super Mario Maker
© 2015 Nintendo of America, Inc.
You've probably played Super Mario Bros. Now you can make and share your own Super Mario Bros. levels, with this well designed creativity experience designed only for Wii U. Using the Wii U GamePad controller, you touch the screen to drag and drop parts into place. You can then blend enemies, traps and items into unexpected twists, like Piranha Plant-shooting cannons, and power-up-tossing Lakitus. The responsive touch control lets you quickly toggle between create and play modes, and an online ranking system lets your try other ideas. There are four themes: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U. Each has a different art style and features, such as transforming into different characters at random with the new Mystery Mushroom item. You can expand your library of game elements by completing 100 Mario Challenges, or by buying a compatible amiibo on the game pad. If you happen to have a 30th Anniversary Mario amiibo figure, you can get a "Big Mushroom power-up." You can see where this is going. Despite all the commercial hooks, this is an outstanding way to let children create their own platformer game. Update November 2015: A software update will let you create save points (called "mid-level checkpoints") inside your game, as well as the addition of Course World categories that highlight new levels from Nintendo and partner creators outside Nintendo. So you can now add flags to your level, letting players to start at the selected point if they lose a life – rather than having to start over at the beginning of the level. The software update also introduces Event Courses in the game’s Course World online hub.
$60, Wii U
Teaches: creativity, programming, coding, video game design
CTR Rating: 94%