Mario Maker Announced For Wii U. E3 2014 Trailers & Gameplay. Create And Share Your Own Levels!

Mario Maker for Wii U was announced at E3 2014 for an early 2015 release and came completely out of left field to surprise Nintendo fanboys with a very cool tool that allows you to create and share your very own Super Mario Bros. levels!

Check out the reveal trailer for Mario Maker from Nintendo’s E3 2014 Digital Event.

— BUILD & REBUILD THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM —

For the first time ever, anyone can create 2D Mario levels using Wii U GamePad controller.

Key Mario Maker Features:

* Making courses is easy. Players use the GamePad touch screen to easily drag and drop elements they want in their levels. Place blocks, pipes, lifts and enemies anywhere and play through the level. Want a Goomba to wear a Piranha Plant on its head, build a tower 10 Goombas tall or make a Piranha Plant fly by giving it wings?

* Players can instantly playtest and edit their creations on the fly. If something isn’t working, go back into edit mode immediately by tapping a button and make tweaks until everything is just right.

* With the tap of an icon, users can even switch the visual style between a classic 8-bit Super Mario Bros. look and the HD world of New Super Mario Bros. U in the E3 version.

Watch longtime Mario Producer Takashi Tezuka talk about the game while it’s played from Nintendo’s E3 2014 Treehouse Live event.

Mario Maker is a full-on Super Mario Bros. level editor that allows fans to easily and painlessly create and share their favorite user-created Mario Bros. levels.

Using the Wii U GamePad, you can easily tap, drag and drop to switch between and place various enemies & objects to mold & shape your level. You can place enemies like Koopas, Goombas, Bullet Bills and Hammer Bros. where you want, even stack them ontop of each other to create a deadly Hammer Bros. Tower or Goomba Pyramid, and you can easily use the editor to do things like lower and raise the length of a Green Piper, place multiple Blocks or Coin Boxes, choose where to put Coins and Extra Life 1Up Mushrooms, etc.!

Here’s 30 minutes of unadulterated Mario Maker gameplay from Treehouse Day 2 at E3 2014.

You can then easily play the level, stop it, and go back in and edit it. One really cool feature is the ability to switch between the classic, retro 8bit style, or the New Super Mario Bros. style, at the push of a button! You can also turn on a Shadow Mario mode that allows you to see trailing shadows of exactly where Mario lands when he jumps, then pause the action and use it as a guide in further editing your level!

This idea was likely inspired by the fanmade Super Mario Bros. emulator games that people have been creating for a decade now, where they use the Super Mario Bros. ROM to create new and complex levels. But this time anyone can do it without any kind of coding or modding experience needed!

Watch youtuber Ghostrobo create his own level in this video!

Created levels can then be shared with the Wii U community at large and voted on via MiiVerse. Hopefully Nintendo will add a ton of online functionality to this game and allow you to easily send levels to your Wii U Friends and post videos of them on youtube, etc.

It’s great to see Nintendo finally diving into something like this. And longtime 16bit Nintendo fans will be extremely happy to see references to the Fly Swatting minigame from Mario Paint for SNES!