Experimenting With Thwomps
Since it’s the weekend I wanted to take a little bit more time and create a level that’s a bit more substantial. So I fired up Mario Maker and chose an enemy that would be fun to experiment with and create a level. I decided to go with the Thwomps as they feel like an enemy that is out of the direct control of the player so it’s a case of teaching the player about them as much as possible through their play.
I’m pretty sporadic when it comes to creating things on Mario Maker so the first thing I needed to do was make notes on details of the Thwomps. This was pretty simple stuff like:
Mario having the same run speed as a horizontally moving Thwomp
Thwomp will crush through blocks but not the ground or hard blocks
4 squares is the minimum safe distance for small Mario to escape from a downward crushing Thwomp at a run (5 for big Mario).
Given that I needed to do this research, my initial target player was somebody in the same position who didn’t really know what the Thwomps were capable of. That gave me a useful starting point for the beginning of the level where I focused on teaching the player all about what the Thwomps could and couldn’t do.
I used this area as a safety net to show how the Thwomps were hostile to the player’s proximity. The hard blocks on the left are to show the enemy’s limits whilst the Thwomp on the right can break through and threaten the player if they’re not careful. There’s little for the player to do in this part though so I think next time I’ll try to combine that learning portion with a little more interactivity on behalf of the player. Hard to combine that with a safety net but I’ll figure it out.
This area introduces actual danger to the player. They were given a mushroom at the start of the level, so again, there is a little bit of a safety net here. The Thwomp is still at a distance where the player is safe to run underneath. But if they want to collect all the coins they may need to exhibit patience. Through this, i’m finding that there are a couple of design directions with the Thwomps in that you can force the player to run through a fast moving gauntlet or have them stop and wait for the Thwomps to reset.
At this point I wanted to be forgiving of first time players and give them another mushroom for the next part, which removes safety nets and introduces the first bit of challenge in the level. It can be run through like a gauntlet or taken slowly and coins gathered up.
The Twomp on the left is placed low enough that it really requires the player to either run at full speed or be patient and jump over. The like the Thwomp on the right because it introduces the idea to the player that they can be permanently gotten rid of. But also there is a nice challenge for gauntlet runners in timing their jump perfectly so they get the coins, avoid the pit and the Thwomp at the same time.
This section introduces a new terrain piece but also provides the player with options for if they want to go through the next part of the level via the top or bottom path. If they go through the top path they are prepared with a mushroom. The lower Thwomp is placed in such a way that it prevents gauntlet runners from speeding through which foreshadows the patience required to take the bottom path.
The top path requires more dextrous input from the player but is more rewarding in terms of coins. the bottom path cannot be run through so the player will need to be more patient. I think in future I would put coins in the blocks that players could jump and gather from below. Patience and exploration is just as valid a pathway as dexterity and should be rewarded equally
I still need to relax on the weekend so I don’t want to make a massive level. So I decided to end it with a bit of a jumping challenge and power reward. There’s a question block with a super star in it. This will allow the player to clear the following jumping challenge with ease as the Thwomps come down.
I enjoyed tinkering about in Mario Maker this weekend. I definitely want to continue on with the Thwomps because there’s so much i can still do with them. I think it was good for my own level design to really think about the level standing by as its own piece to this enemy and to really focus on how each element is teaching the player to Thwomps.
How does the player encounter each element and how might they be led to approach them? I want to carry forward that understanding in the levels I make.
