Within its first week on sale, Super Mario Maker has seen over one million user created stages uploaded online.

Unfortunately, the majority of them that you’ll randomly come across in the game aren’t any good, especially when you compare them to Nintendo’s original creations. While I’m no Miyamoto, I’ve played enough video games over the last 30 years and enough Super Mario Maker in the last week to pick up on a few basics rules of game design. Here are a few key things to avoid in your Mario levels.

DON’T:

Require players to make blind leaps of faith

We’ve all been there in a bad video game level. You reach a point where the only way forward appears to be a leap across a huge gap with no idea what lies below or ahead. You hope to get lucky and either land in the one safe spot the designer expects us to know is there or on some invisible ledge. If you’re intentional going create such an experience in a Super Mario Maker level, either leave some sort of clue (such as a coin trail) to where the player needs to drop or make sure that any obstacles below or ahead are fairly placed.

Immediately kill the player

This is an especially unforgivable design sin. So far I’ve played three stages which have enemies colliding with the player’s beginning position within a second of starting. In each case there was absolutely no way I could know that I had to be holding on a specific direction on the D-pad to even survive the opening second of the stage. Never, EVER, do something this unfair… unless you’re purposely trying to create some sort of trolling level. Even then, expect very few players to want to see the rest of your stage if it’s going to be that obnoxious right from the outset.

Leave pipes unfinished or leave other aesthetic atrocities

Pipes may be somewhat magical in the Mario universe, but without some sort of end piece they look terrible; as if someone sawed off one end and that Mario could fall straight through them. Follow Nintendo’s style and at least put some blocks on them so it looks like they’re attached to something and don’t simply end in nothingness. Also, if your pipe transports the player to another part of the level, make it look like it’s taking them there by having it burrowing into the ground or some sort of structure. A little bit of window dressing goes a long way to making your levels look good.

Have long routes that lead to dead-ends

No-one likes spending a long period getting somewhere only to find that they’ve completely wasted their time. This is a universal, common-sense fact of life, and yet there are many Super Mario Maker stages ignore this, requiring the player to backtrack through long paths or even dumping them in deadly pits without warning. If you’re going for a trolling-based level, at least don’t force the player to waste quite so much time getting to (and even back from) the dead-end. In most cases, just avoid empty dead-ends.

Spam enemies with no rhyme nor reason

This is never fun. If you’re going to throw a lot of foes at the player at once at least give them some way to combat or avoid said barrage, like a fire flower or kick-able shell. Avoid using enemies with erratic and difficult to judge behaviour such as Lakitu if you have to use a lot of them. Also, don’t make levels based solely around barrelling through hordes of enemies whilst invincible – they’re uninspired, boring and there’s already much too many of them online.

Check back soon for a few suggestions of what your should aim to include in your Mario Maker levels. You can find my creations in-game via the following level code: 38E7-0000-0051-BCAF.