which mario games are not easy?

isn't Super Mario Maker designed for exactly this?

yes + no, yes in that it's nintendo's official level maker, many of the more standout ppl in the mario maker community + hack communities overlap, there absolutely have been a ton of cool + creative mm levels, and the meta for mario maker has def influenced the direction of these hacks, etc.

no in that mario maker is comparatively ultra rigid in what it allows you to do. there's only one way to win a maker level, touch the flag/axe at the end. there's no such thing as long form content, no level playlists, no title screens overworlds endings etc. there are a decent number of enemies and obstacles in maker but there are many hard limits. you can't make the ground slope, for example. you can't really do anything nintendo doesn't intend for you to do, they even scrub the levels for glitches and have banned creators for creating levels that exploit unintended mechanics. it's like speaking a language with a thousand word vocabulary, you can for sure do a lot with what's there but it doesn't touch what's possible. compare with the last twitch link I posted which (SPOILERS) starts off with an unexpected 5 minute long autoscroller section of overworld(!) before going into a funny tutorial screen then dumping hours of levels on the player that end not when you get from point A to B but rather when you clear a certain amount of sprites from the screen, with complete control of the pacing, etc. just a very different level of control over the user experience!

probably the biggest difference for me is no custom music in mario maker, the music really does so much

Thanks esby, these are all insane & great

(particularly that last one w/the puzzle rooms)

Mario 64 romhacks are a fun rabbit hole too though there's only a couple ones with any semblance of polish due to how much more work 3d is

ooh just remembered another good one.. completely unprecedented at the time, catching this live was like the video game troll equivalent of seeing a ronaldinho goal:

https://youtu.be/f5nF9-yikOM?t=482

I like stupid challenges the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=348pvm-p9tI

Good revive. I’ve been watching smw streamers a lot this year. esby already mentioned JuzCook (Invictus) - I like every single video he puts on youtube. Another great streamer you mentioned is GlitchCat (return to subcon) whom can beat the hardest humanly possible levels ever made for smw. You also linked Grand POOBear, another all around fun guy to watch.

I’ve been toying with making my own hack levels. The latest version of the level editor allows you to combine horizontal and vertical stages so I have been testing a long, perilous slide down a steep slope in a narrow cave while with an “auto-walking” patch so you can’t turn around midslide.