I’ve always been fascinated by video games where their whole deal is you make video games inside of them. You work in this biz long enough and you get an itch to try things for yourself. Mostly my creative needs are sated by writing my own stories for fun, and buildingDungeons & Dragonsadventures (whichI then write about, inan endless hamster wheel of content production), but games that make games will always interest me.Dreamshad an overwhelming array of options that left me going nowhere slowly, whileGame Builder Garagewas too interested in teaching the mechanical methodology over making the magic. The sweet spot in the middle of this isSuper Mario Maker, but maybe there should be others.
I’ve lightly dabbled in Super Mario Maker, but never been hooked by it. There are some diabolically evil creations out there ready to impale you on difficult spikes time and time again, so I know there’s a deep well to explore. Our own Andrew King has evenspeculated as to what the next Mario Maker might bring, given the extra tools like Wonder Flowers brought in bySuper Mario Bros. Wonder. But again, a little too much of Mario Maker is about the mechanical methodology, not the magic.
Here are some of the funky additions we could see to the next Mario Maker
In 2D Mario, you have to get from one side of the screen to the other. There may be secret exits or hidden treasures, but that’s pretty much it. Wonder adds new ways to do this, but keeps the basic formula the same. As a kid I kept notebooks with ideas forCrash BandicootandSpyro the Dragonlevels (as well as a plan for a minigolf course based on Jak and Daxter), so you might say I’m something of an expert in designing games where you go from one place to another is creative and challenging ways. But I find myself wanting more. If we have Mario Maker, why notPokemonMaker?
To be clear, I don’t mean a way to create individual Pokemon - those already exist, and the most accessible one is called ‘a pencil’. I mean a Pokemon game, made for me, by me.
As you might have guessed from the fact Dreams overwhelmed me while others madephotorealistic breakfastsorJurassic Parkfan games, I don’t know an awful lot about making a video game. I assume a large part of why Mario Maker works so smoothly is the control the game exerts on you without you being aware of it - Mario goes from left to right, and so all of your ideas are funnelled through that. Pokemon is far more open, and therefore harder to let people make for themselves, but there are still ways around this.
Pokemon exists on a reliable formula - you collect eight gym badges, challenge the Elite Four, and thus win the game. It wouldn’t be the full Pokemon experience, but you could have a game wherein you create eight gyms, growing in difficulty, and then a final challenge. Scarlet & Violet went for the open world approach, but without difficulty scaling it just became linear, but the scenic route. The story hasn’t been up to much in Pokemon for a while as it retreads old ground with safe footsteps, so you could still make a lot of the game your own this way.
Of course, there are still drawbacks to this. Pokemon’s character creation and customisation has never come close to the game’s often iconic original designs, and Nintendo’s overly protective child-friendly design philosophy would heavily restrict your ability to write character dialogue. Mario doesn’t have this problem, because there are no words and everyone is using the same set of tools. But if itcaptures some of the charmofAnimal Crossing, we could see some unique gyms that tell stories in their own way. Add in the ability to load it up with lower level goons and mix up everyone’s party and movesets, and you quickly run into the hundreds of thousands of options for fresh scenarios.
We might even finally get some gyms thatrival the ones we see in the animeif the fans get the keys to the kingdom.
Pokemon has had a lot of spin-offs in its time, and they show far more variety than the often sports-adjacent titles of Mario, so I want to have faith that this is possible. It would sell, because name me one thing Pokemon has made that doesn’t, and it builds on an area Nintendo has already had success in through Mario. There are lots of indie dungeon builders which are just Zelda Maker, so there’s clearly demand for Nintendo to expand. Then again, it missed the open goal of downloadable themed expansions for Ring Fit, so I guess you’re able to’t count on anything.
Hundreds of thousands of people have created their own Pokemon gyms, whether in their heads, in sketchbooks, oreven in real life, and a Pokemon Maker game would tap into that creative energy. With so many choices and so much nostalgia to explore, it could be all about the magic, and not just the mechanical methodology.
Next:Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s Terrible Online Play Turns It Into Sonic
