Super Mario Maker - info on Mario Paint inspiration, dev process and more

Coming from Nintendo's Takashi Tezuka & Yosuke Oshino...

- inspired by the Wii U to make new Mario Paint-like experience
- wanted to do another Mario Paint style game for years now
- the tools team came forward with idea for a level editor for Wii U
- the idea to move forward and turn it into consumer software came up
- a lot of current Nintendo devs grew up playing classic Mario games
- this helps them relive those moments and create new ones for today's generation
- Nintendo has a lot of gifted 3D devs, but not as many skilled pixel artists
- it used to take a full day to turn a graph paper level design into something actually playable in-game
- the original prototype for Super Mario Maker was simple and easy to use, so Nintendo stuck with that theme
- Nintendo wanted to keep things as uncluttered as possible in the editor
- since last E3, Nintendo thought a lot about what visual styles/game themes they wanted to include
- it took time to play and adjust the different themes to make sure everything worked right
- they aimed to make things that would make their colleagues smile and get people having fun
- the basic idea of the game was created a little after last year's E3
- after that, tweaks, variety and new ideas were put into the game
- wanted to add network functionality right from the start
- also decided early on to make it a single-player game
- levels have a limit to how many items you can implement, but it's so high that you may never notice it
- Nintendo will distribute courses to players after launch to go along with the courses added on-disc
- no plans for DLC of new characters
- all amiibo costumes play the same as Mario, but have new sound effects and poses
- still more to unveil on the game
- Tezuka says SMB 3 is is favorite, while Oshino chose Super Mario World