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Mario Chat / Re: Super Mario Maker
« on: June 21, 2016, 09:28:20 PM »I'll have to get the upload codes for my levels at some point!!
I actually have been writing Mario levels since before Mario Maker. A long time ago, back before kids occupied themselves with iPhones, we had to settle for our TI-83 Plus graphing calculators as entertainment in school. These calculators not only helped us survive Algebra and Calculus, but served as gaming devices. You could download simple games off the Internet to play on these things. They were cruder than the original GameBoy, but when it looks like you're doing your schoolwork and you're really shooting up bad guys, nothing else will do.
Someone made a Super Mario port for the TI-83, which happened to include an editor. Fifteen years ago, my freshman year of high school, we had these competitions in school to see who could make the hardest and best Mario levels. Looking back, I know why my Honors Biology grades could have been a little higher. I made some pretty good levels--and incidentally, the harder of those levels went unbeaten for a week until my friend who didn't even have a video game system beat it!! (This was WITHOUT help of her gamer boyfriend, who also made a decent level or two!)
When I got Mario Maker, I played around with it at first, then got my old TI-83 Plus out and started converting the levels to Mario Maker. They're still tough, but I do like to think they are well-made.
Anyone else on these forums a veteran of the TI-83 port?
I'm not even sure kids play games on those calculators anymore!! They have a color screen model out at long last (which is GREAT for figuring out which line you graphed--I actually teach math for a living and like the new model a lot) but if students are going to play a game, they usually do so on an iOS or Android device. Some of them are shocked when they find out we used to play games on our calculators (and no, I don't permit my students to do that during instruction and know EXACTLY what it looks like when you're gaming and not solving a problem).
I've been drawing out Mario levels since the third grade or so. It was a challenge on plain, non-lined paper.
