New Course updated to OP recently.  My birthday recently passed on July 15th.  And late in that day, I thought it would be cool to create a new course and upload it on my birthday.  Unfortunately, due to the time I started, and the theme I chose for the course (a carnival), creating the course ran passed midnight, and so by the time I completed the clear check the course was actually uploaded the day after my birthday, but what can you do?  As stated, the theme of the course is a night trip through a carnival featuring several minigames and activities.  At the end of the carnival, there is fireworks show, my "house" lies beyond the flagpole, where you will ring the doorbell and wait to be invited in for some birthday cake. 

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Course ID: 0SH-B4V-7CG

Description:  Celebrate my birthday by traveling through a Carnival, seeing a fireworks show, and then stop at my house afterwards.  Carnival games include Goombarang, Vortex Tunnel, Pick a Shot, Bumper Cars, Haunted House, and Bouncy Castle.

Likes: 2

Played By: 13

Clears: 9

Attempts: 25

Clear Rate: 36.00%

World Record: 0:49.065 (sully 0_0)

Uploaded: 7/16/2020

I had taken some time off from creating SMM2 course to catch up on playing other Switch games (I recently completed Catherine Full Body, Dead or School, and Valkyria Chronicles 4, LA Noire, and Wolfenstein II The New Colossus in the past 2 months which is a very good run of game completion for me).  While enjoying the 3 day Labor Day weekend holiday though, I decided to pop SMM2 back into my Switch and take a look at the notifications that had accumulated.  After reading some kind comments left recently on my courses, I was inspired to begin crafting a new course.  I used the "Labor Day" holiday as a tongue in cheek theme and began creating the course under the title "The 7 Labors of Hercules" (In Greek mythology, Hercules performed 12 Labors, but I was determined to create a "World Map" overworld with 4 decently sized sub-world areas with each Labor culminating in a Red Coin collection required to complete the course.  And, so I limited the minor tasks in the overworld to 3, rather than create a series of single screen tasks like my Action 19 course).  The 7 labors contained within the course are only inspired by and therefore very loosely associated (most not at all) with the actual 12 Labors of Hercules.

I would have liked to have gotten the course uploaded on Labor Day, but I included 2 checkpoints due to the length and multiple red coin collection tasks which thus required fully completing the course 3 times into to successfully clear check and upload the course.  This was actually a good thing, because 2/3 of the way through the clear check I realized that I had a mini boss fight very early in the stage that yielded a key to continue progressing through the mini sub world area.  If left the way it had been created, a player could have taken that key back out of the sub world entrance and "cheesed" their way past the other 6 Labors and exited the course.  I momentarily considered leaving this in, since I had already completed 2 of the 3 clear checks, and players often have fun finding "hidden cheese" and using "unintended strats" for beating a creators course.  In the end though, I decided to edit the area and make it impossible to descend back to the 1st sub-world entrance once acquiring the key.  I'm glad I did, because by going back into the edit mode on the course, I had a chance to make other additions to the course and overall improvements to the aesthetics now that I was no longer under the "deadline" of uploading the course on a particular day.  This gave me the inspiration and time to add 3 more mythology themed mini-bosses to the sub-world areas that didn't originally have them. As stated, I made background improvements to the course that I feel really enhance the theme.  I also gave each power-up within the stage their own "mystique" by placing them on "pedestals" to make them feel like mythical power bestowing treasures.  And, I even put some extra work into the "soundtrack" of the course as well.  At this point, I can say with confidence that I am 100% happy with the course and am now ready to upload it.  

I've already done a straight run of the 1st clear check on my first try and will get the other 2 done hopefully on my lunch break today.  In the meantime, this post is to serve as teaser for the impending release of my new course.  Since I created more of a mythology to the course than could possibly be typed in the level description in the game, I thought I would detail it here. 

If you want to go into the course completely fresh though with no forehand knowledge, you can stop reading here.

Story:

The Golden Apples of the Hesperides (Red Coins) have been scattered across ancient Greece.  King Eurystheus tasks Hercules to reacquire the apples in order to gain entry to the city of Mycenae and continue on his legendary journeys.  7 Golden Apples were stolen, and so 7 "Labors" must be completed to regain them.  

1st Labor:  Enter the "Tower of the Winds" and obtain Prometheus' Fire to defeat the Wizard Aeetes.  The Helmet of Hades must also be acquired to reach the first of the Golden Apples and escape the tower alive.

2nd Labor:  Cross the "Pillars of Hercules" to reach Mount Parnassus.  One of the Golden Apples is hidden within a cave in the slope of the mountain.  Treacherous winds make entry to the cave difficult.

3rd Labor:  Ascend to the top of Mount Parnassus to the Temple of the Oracle of Delphi.  Buried deep beneath the temple is a crumbling cave of ice.  The third Golden Apple is guarded in the depths of the cave by Medusa.

4th Labor:  Soar to the Heavens to find the 4th Golden Apple outside the Temple of Zeus.

5th Labor:  Descend into the Underworld to find the 5th Golden Apple precariously laying above a bottomless pit.  The three headed guard dog Cerberus must be avoided to reach it.

6th Labor:  Return to the world of the living and find the Tree of Life.  Inside the tree rests the Sword of Peleus.  Obtaining the sword is a necessity to defeating the multi-headed Hydra guarding the 6th Golden Apple at the top of the tree.

7th Labor:  Antaeus awaits outside the massive gate to Mycenae.  Antaeus has buried the 7th Golden Apple and must be wrestled first in order to safely retrieve it.

As promised, here is the info for the course I teased yesterday.  Successfully uploaded and updated to OP.

7 Labors of Hercules

Course ID: L0M-X25-GWG

Description:   The Golden Apples of the Hesperides (Red Coins) have been scattered across ancient Greece.  King Eurystheus tasks Hercules to reacquire the apples in order to gain entry to the city of Mycenae and continue on his legendary journeys.  7 Golden Apples were stolen, and so 7 "Labors" must be completed to regain them. 

Likes: 1

Played By: 24

Clears: 4

Attempts: 129

Clear Rate: 3.10%

World Record: 0:47.431 (vOlca)

Uploaded: 9/10/2020

New course uploaded over the weekend and updated to OP.  I have recently been enjoying Nintendo's new battle royale game, Super Mario Bros 35.  In addition to playing it, I've been watching videos of it from Ryukhar and TheDragonFeeney.  So, I was inspired to attempt to recreate the manic multiplayer action in Super Mario Maker 2 as a tribute.

Super Mario Bros. 35

Course ID: YM0-RG0-S1H

Description:  Battle through enemy waves in familiar levels from the original Super Mario Bros in a recreation of Super Mario Bros 35.  4 players can race to the flagpole first on their own screens of 1-1 or 1-2 which has been spammed with enemies from later stages by unknown and unseen additional opponents.  Powerups from the coin Roulette are scattered about to help you survive as the clock winds down against you.

Likes: 1

Played By: 6

Clears: 4

Attempts: 17

Clear Rate: 23.52%

World Record: 0:34.599 (HomieNick!)

Uploaded: 10/3/2020

2 New Courses uploaded on Halloween 2020 and updated to OP:

With Halloween having been on the weekend this year, I had decided to once again upload my Haunted Cemetery course that I had originally uploaded for Super Mario Maker on the Wii U.  This version features some visual improvements over the original.  The mausoleums now have more aesthetically pleasing exteriors, and fully designed sub-world interiors.  A greater variety of boo ghosts enemies (boo buddies and boo stretches) have been incorporated into the course as well. 

Since that course was mostly just a subtle upgrade from an existing course, I also took the time to create an entirely new course outside of the Halloween theme.  In this case, I was inspired to try and recreate the action of Data East's 1982 classic "Bump n' Jump", which was I title I most enjoyed playing on my ColecoVision, but which had been ported to numerous other systems including the NES as well.  I had to use the Super Mario 3D World theme for the course in order have a Koopa Car to drive.  Much like the original game, you can bump the other Koopa Cars on the road and land on them to destroy (disable) them.  I recreated a number or jumping hazards as well, and utilized the lightbulb sound effect at set intervals right before each jump to let you know the jumps were coming just like in the original game.  I also used the sub world and main world so that I could have two different distinct seasonal themes, just like the season would change after completing a stage in the original.  I also created a Data East/Bump n' Jump title card at the start of the course before you begin in the winter themed sub-world.  I think the finished course is both fun and true to the classic game.

Bump n' Jump

Course ID: 1W1-45C-JDG

Description:  Bump into other cars, jump to clear hazards, and vault over opponents or land on them in this homage to Data East's classic from 1982.

Likes: 6

Played By: 16

Clears: 7

Attempts: 69

Clear Rate: 10.14%

World Record: 0:41.949 (MrHyde86)

Uploaded: 10/31/2020

Night of the Haunted Cemetery

Course ID: M28-GSB-RHG

Description:  Survive a night in the Haunted Cemetery, but beware the Mausoleums!  Happy Halloween 2020!  This is a deluxe version of sorts of the "Revenge of the Haunted Cemetery" course that I uploaded on Halloween night 2019 (which itself was a reupload of the original Haunted Cemetery course that I had created on Super Mario Maker for Wii U years prior).  This deluxe version features both mausoleum interiors recreated as sub-worlds, so that you can no longer see through the buildings from the outside.  

Likes: 3

Played By: 7

Clears: 3

Attempts: 30

Clear Rate: 10.00%

World Record: 1:27.628

Uploaded: 10/31/2020

New course uploaded over this past weekend and updated to Op.  I had played another creator's course recently called "Mouse Trap", and while it had nothing to do with it, the title reminded me of the classic game I used to play frequently on ColecoVision in my childhood.  "Mouse Trap" was a popular Pac-Man clone back in the day, so I decided to try and recreate it in Super Mario Maker 2.  I used the underwater theme and frog suit again to speed up navigation of the maze.  I used Chain Chomps in place of the enemy cats, since they seemed the most adept at navigating the underwater maze as an enemy that could kill Mario in 1 hit, while also adhering to the physics of the walls and doors.  I used Red Blocks and On/Off switches to simulate the opening and closing of the original games Red, Blue, & Yellow Doors.  It would have been nice to have different kind of "doors", but I had to avoid using the P Switch, because it would have turned all of the coins to bricks.  I used Red Coins in place of the "Bones", although these serve only a visual connection to the classic version, since I spread ? Blocks around the maze with Invincibility Stars to be used as your mouse's transformation into a dog.  But, you do need all the Red Coins to create a Key that will access the Flagpole room at the end of the course, and the Flagpole is only accessible if you have munched all "92" bits of cheese (Coins) in the maze.

Mouse Trap (ColecoVision)

Course ID: RVY-PYV-GFG

Description:  Weave through a maze of doors & corridors as a mouse munching bits of cheese.  Open and shut doors to escape pursuing cats (Chain Chomps).  Collect bones (Red Coins) and turn your mouse into a cat-biting dog (using Star Power Ups). 

Likes: 7

Played By: 11

Clears: 7

Attempts: 14

Clear Rate: 50.00%

World Record: 2:22.684 (Luigi05)

Uploaded: 11/8/2020

New course uploaded this weekend and updated to OP.  For a long time, my NES games compilation "Mario Plays NES Games" was by far my most played course in Super Mario Maker 2.  It held the top mark of all my courses in the most sizeable categories (Players, Likes, Attempts) almost immediately after being uploaded.  At it's peak, on one magical weekend, it was once played by 500 players in a single day (532 players on 12/7/2019), and Liked by 100 of them.  A feat that has never been matched by any of my other courses.  Over time though, another of my courses that I had actually worked on and uploaded around the same time garnered its own fair share of attention.  Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash was uploaded (11/29/2019) 4 days before Mario Plays NES Games (12/2/2019), but did not hit its own stride until a month later, reaching its own single day peak of over 200 players in a single day (229 players on 1/1/2020) and Liked by 29 of them.  While its peak may have been 300 players and 71 Likes lower than Mario Plays NES Games had achieved on its best day, Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash became an evergreen course that continued to add players and Likes in chunks over time.  I thought that this may have been because the course was specifically designed with multiplayer in mind, but in actuality, it has only been played 4 times in Multiplayer Versus mode, in contrast to Mario Plays NES Games having been played 28 times.  However, Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash is a much shorter and easier course boasting a higher clearer rate.  It has also been getting a boost recently by appearing earlier in my Super World which is made of all of my retro and modern reimagining of games.  For all of these reasons, Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash eventually surpassed 700 players and went to eclipse Mario Plays NES Games as my most played course of all time.

In commemoration of this event, I decided to make a "Greatest Hits" course combining both of my most played and liked courses into a single course called "Greatest Hits:  The 700 Series".  I waited a little bit until Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash also reached the 100 Like milestone before crafting and uploading the celebratory course.  Rather than just do a "copy/paste" of the originals, I gave both courses a remastered "facelift" with Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash being completely redesigned.  In addition to the theme of Mario Plays NES Games receiving a 3D upgrade, the Donkey Kong Jr first screen game was replaced with Donkey Kong Jr's 2nd screen for reasons detailed below.

Greatest Hits:  The 700 Series

Course ID: 3VV-H4G-0RG

Description:  Celebrating 2 Courses that achieved the milestone of having been played by over 700 different people.  Greatest Hits:  The 700 Series combines Mario Plays NES Games with Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash into a single course.  Mario Plays NES Games maintains the core of Mario going home to play a level from "Mario Bros.", "Donkey Kong Jr.", and "Super Mario Bros.".  But, the theme has been upgraded from 8 bit to 3D in order to combine with the Super Mario 3D World theme of Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash.  In addition to this upgrade, the first screen level of Donkey Kong Jr. has been swapped out for a rendition of the 2nd screen with the spring and moving platforms.  This was mainly due to the unavailability of vines in the 3D World theme, which the first screen of Donkey Kong Jr heavily utilizes.  Most of the vines in this rendition of screen 2 have been represented by Twisters.  After finishing the three levels of Mario Plays NES Games, the player is transported to the back of Mario's house to obtain a Koopa Car and then enter the final level, Mario Maker Kart Quadruple Dash.  This version has been completely reinvented, but stays true to the spirit of the original and can still be played in multiplayer.

Likes: 1

Played By: 6

Clears: 1

Attempts: 21

Clear Rate: 4.76%

World Record: 2:57.866 (mikagic)

Uploaded: 11/15/2020

New course uploaded over the weekend and updated to OP.  I crossed a couple of milestones as a creator over the weekend when I passed 800+ Likes and crossed over the 6000 Maker Points threshold for the first time.  I decided to craft a simple celebratory course to commemorate the occasion.  I wanted to do a semi-auto Mario course, but one that required some inputs from the player.  I immediately thought of a technique that I had seen recently in a course called "super high jump" from a creator named Bradilaya.  The technique requires the winter theme in Super Mario World and involves a Thwomp in a Clown Car  surrounded by one ways with a Bumper in front of it, and then a Spring inside a semisolid one space beyond, followed by a one space steep slope.  The Thwomp has to be set to move in the direction of the Bumper and the Spring, and the player holds down and B right in front of the spring.  When the Thwomp in the Cloud Car collides with the crouching Mario, the player is blasted off up the wintery slope to a height not previously possible by normal jumping.

Ground Control to Major Tom 6000

Course ID: X8R-9PX-0WG

Description:  Celebrating reaching the milestones of 800+ Likes and 6000+ Maker Points.  Course starts with Mario transported by vehicle to the launchpad of a rocket ship.  An elevator raises Mario up to the cockpit.  After entering the rocket, he is blasted off into the sky.  Once in the sky (sub world), Mario is bounced from cloud to cloud, traversing normally impossible to jump distances using a mechanic I saw in another creator's course.  I duplicated the technique all the way to the top of the sub world, and then Mario returns to a hero's welcome back at the launch site.  Full credit to the creator Bradilay, who designed the course that I borrowed the technique from.  To play it in Bradilay's course: super high jump, go to 99G-2XB-72H .

Likes: 1

Played By: 3

Clears: 2

Attempts: 4

Clear Rate: 50.00%

World Record: 0:39.483 (★KIMBUD★)

Uploaded: 11/22/2020

I've been meaning to go back to this course for a long time, and I finally punched the course ID for Heaven & Hell back in today.  I must have been impatient when I first attempted this course, because I got to the first checkpoint after just a few tries.  Your checkpoint placement is more than fair.  Once I got to the 2nd checkpoint, I was fully committed to beating the course this go around.  The heaven portion probably shouldn't have given me as much trouble as it did, but after several efforts, I did finally beat it.  Having the unlimited Fire Flower Powerup Pipe accessible right before the 2nd checkpoint was very generous.  I gave the course a much overdue Like and 2 Stamp Comments.  Thanks for sharing this.  I'm glad that I went back and finished it.  It was a good challenge.

2 New Courses created and uploaded over the Thanksgiving holiday and updated to OP.  The first of the two courses is dedicated to Softlocks, and therefore is aptly named "Softlock City".  After seeing and experiencing Softlocks in other creators levels, both intentional and unintentional, I was mischievously inspired to create an entire course around softlocks.  It is worth noting that I purposely chose not to exploit the use of Hidden (Kaizo) Blocks to create any of my softlocks.  I wanted everything to be in plain sight, while still luring the player into the traps.  The 2nd course is my first ever attempt at creating a speedrun.  While thinking of what setting I wanted to use, I settled on one with a lava floor.  This idea led me to return to the ornate Bowser's castle them I utilitzed for my "The Great Hall of Bowser" course.  Reusing that theme while changing up the layout to accommodate a full speedrun, I appropriately named the course "The Great Hall of Bowser 30 sec SR".

Softlock City

Course ID: NVL-3B2-CMF

Description:  A course dedicated to Softlocks.  Mario arrives in Softlock City and must navigate a myriad of hazards and deadends, many of which have no escape once the wrong path has been ventured.  There are a total of 8 course designed softlocks.  All softlocks have a hazard available rather than a forced restart or timeout.  Welcome to Softlock City.  Population:  You.

Likes: 14

Played By: 42

Clears: 7

Attempts: 187

Clear Rate: 3.74%

First Clear:  BrownBird

World Record: 0:31.700 (★☆Mr.Fire™)

Uploaded: 11/26/2020

Great Hall of Bowser 30 sec SR

Course ID: BTD-R4N-T1H

Description:  My first attempt at a speedrun course.  Revisit "The Great Hall of Bowser" which was previously explored in another course.  The layout is not the same, but the aesthetic of the courses inspiration is present.  So, the speedrun can be considered to take place in another area of Bowser's fortress near "The Great Hall".  There are 30 seconds on the timer, and the timer itself is not that tight.  The course opens with 2 P-Switch jumps, followed by falling platforms, swinging claws, Koopa assisted jumps, a row of Thwomps, a parakoopa assisted jump, a spring, and finishes with a required POW Block hit, and some On/Off Switch platforms.

Likes: 15

Played By: 32

Clears: 11

Attempts: 583

Clear Rate: 1.88%

First Clear:  TheThorik

World Record: 0:21.065 

Uploaded: 11/28/2020