# Super Mario 63/Level designer

The level designer allows creating custom stages using tiles and items.

## Basics

The name of the course, the music, the background image, and the tile size of the course can be adjusted in the "Course info" menu that is located under the "File" menu.
Tiles that can be placed in the grid include grounds and walls with textures used throughout the game, breakable boxes with coins, cannons, lava, and more. Each tile has a width and height of 30 units. Items such as various types of coins, platforms, hazards, water with selectable length and depth, F.L.U.D.D. jet packs, and water bottles for them, can be placed anywhere within tiles.
If red coins and silver stars are used, all of at least one type need to be collected for the shine sprite to appear. The number does not have to be eight and five respectively, as it is in the game's main adventure.
Many items and large stages can slow down the frame rate. This can be prevented by dividing the stage using the "horizontal level transition" item. Only the active section rather than the entire stage is loaded. A level can have multiple transitions, though each transition has to have a minimum distance from each other and from the level edges. Vertical level transitions, as used in the main game, have not been implemented in the level designer.
After building a course, it can be tested using the "Test Course" option in the "File" menu, and exited using backspace.

## Export and import

There are "Save Course" and "Load Course" menus in the "File" menu. Courses can be saved into and loaded from the Flash player's local storage, for which three slots are available. They can also can be exported and imported through code.
The game uses a very space-efficient custom mark-up language for code. Here is an example stage built from only 2492 bytes of code:
In this custom stage, Mario has to find nine red coins in an underwater maze. Each coin provides air to prevent drowning, therefore Mario has to be quick enough. Easter eggs that are leftovers from development are hidden within the stage.

## Elements and techniques
### Scrolling and placing

Multiple tiles can be placed easily by holding down the mouse and scrolling using the arrow keys. The speed of scrolling is adjustable in the movement settings found under "View" in the top left menu.
Multiple items can be placed without re-selection by holding ↑Shift while clicking.

### In-game

In-game, the screen scrolls to the shine sprite (the first placed one if there are multiple) after all of either silver stars or red coins are collected and back to the player after its activation animation. Note that vertical scrolling is locked while Mario/Luigi is suffering for few seconds after a lava or fire burn.
Few elements from the main game have not been implemented in the level designer, including breakable vertical logs (found on the third floor of Bowser's castle), toxic haze (from "Hazy Maze Cave"), spinning hearts that refill health, wind (found in "Tall Tall Mountain"), cannon boxes that float on water and switch-adjustable water levels (found in "Wet Dry World" and "The Cave of Empuzzlement"), heavy black balls that roll down hills (found in "Bob-Omb Battlefield" and "Tall Tall Mountain"), and the background used in "Wet Dry World". The spinning lava wheel from "Lethal Lava Land" and disappearing tiles under a cage in "The Edge of Mushroom Kingdom" have also not been implemented, though that level of customization would be difficult to implement in a level designer. A spinning heart can be simulated through an invincibility star with a short timeout, as that refills health as well.
A climbable wall can be simulated through a thin vertical layer of water protruding from it.

### F.L.U.D.D.

When Mario/Luigi wears a F.L.U.D.D., indicators for water and power appear at the lower right corner. Both are necessary for its operation. The water can be thought of as a fuel tank, and "power" is the short-term endurance, which is 5% of the water tank capacity.
For filling the F.L.U.D.D.'s water tank (indicated with blue 2.5D bar and percentage meter), besides touching normal water, water bottles can be used, where a small bottle refills 15% and a large bottle half of the tank.
The power of F.L.U.D.D. is indicated as a red vertical bar. Touching the ground refills it immediately, collecting a blue coin fills up a half, and stomping a bullet bill fills up a quarter. The rocket and turbo F.L.U.D.D.'s also slowly refill power while airborne with released throttle (space bar or C). F.L.U.D.D. power observaböy also refills in the background while no F.L.U.D.D. is activated, which could be of use when bouncing on a flying penguin and rocket and turbo are unavailable.
Demo stage: