The last time I played Nintendo was years ago, on an original Wii console. Now, I'm being asked to demonstrate prowess with a Wii U, which is just different enough that it's not going well. In fact, I'm embarrassing myself in front of a small crowd of some very talented Facebook coders. The Wii U feels so entirely foreign in my hands, nothing at all like the tiny original Wii controller I used, or the NES one of my youth. I make Mario jump around the screen a little, hurl him into a few pipes, and quickly fall to my death.
Thankfully, my pitiful skills are not what's on display here at Facebook's Nintendo hackathon. More than 150 Facebook employees gathered to dream up virtual game environments using Super Mario Maker, the Wii U game that lets you construct playable levels for Mario to solve. The winning team from the Facebook hackathon will have the opportunity to create a level to be featured in the game's launch this September. Everyone at the company was invited, and entrants from engineering group to the culinary team participated—three of the chefs who actually made food for the event entered a level as well.
In a room made to feel like a real life Mario level (complete with wandering Mario and a life-size green pipe), coders saddled up to Wii Us and plugged away at their games all day. The criteria: Create something that embodies both Facebook ("open, honest, move fast and break things") and Nintendo ("fun, surprise, creativity")—and then, of course, be able to beat your own level (an impressive feat, given some of the games I saw).
Participating teams spent some 10-odd hours making their levels. AJ Glasser, who works in Games Partnership for Facebook, says she saw a few people sitting in the hall in the morning, before the hackathon room opened, working out ideas with graph paper. Over 40 levels were entered into the competition.
This is hardly the first hackathon Facebook's ever held, but it is the first time the company has brought Nintendo or a specific outside gaming franchise into the mix. Glasser says it was a telephone-type arrangement: Someone at Facebook who's friends with someone at Nintendo started talking, and eventually the idea was born to partner to build something for Super Mario Maker.
"As we were looking at the values that Super Mario Maker embodies, there really seems to be a lot of crossover with Facebook," says Nintendo's Kit Ellis. "It seemed like a really good partner for this event. And of course they have that great tradition of hackathons."
Facebook employee Lizzie Donahue spent about 10 hours with her team working on their entry, separate dungeon levels that build up difficulty and lead to a final showdown.
"I wanted to do it because I love gaming and it's not every day you get to work with Nintendo," Donahue says.
Glasser, who's helping judging the events, says that she and other judges circled the hall, but refrained from helping too much. "A couple of us gave light guidance to people who were about to make a mistake. But I've tried not to interfere with anyone's process." Two Facebook employees named Doug Strait and Roy McElmurry (both software engineers at the company) ended up creating the winning level, named "Ship Love"—and obvious homage to the social network's coding attitude. And yes, it does take play on a pirate ship. The level's coins are actually hearts (everyone's going with hearts these days...), Yoshi helps you compete, and at the end, Bowser is naturally waiting for you.
So will Facebook become the new home for Nintendo creation? When asked if an Oculus version of Mario was headed for a Facebook hackathon, Ellis laughed. "I think we're squarely focused on just Super Mario Maker for now."
