With the vast success of Super Mario Maker and its Switch sequel Super Mario Maker 2, Nintendo fans have long been calling for "Maker" titles for other iconic genres and series. In 2017 we saw Mega Man Maker, and since then we've seen a range of various Zelda-esque dungeon makers pop up (with another one due to release in just nine days!). While these releases do a fantastic job of capturing the spirit of their respective games, they're often released as PC games using unique assets such as to avoid scrutiny from the powers that be. What's far more unique is a Maker title not only built in the engine of its game, but one that even runs on native hardware. It's here we introduce Mario Builder 64.

Mario Builder 64 has been released. Much time and effort was poured into this project and I couldn't be happier to share it with all of you. Have fun! 😁 pic.twitter.com/vRiubA0PFZ

— Rovertronic (@Rovertronic) May 19, 2024

​

Built on top of the source code for SM64: Beyond the Cursed Mirror, Mario Builder 64 is a fully-featured Super Mario 64 level creator with everything you could want to build and share your very own Super Mario 64 stages. The game is available now and can be downloaded as a patch here. Be aware that while this will work on both flashcards and emulators, only emulators that support virtual SD card emulation are supported. According to the setup guide, Parallel Launcher is the only emulator currently available with such support.

I was able to get it setup myself with no real issues outside of my Nintendo Switch Online N64 controller needing to be setup in Parallel Launcher. Once that was sorted, the game booted with no issues, and I got stuck in trying it out. It's a seamless experience to the point of it feeling like it really should be official, and I'm incredibly excited to see what the community comes up with. Adding levels is as easy as mounting the virtual SD card and grabbing the mb64 file from a friend or other online source, and those on flashcards obviously don't need to worry about virtual SD cards.

Will you be checking out Mario Builder 64? Are you eager to make a level or just try what the community comes up with? Share your thoughts below!

Source

 

[freestile]

Damn this is awesome. If only I could figure out how the sd card emulation works in retroarch64 for it. It seems to run with the ParalellN64Core and the Mupen cores, which I believe are the ones in Retroarch64. I switched over from the play store retroarch because it doesn't,t allow proper folder/file browsing/selection to say. I had to do that in order to manually install games to mother folders then the starting directory. I'm pretty sure that was why I switched over.

I really don,t want to mess with the standalone/PC version/parallel launcher so I,m hoping there's a way I can get this "sd card emulation" to work somehow in retroarch64 on the shield TV without actually having to format as the setup suggests from what I recall might of been on the Help-SD Card Setup menu. Other than that I,m thoroughly enjoying it, but it would be nice to get past this "sd card emulation" so that I,d be able to save and share levels, and I,m assuming that needs to setup in order to play other levels.

Obviously that can be done but I don,t want to reformat or do anything of that nature with my sd card that I use for my Nvidia Shield TV. I may mess with this on the PC, but loving the fact it works in retroarch64 on the Shield tv pretty seamlessly other than the "sd card emulation" it asks for. If anybody knows how to set that up in retroarch64 on the shield or a workaround for it let me know. Seems like a future patch or update could remedy that instead of having to do the specific format for the sd card, but I,m not totally sure. Other than that def feeling this one.

 

[Elrinth]

Still looking forwards to play Kaze Emanuar's Mario 64 mod with better FPS and completely new levels. The effort he put into it, is just beyond insane

 

[HarveyHouston]

Sounds cool.

 

[BastarB]

This is just freaking incredible! Great work! I wish someone did the same with Super Mario World thou. Making a Super Mario Maker with the SMW physics would be awesome, maybe it would be possible with use of the SA-1 coprocessor somehow. Recently there was a SMW hack made with SA-1 that has 622 levels in one single rom, truly incredible.

 

[ciaomao]

i've had some time to try it out in the meantime and i think the concept and the possibilities are great. hopefully the performance can still be optimized. unfortunately, most of the custom levels i've tested run extremely slowly on original hw.

Edit:
I read several times about the poor performance on original hardware. So it's good to know that it's not just me. On the website, the levels that are supposed to run well on the N64 are now tagged with "N64". Unfortunately, despite the tag, the levels I tested are still nowhere near the original framerate.

 

[_47iscool]

Edit: Nevermind.

 

[bocarrajr]

Something tells me that Nintendo will try to takedown this hack (I hope not though).

Anyway, thanks for the creator of this hack, it is one of the most creative ones I've ever seen.