Super Mario Maker 2 finally comes out on the Nintendo Switch at the end of the week, and we are eagerly anticipating the explosion of streams we’ll be seeing in the Mario community.

If you’re new to watching Mario Maker streamers, you might find yourself a little bit lost among their new lingo, but never fear. Here’s a list of a few of the most popular terms to get you all caught up.

Blind Jump

Occasionally, the only way to progress in a level is to make a literal leap of faith and jump down or across from your current location into the unknown. This is called a blind jump. Sometimes, the player gets lucky and there will be a platform there to catch their fall. The rest (and majority) of the time, they simply wind up into bounding into a bottomless pit.

Cheese

To cheese a level is to use elements within said level to beat it in an unintended way, removing all or most of its difficulty. The simplest example involves players using a cape or Lakitu cloud to fly into the sky, bypassing any platforming or enemy obstacles, but in Mario Maker, the sky’s the limit. Cheese is not only a verb, but also a noun referring to the unorthodox method used to complete the level.

Damage Boost

If Mario gets hurt with a powerup equipped, he reverts to his previous form, blinking and very briefly becoming invincible. Damage boosting is the process of using this temporary invulnerability to your full advantage, running through other would-be obstacles before he stops blinking and can get hurt again.

Death Door/Death Pipe

In Nintendo-designed Mario games, doors and pipes pretty much always spell progress. However, the Mario Maker community isn’t always so kind. Sometimes, a door or pipe will actually lead to instant death. Aptly, we refer to these as Death Doors and Death Pipes.

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(Super Mario Maker via Nintendo)

Dev Block/Dev Exit/Dev Route

Before a level can be uploaded in Mario Maker, whoever built it has to beat it. Sometimes, creators who make a level that’s too hard for them put in well-hidden blocks containing powerups required to beat the level, or even secret shortcuts that lead directly to the end as a cheat. This is not cool, especially because the point is that the level should be beatable in the first place.

For example, a room might be packed with enemies, but the creator has placed a random hidden block containing an invincibility star somewhere no normal person would ever look for it. That’s a Dev Block. If you find hidden blocks at the beginning of the level that lead you up and over the entire course to the very end, that secret path is the Dev Exit or Dev Route.

GG

GG stands for “good game.” It’s a quick and polite way to let someone know they did a good job and that you had a good time watching them play.

Hitbox

A hitbox is an invisible shape in or around a character or object used to determine whether or not two or more in-game objects are touching. Intuitively, you might think that if any of Mario’s pixels touch any of an enemy’s pixels, Mario would get hurt, but that’s not exactly the case. You’ll most often hear complaints about hitboxes when an enemy doesn’t appear to touch Mario but still hurts him, or hear triumphant shouts when a bad guy seems to pass right through Mario because their hitboxes didn’t actually touch.

Jank

When something in a level is jank, it usually means that it behaves inconsistently or doesn’t operate exactly as the uploader intended. Some levels require precise setups to be exactly right in order for players to overcome their obstacles. When the player gets to them, something might be off so it doesn’t appear properly, making the level impossible without restarting, trying again and hoping things work out the next time. That’s pretty janky, if you ask us.

Kaizo

In Japanese, the word kaizo means modified or hacked. Eventually, it came to be a term for Mario ROM hacks—fan-made games reusing assets and mechanics from existing games—packed with difficult tricks that require patience and skill because of their trial-and-error gameplay. “Kaizo” levels in Mario Maker typically involve advanced techniques, such as shell jumps and spring drops.

Kaizo Block

One common trick in Kaizo hacks is to put invisible blocks in the likely path of a player’s jump, causing them to hit the block and fall to their death. Hopefully, you’ll know better during the next attempt and be able to bypass them. In Mario Maker, these are often called Kaizo Blocks. Depending on your mood, this can either be seen as a dirty trick or something absolutely hilarious.

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(Super Mario Maker via Nintendo)

Indicators

When Kaizo level makers want to help future players actually complete their levels, they’ll sometimes use indicators to explain what should be done at each juncture. Indicators are in-game clues that indicate what’s happening in the level. For example, coins can be used to indicate where to land on something, a letter Z written out in tracks can indicate a spin jump, and a track in the shape of a square highlights the placement of a hidden block. If you’re going to master the game, it may be wise to pay attention and learn the meaning behind each one.

Invincibility Frames

Earlier, we discussed the damage boost, which is a trick that takes advantage of invincibility frames. When Mario takes damage with a powerup equipped, he temporarily can’t take damage during the short period of time that he blinks while reverting to his previous form. Each frame during this period is an invincibility frame.

Midair

In the Mario community, midair is short for a midair shell jump. This is a very advanced trick that involves dropping a shell in midair and doing a jump off of it in order to gain extra height. That might sound easy enough, but it requires precise timing and exactly the right momentum to pull off. We’ve never managed it, and if you ever see a player who can do them consistently, you’ll know they’re an expert.

Naked Pipe

Naked pipes are simply pipes whose closed ends aren’t attached to ground blocks or another pipe. Not only are they ugly, but they’re completely illogical, and most folks in the Mario Maker community are strictly against them.

Nai

In Japanese, “nai” is a word, as well as a suffix on verbs and adjectives, that means “not.” If you hear it in Mario Maker, it’s usually a shortening of yattenai. Yatta means “I did it!” Thus, the opposite yattenai means “I didn’t do it.” It’s usually said when a player makes it all the way to the end of a tough level before flubbing the very last bit.

New Soup

New Soup (or New Sup) is short for New Super Mario Bros. U, one of the Mario themes that’s available within Super Mario Maker games. Because it has the most complicated mechanics, many popular streamers dislike this style, while others have fully embraced it.

Pick-a-Door/Pick-a-Path/Pick-a-Pipe

In Mario Maker, people sometimes artificially inflate the “difficulty” of their levels by giving players multiple options in terms of doors, paths or pipes, forcing them to randomly pick one in the hope it’ll lead to the end of the level. The majority of the time, making the wrong selection immediately spells death (or worse, a softlock). These sections of the level are often referred to as Pick-a-Door, Pick-a-Path or Pick-a-Pipe levels depending on the type of nonsense inflicted on the player.

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(Super Mario Maker via Nintendo)

Power-Up Check

When a level maker wants players not to lose their power-up for a section of a level, they can employ a power-up check. This is some kind of barrier within a level that can only be surpassed if you still have your power-up. For example, it can be breakable blocks that require a Super Mushroom or shelmet, or a wall of saws that mean you need to be able to absorb a hit to pass.

RNG

RNG stands for “random number generation.” When you hear about RNG in Mario Maker, it refers to elements in the game that are not fixed or based on player interaction, but are instead based on random probabilities. This can create levels based on luck, rather than skill. While Goombas and Koopas always behave predictably, other enemies like Bowsers and Hammer Bros move and throw projectiles randomly, sometimes requiring lightning-fast reflexes to surpass.

Shell Jump

A shell jump is an advanced trick in certain Mario games that involves picking up a shell, jumping toward a wall and tossing the shell at the top of the jump so that Mario can then jump off of the deflected shell as he falls for extra height. Learning them requires a lot of practice and discipline, but once you’ve mastered them it sets you up for success in tougher Mario levels.

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(Super Mario Maker via Nintendo)

Shelmet

An empty Buzzy Beetle shell or Spiny shell can be worn as a protective helmet. In the Mario community, these are often called a shelmet or spiky shelmet respectively. If you get hurt while wearing one, you’ll lose your shelmet before you lose any power-ups you’ve acquired, but after a boot or Yoshi. The regular shelmet can also be used to bounce enemies like Thwomps and flying Munchers off your head, while the spiky shelmet will defeat these enemies and can also bust through certain kinds of blocks.

Softlock

A softlock is an unfortunate Mario Maker occurrence indeed. They happen when a player gets trapped in a section of a level, whether inadvertently or as part of a devious design. In these cases, the player has to decide whether to let the time run out (sometimes upwards of eight minutes) or restart the level. The problem is, if the level is particularly tough and they’ve already reached the checkpoint, restarting will send them all the way to the beginning. Unless you’re a troll, try to avoid softlock scenarios when you’re building by including spikes or enemies that can be used to end the current run and send players back to their checkpoint.

Spring Jump

A spring jump is another slightly tricky Mario maneuver that involves grabbing a spring, doing a running jump with it, and releasing it at just the right time so you can bounce off it in the air for an extra-high jump. Of the advanced Mario techniques, it’s probably the easiest to pull off, so start there if you want to teach yourself kaizo tricks.

TAS

Technically, TAS stands for tool-assisted speedrun, which is a pre-programmed sequence of controller inputs that shows what a nearly perfect speedrun of the game would look like. In Mario Maker, level builders often jokingly put TAS in their level names to indicate that players must play nearly flawlessly to beat their levels. No outside tools were actually used to upload them.

True Ending

A true ending is Mario Maker is a section of a level that players can only access if they go above and beyond during the process of the level. For example, it may be possible to beat a level without collecting all of its pink coins, but if you go out of your way to grab them, you’ll be granted access to a special room that often contains a Yoshi, a star and that game’s best power-up for you to grab so you can finish the level in style. These upgrades don’t do much because you’ve already finished the level, but they do grant you bragging rights.

Trump Jump

Popularized by streamer Ryukahr, a Trump Jump is an extra-tricky jump between two vertical walls of spikes, leaving Mario just a single tile’s width to fall to safety.

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(Ryukahr via YouTube)

Vanilla

Vanilla refers to the original, unaltered version of a game that is frequently modded—or, in the case of Mario Maker, the games that Mario Maker aims to recreate. When a vanilla episode shows up in Mario Maker, it means that a player recreated an existing level from an official Mario game within Mario Maker.

Yatta

Yatta is a Japanese interjection that means “I did it” or “we did it,” and is often exclaimed by a streamer at the end of a difficult Mario Maker level or the finish of a 100 Mario Challenge in the original Mario Maker.

YOLO Jump

You probably already know that YOLO stands for “you only live once.” In Mario Maker, a YOLO jump is the action of performing a blind jump in the hopes that it leads you to victory.

Can’t wait for Mario Maker 2? Click HERE for a list of our favorite family-friendly Mario Maker channels you should start following right now.

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