An invincibility glitch posed a risk to Nintendo’s level-design toolkit Super Mario Maker shortly after its release, giving players the ability to create and share levels that are impossible to complete without using exploits.
Shortly after the glitch was discovered and documented, however, Nintendo swooped in with a patch that addressed the issue and closed the potential loophole for creators.
It’s unclear how Nintendo will deal with uploaded levels that require the glitch to complete. As part of the uploading process, players must be able to finish the levels they create before they can share them with others. The glitch allowed users to bypass this restriction, potentially aiding in the spread of impossible-to-finish creations.
Prior to the release of this week’s patch, players could make Mario invincible to attacks by performing a precise sequence of steps that exploit Mario’s invulnerability period when taking damage. To set up the glitch, users needed to design levels featuring warp doors in close proximity to enemies or damaging environmental hazards.
Activating the glitch involves making Mario walk through a doorway at a precise moment during his invincibility period after touching an enemy or hazard. The glitch requires Mario to be in powered-up form, and the tight timing window involved ensures that the glitch is unlikely to activate during normal gameplay.
While the glitch remains active in unpatched copies of Super Mario Maker, Nintendo requires players to update to the latest version of the game in order to access its online functionality. Levels can still be created using the glitch in unmodified versions of the game, but they can no longer be shared.
Super Mario Maker, released earlier this month, allows players to build their own side-scrolling platformer levels and share them via Nintendo’s global network. While previous updates have introduced new features and Easter Eggs, Nintendo notes the most recent patch only includes “Adjustments […] to make for a more pleasant gaming experience.”
