33 How They Beat All 800,000 Remaining "Mario Maker" Levels Before Nintendo Pulled the Plug | Team 0%
Explicit content warning
01/01/25 • 105 min
Happy Nude Year, one and all! I'm still on holiday break, but wanted to check in with out about the YouTuber(s) who exposed the Honey browser extension (owned by PayPal) as a massive scam, my upcoming guests, and sharing an encore episode from my other show, Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat, about a small but mighty video game community that did the impossible, just in the nick of time!
Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam, by MegaLag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk
Original Show Notes from May 3, 2024
Since 2017, a small collective of "Super Mario Maker" enthusiasts have been trying to complete every single player-created level — a quest to truly "beat" a game with hundreds of thousands of uncleared stages.
But when Nintendo announced that the servers for Wii U games would be taken offline in April 2024, the urgency reached new heights. Team 0% began to grow from its humble beginnings of about 500 members, to 15,000+ players, committed to identifying and clearing the remaining levels before they were lost to time.
Playing the levels was only half the battle. Finding and cataloging the unbeaten stages using Nintendo's arcane databases was no simple task. But through some clever reverse-engineering and lots of spreadsheets, they had whittled it down to a handful of levels with just days until oblivion.
What remained were some of the hardest, most obtuse Mario monstrosities ever created. And one level in particular could only be beaten by a robot — until...
This week, we talk with MagicMason1000, a long time member of Team 0% who now manages the community's YouTube and social media. Mason walks us through the fascinating history of this monumental undertaking, the Team's massive popularity boom amid global headlines, what happens when Nintendo patches glitches in Mario Maker, the exciting (and then somewhat anti-climactic) final victory for the team, and the mysterious fate of all those levels now that the servers are gone.
If you'd like to pitch in to beat every uncleared level of "Super Mario Maker 2," you can join the Team 0% Discord here: https://discord.gg/team0percent
Check out the Team's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TeamZeroPercent
And watch henryst's The History of Mario Maker's Last 100 Levels video, as discussed in this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUqUUXDmk40
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Happy Nude Year, one and all! I'm still on holiday break, but wanted to check in with out about the YouTuber(s) who exposed the Honey browser extension (owned by PayPal) as a massive scam, my upcoming guests, and sharing an encore episode from my other show, Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat, about a small but mighty video game community that did the impossible, just in the nick of time!
Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam, by MegaLag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk
Original Show Notes from May 3, 2024
Since 2017, a small collective of "Super Mario Maker" enthusiasts have been trying to complete every single player-created level — a quest to truly "beat" a game with hundreds of thousands of uncleared stages.
But when Nintendo announced that the servers for Wii U games would be taken offline in April 2024, the urgency reached new heights. Team 0% began to grow from its humble beginnings of about 500 members, to 15,000+ players, committed to identifying and clearing the remaining levels before they were lost to time.
Playing the levels was only half the battle. Finding and cataloging the unbeaten stages using Nintendo's arcane databases was no simple task. But through some clever reverse-engineering and lots of spreadsheets, they had whittled it down to a handful of levels with just days until oblivion.
What remained were some of the hardest, most obtuse Mario monstrosities ever created. And one level in particular could only be beaten by a robot — until...
This week, we talk with MagicMason1000, a long time member of Team 0% who now manages the community's YouTube and social media. Mason walks us through the fascinating history of this monumental undertaking, the Team's massive popularity boom amid global headlines, what happens when Nintendo patches glitches in Mario Maker, the exciting (and then somewhat anti-climactic) final victory for the team, and the mysterious fate of all those levels now that the servers are gone.
If you'd like to pitch in to beat every uncleared level of "Super Mario Maker 2," you can join the Team 0% Discord here: https://discord.gg/team0percent
Check out the Team's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TeamZeroPercent
And watch henryst's The History of Mario Maker's Last 100 Levels video, as discussed in this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUqUUXDmk40
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Previous Episode
32 The Internet Has Been Searching for the Name of This '80s Song for 17 Years | The Most Mysterious Song
In 1984, a German teenager recorded a moody new wave song from the radio. The mystery song, with crunchy guitars and English lyrics, was preserved on a cassette and forgotten. That is until 2007, when his sister discovered the tape, and began a 17-year quest to identify it.
From Usenet groups, to music identification forums, a Discord server, a popular YouTuber, and a dedicated subreddit called r/TheMysteriousSong, thousands of Internet sleuths have been decoding clues and comparing notes for nearly two decades, in the hope that someone, SOMEWHERE would recognize the song.
Finally, in November 2024, one Redditor found the final piece of the 17-year-long puzzle. "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" is now a passionate music fandom that has reunited the band after 40 years, and sparked media coverage around the world.
This week on INFLUENCE, Brandon, a moderator from the subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong, and Hans-Reimer Sievers, the drummer from the band FEX, join Matt to discuss this epic musical quest, how the puzzle was solved, what the members of the band were doing all this time, their reunification and newfound fandom, and the strange "discomfort" of unidentified media in a world where everything is Google-able.
Join the community: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMysteriousSong/
Listen to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGf4liO-KQ
The FEX Official YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@FEXband-official
This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod
Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts:
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Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod
Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548
Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE)
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Next Episode
34 The Internet Is Obsessed With His Tiny Video Game Sculptures | Sky Burkson, Miniaturist
When Sky Burkson was a kid, he had two obsessions: drawing and video games. He went on to pursue a career in set design, but his love of games never faded. And when life threw his family a curveball, he knew it was time to recombine his passions.
These days, his painstaking recreations of video game architecture and environments delight thousands of fans around the world, including some of YouTube's biggest gaming influencers, who regularly commission new work.
His sculptures, which are made mostly of paper, are incredibly detailed, impressionistic miniatures of our favorite moments from Super Mario 64, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, The Legend of Zelda, and more. They often take months to create, but Sky credits that slowness for their popularity among online fandoms.
This week, Sky joins Matt to discuss how he documents virtual spaces, why 1:1 re-creation doesn't always work, the hidden details players can't see, the reason he dumped 3D modeling software for good-old-fashioned pencils, and how to take that ONE perfect shot for social media.
Check out Sky's website: https://www.skyburkson.com/
Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyburkson/
This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod
Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts:
🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS
🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN
⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF
Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod
Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548
Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE)
Follow me:
🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social
🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman
📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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