Quick guide to unlocking new building items in Super Mario Maker

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Nintendo’s initial unlock system for Super Mario Maker was spread over the course of nine days, but after complaints from several pre-release reviewers and YouTubers, Nintendo released a 1.01 patch that removes this limitation. Still, you might have trouble unlocking all the pieces in a timely manner because the conditions for delivery seem to be based around how many blocks you drop. Follow these quick tips to get your items unlocked quicker.

Use any new items you get immediately in a level.

You’ll get your first delivery a few hours after you start playing and once you do, you should play around with every single building tool available to you. New things will have a little red bubble next to them. Make sure you’ve used everything at least once to keep that from slowing you down.

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Drop blocks, blocks, blocks, and more blocks.

Right now the delivery system seems to be tied to how many blocks you’ve dropped in creator mode. If you’re building levels that don’t utilize a lot of ground elements, you could be making yourself wait a lot longer than neccessary. Use the multi-grab mode by hitting L to place huge chunks of blocks in levels so you can get your next delivery.

Remember to shake items to unlock their alternative sets.

This is a building tip as much as it is a tip for unlocking things. When you get new items, be sure to shake them while you’re building to see what alternatives there are. For example, shaking the Koopa Trooper from the default item set lets you rotate quickly between green and red Koopas.

There seems to be a 15 minute cool-off period between item deliveries.

Placing tons of blocks is a great way to unlock the items you need to play around with, but you’ll still have to wait fifteen minutes between each delivery. Any blocks you place during the cooldown period count toward your next delivery however, so keep laying those down while your build levels and wait.

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Unlock mystery mushroom costumes by playing the 100 Mario challenge.

While it’s possible to unlock some of the mystery mushroom costumes from amiibo, you don’t need amiibo at all to unlock them all. Doing the 100 Mario Challenge will net you an unlock each time you finish it. This challenge mode differs from the 10 Mario Challenge in that it pulls in community-created levels, so you’ll never know what you get. Two modes are offered, easy and normal. If you dislike a level in your rotation, you can hold the – button to skip it.