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

Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/5xz84B9RRJ
 

Subscribe to the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ColetteAndMatt

Email us with what you're playing and we'll read it on the show! [email protected]

Follow and subscribe to Colette:

• https://bsky.app/profile/itscocobee.bsky.social
• https://www.twitch.tv/hellococobee

Follow and subscribe to Matt:

• https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social
• https://www.patreon.com/influencepod
• https://www.youtube.com/c/freedadvideos

Our theme music is by Azure Flux: https://azureflux.bandcamp.com/

Our logo is illustrated by @JustCallMeKatarina: https://www.instagram.com/justcallmekatarina/