Wily Challenge

The Wily Challenge is a game mode in [[[Mega Man Maker]]], introduced in version 1.4.0. It can be found in the online menu. The Wily Challenge is a mode in which the player plays through multiple user created levels in a row at random with a limited number of lives. The total amount of levels played in the challenge depends on the settings chosen by the player before starting.

Gameplay Changes

While playing Wily Challenge, some features differ from traditional gameplay.

The player has a limited number of lives in this mode instead of infinite lives. The amount of lives remaining is also indicated below the player's health bar.
The item Life gives the player an extra life in this mode like in official Mega Man games, while also healing the player to full health. Prior to 1.5.0, the Life simply added a life to the life counter in this mode, but since 1.5.0, it performs both functions. No more than three lives can be obtained in a same level, so collecting a fourth 1-up item does not recharge lives, although it will still recharge the health bar.
E-Tanks and M-Tanks obtained in a level are carried over into the next level played in this mode.
A new "Skip" button is added to the pause menu and appears only in this mode. It allows the player to skip the current level and play a new one. Originally this option cost a life, but to reduce the user frustrations and mitigate instances like repeated levels, the challenge was modified in version 1.5.0 so that choosing this option would only cost a life if the player has 10 HP or less or while airborne. In such cases, it cannot be used if the player has only 1 life remaining.
Using either the "Retry" or "Checkpoint" buttons in the pause menu will also now cost 1 life. As a result, both are unusable with only 1 life remaining.

Lives & Levels

In the Wily Challenge, the player can pick the following settings before starting a run:

Length determines how many total levels the player must beat to win the challenge. Length also determines the appearance of the Wily Castle.
Lives determines how many lives the player starts with in the challenge, and can be set to anywhere from 1 to 100.
Quality determines the quality range of the levels played in the challenge.
Difficulty determines the difficulty range of the levels in the challenge. It was implemented in version 1.7.3.

By default, the settings are set to medium length, 50 lives, a quality range from Average to Amazing, and a difficulty range from Easy to Hard.

Prior to version 1.7.3, the player could only the set the minimum quality of levels found in the Wily Challenge instead of a quality range.

Length

"Short" - 5 levels
"Medium" - 10 levels
"Long" - 20 levels

Quality

"Awful"
"Bad"
"Average"
"Good"
"Amazing"

Difficulty

"Very Easy"
"Easy"
"Normal"
"Hard"
"Very Hard"
"True Despair"

Settings in v1.6.3 and below

Prior to version 1.7.0, there were two settings that can be changed by the player: difficulty and length. The Difficulty determined the amount of lives the player starts with when they begin the challenge.

Lives (v1.4.0 - v1.6.3)

"Easy" - Lives equals level total multiplied by 5
"Normal" - Lives equals level total multiplied by 3
"Hard" - Lives equals level total multiplied by 1

Lives in Relation to Levels (v1.4.0 - v1.6.3)

"Short, Easy" - 25 Lives
"Short, Normal" - 15 Lives
"Short, Hard" - 5 Lives
"Medium, Easy" - 50 Lives
"Medium, Normal" - 30 Lives
"Medium, Hard" - 10 Lives
"Long, Easy" - 100 Lives
"Long, Normal" - 60 Lives
"Long, Hard" - 20 Lives

Ending The Challenge

Certain actions taken during a Wily challenge will result in the challenge ending.

Exit

Selecting the "Exit" button from the pause menu will immediately end the challenge and return the player to the online menu. The player will not be able to view all the levels completed during their play session if "Exit" is selected, nor will they be able to resume the run.

Game Over

When the player runs out of lives, they will get a Game Over and fail the challenge. They will also be given a "Funny Quote" at random, as well as three options.

"Retry" - Restarts the Wily Challenge with the same settings from the beginning, but a different set of random levels will be chosen. This also resets the player's amount of E-tanks or M-tanks to 0. A glitch in older versions allowed them to keep their E-tanks or M-tanks.
"Show Levels" - The player will be shown all levels they have completed, and the level the player received a Game Over in, in their current play session, giving information with regards to level rating, level name, and creator's name. Any levels that are skipped will not appear in the level list. The player has the choice to download and vote on all of these levels. From this level list screen the player can select "Retry" or "Back To Menu".
"Back To Menu" - This will return the player to the online menu.
"Funny Quote"

A list of the references found below is in the page Wily Challenge/References.

Failure!
SUDDEN DEATH
TOO BAD - WALUIGI TIME!
The Dark Souls of Mega man games!
I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST...
Have you tried not dying?
There are no easter eggs here, go away.
Are you just looking for more Game Over messages?
alright.
Thank you Mega Man, but your victory is in another castle.
Go home and be a family man!
next time i hope i win, but if not win its better than nothing
Dr. Light will remember that.
IM FRICKING KILL YOU!!!!
god i wish that were me
try out Fox Maker too!
It's probably the Yoku Spikes' fault.
sorry if moving platforms killed you.
I miss hound
notices bolt owo whats this
im dead and wat is this
OPPSIE WOOPSIE!! Uwu You made a gamie ovar! A wittle outla liveso!!
game_end();
from game import over
rm -rf /*
| |||| |_
Error: undefined response from server
Segmentation Fault - Core Dumped
Try the simple tutorial.
Add weapon capsules.
Your ad could be here.
It's not that hard, just don't get hit.
If you read this, you have died.
No johns.
Lag killed me.
Try again for 2000 bolts.
0111100101101111011101010010000001100100011010010110010101100100
That was fun, but now you're done.You're outta luck because you suck
This is the Ridley reveal trailer all over again.
Welcome to Die
Winners Don't Do Drugs
See You Space Cowboy...
Mega Mangled
You're not even good for scrap.
The cake is a lie.
[Diabolical Scientist Laughing]
You're not winner
Take a Break (Man).
Press F to pay respects
You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?
Welcome to the scrapyard
Demonetized
See you in my dreams!
I gave you robot hair, but I should have given you thicker armor.
Guess I'll Die.
You're Gonna Have a Bad Time.
WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR?!
Sizzling circuits!
Your scheme for world domination has faild!
Wasted
It's only game... Why you have to be mad?
error 404 lives not found
Don't worry, you'll do better next time, right?
You were so close, but in the end, you weren't fit to be a Mega Man Maker.
You chose. Poorly.
You win! Wait... no you don't.
Game over? So quickly?
Getting here is half the fun.
You win some, you lose some.
Have you considered handing the controller over to your more skilled friend?
git gud
I knew you'd risk yourself for Mr. Lincoln.
Whoops
You Have Died of Dysentery.
Game Over Return of Wily
Mission failed...
Kid, you're almost not worth the effort!
Prepare better next time.
A rewind button would be handy now...
Almost there!
Keep on trying!
This is so sad... Pointan, play Despacito.
Try switching your control scheme to Kinect!
End of the line, kiddo.
GAME!
Back to the drawing board...
What a loser!
You were close - don't give up!
Keep trying to do your best!
You're doing great! Keep going!
Want to try again?
Better luck next time!

Challenge Completion

The challenge is successfully completed and ends when the total number of levels the player selects at the beginning of the challenge are completed.

The Wily Castle will be shown being destroyed, followed by a victory fanfare that will play and a congratulatory message will appear.

The player will then be shown all levels they have completed in their current play session, giving information with regards to level rating, level name, and creator's name. The player has the choice to download and vote on all of these levels. Any levels that are skipped will not appear in the level list. From this level list screen the player can select "Retry" or "Back To Menu".

"Retry" - Restarts the Wily Challenge with the same settings from the beginning, but a different set of random levels will be chosen.
"Back To Menu" - This will return the player to the online menu.

Trivia

Despite the mode being called Wily Challenge, the character Dr. Wily does not make any appearances during it.
This mode's castle cutscenes between levels closely resembles the fortress level cutscenes from the official Mega Man games.
- This mode's castle cutscenes and cutscene music differ depending on the total number levels selected before starting the challenge.
  - There are 3 different Wily Castles the player will encounter depending on the length selected for their Wily Challenge. A Short challenge will have the player fighting through Wily's Castle from Mega Man 3, a Medium challenge will have the player fighting through Wily's Castle from Mega Man 6, and a Long challenge will have the player fighting through a new unique Wily Castle exclusively made for Mega Man Maker, though it does somewhat resemble some of Wily's Castles from the Game Boy Mega Man games. This could be intentional or coincidence.
This mode, in concept, somewhat resembles the 100 Mario Challenge from Super Mario Maker.
On the Game Over screen, the playable character that appears is the last one used by the player before their lives reached 0.
- Each playable character has their own unique "defeat pose" in the Game Over screen.
A large portion of the Game Over screen quotes are memes or parodies of them.
Occasionally, an oddity will occur which will cause the same level to be played multiple times in a row, even if skipped or completed. According to an official statement, the cause of the oddity was originally stated to be not a bug or glitch, only bad RNG. However it has also been stated it may be the result of bad coding on the part of Game Maker, which the game is made in.
As some older levels created in Mega Man Maker are broken due to more recent updates, some levels that appear in the challenge may be impossible to beat. In this case, using the "Skip" button may be mandatory to continue the challenge.
On the live stream for 1.7.0 where the development team answered questions from the community, in response to a question asking if there were any features the development team regretted adding to Mega Man Maker, WreckingPrograms stated that he regretted adding the Wily Challenge feature before the game had a proper server infrastructure to support it. He added that the game mode would have benefited from proper difficulty and quality filters added in 1.7.0 that did not exist when Wily Challenge was added in 1.4.0 to make the game mode less random.
A sneak peak of the difficulty options for Wily Challenge was posted by Alex in the #community_announcements channel of the Discord server on January 16, 2021. A histogram of the rated levels was attached along with information about the planned difficulty ranges.
- The hardest difficulty option, True Despair, was instead called "Impossible" in the sneak peak.

Glitches

The player's username or N/A will occasionally show up instead of the actual level creator's name for some levels, this may be an error handler to ensure Mega Man Maker does not crash if the level creator's name is unable to be correctly loaded.
Alternatively, the level data of a different level that the Player recently played will appear as that of the data of the Player is about to play. This may also be the result of an error handler preventing the game from crashing but isn't confirmed. The data does however appear to display properly if viewed after the Player has beaten the challenge or gotten a game over.
When playing Wily Challenge with an unstable internet connection, Mega Man Maker may completely soft-lock if it is unable to access the internet, when trying to search for level data between stages. It is currently unknown if this is a design oversight, or intentional.

Gallery

The Wily Castle seen in the Wily Challenge if the player chooses the "Short" option.
The Wily Castle seen in the Wily Challenge if the player chooses the "Medium" option.
The Wily Castle seen in the Wily Challenge if the player chooses the "Long" option.
A histogram of the rated levels posted online as of January 16, 2021 posted by Alex in the Discord server. The year is erroneously listed as "2020" in the histogram.

Wily Challenge

Contents

Gameplay Changes