Divide & Conquer! by Giant

CFD1-0000-03D0-3983

The second to last SMB3 uncleared level in MM1. I edited out all my pauses but if you wanna see the full run consisting of 20+ minutes of pausing, here you go    • Divide & Conquer! full recording with...  

This level requires the player to efficiently sort 30 randomized POW blocks in the order in which they spawned. When you stack POWs on a moving platform, you can see an interaction between adjacent POWs that differs depending on which one spawned first. The challenge here comes from finding an efficient way of doing that within the 500 second time limit. Luckily, the maker of the level made a video explaining a method to do so. Without that, I honestly don't this this would have ever been cleared. My full run took 30 minutes of real time with the game being paused 75% of the time so I could think and right down notes to keep track of everything. It looks tedious, and it is, but I actually enjoyed it because it felt like a logic puzzle. I had multiple runs do everything right but accidently throw and break a POW or grab the wrong one and get mixed up, but overall it didn't take too many attempts. I really love this level and I wish it was easier to make something like it.

Original maker's explanation:    • Divide & Conquer: How to solve maybe ...  
Mechanic deep dive:    • Why this Two Pixel Gap is Among the M...  
TheRileyC's video covering this level:    • This Level Literally Requires a Compu...