This article in the Washington Post raises an interesting question: to what extent is a level editor’s potential limited by the game it’s editing? Level editors are often held up as mechanisms for expressing creativity, particularly for those without coding experience. However, the original Super Mario Brothers offers a very limited palette of technologies and tools–and limited palettes are the least forgiving to work with. The difficulties people are having in improving on the original game suggest that Super Mario Bros.’ simplicity is making it easier to understand the editing process–but much harder to express creativity in an interesting, rewarding way, and to get a good final result.