A strange little side quest
Category Match has plenty of company in a long tradition of players chasing timing, patterns and better decisions. Arthur Wynne published a diamond-shaped 'Word-Cross' in the New York World on December 21, 1913; the name later shifted to 'Cross-Word' and then 'crossword'. A second detail makes the picture even better: In 1958, Tennis for Two used an analog computer and an oscilloscope to turn simple physics into a playable tennis-like demonstration. That long chain of experiments is part of why puzzles still feels fresh when a game finds the right twist.
