A strange little side quest
Zoom out from Maya Ruins for a moment and the timeline gets surprisingly deep. 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: Computer Space reached arcades in 1971 and became one of the earliest commercial electronic arcade games, even though its controls proved demanding for many players. The details change, but the appeal of learning a system and trying again is remarkably persistent.