A strange little side quest
The fun part of looking behind NinjaK is seeing how many older ideas are still alive in modern play. The word 'checkmate' is linked to the Persian expression 'shah mat', used when the king was trapped. The broader history adds one more wrinkle. Spacewar! appeared on MIT's PDP-1 in 1962 and became one of the earliest influential computer games shared among programmers. Not bad for a few facts hiding behind a Play button.