A strange little side quest
There is a neat bit of history hiding behind the kind of play you find in Not A Dumb Chess. The word 'checkmate' is linked to the Persian expression 'shah mat', used when the king was trapped. It also connects to a different milestone: Street Fighter II, released in 1991, turned head-to-head arcade fighting into a worldwide phenomenon and helped define the modern fighting-game genre. That history is one reason familiar mechanics can still feel new when they are recombined well.
