A strange little side quest
Even a quick game like The Chess XL sits on top of decades — and sometimes centuries — of ideas. Modern chess traces back to the Indian game chaturanga, recorded around the sixth century and built around pieces representing parts of an army. The surprising part is how quickly the next milestone followed. 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'. That long chain of experiments is part of why strategy games still feels fresh when a game finds the right twist.
