A strange little side quest
The fun part of looking behind Vex is seeing how many older ideas are still alive in modern play. 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 old idea kept changing rather than disappearing. Early computer role-playing games helped turn rules, inventories, exploration and character progression into systems that could support long-form digital adventures. That long chain of experiments is part of why puzzles still feels fresh when a game finds the right twist.
