Jul 23, 2026
Author's Commentary #874:
Time to talk about Chapter 874: Mimoko vs Svetlana.
Whenever a chapter is released on Mimoko's birthday, you can always expect a game. This time, we actually get a big game as Mimoko's opponent is none other than Svetlana, who now after 874 chapters, finally gets her first on-screen game in the series. Kind of surprising it's taken so long, but now, the last major recurring character from Season 1 has finally gotten a game.
As the two are sitting with their backs to each other, they're forced to call out the moves their making on their respective boards. Since this is actually a DESPER match, players will actually move the pieces their opponents moved automatically, even if their opponent doesn't say anything. If I'm being honest, I'm not a fan of this being a DESPER match, and kind of tacked it on just to make things seem more interesting. I'll have more to say on that once the Side Story concludes next chapter.
As for the game itself, it was played against Chess.com's 2600-rated level 22 engine bot. Originally, the game was 47 moves and ended with a more stylish knight capture checkmate, however, I went with this because in order to get said sequence, Mimoko would have needed to blunder. The game still would have been overwhelmingly in her favor, but considering she'd be able to spot the mating sequence easily, there was no way to justify her missing it. That said, I'll show the original as a bonus in the game log in celebration of Mimoko's birthday today.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
