I had one as a kid. Loved it!
Star Trek Tri-Dimensional Chess, ever play it?
Sort:
Not me
The original rules, created by Andrew Bartmess, are uneven and offer the white player a noticeable advantage.
It was my understanding, 3D chess was invented in Star trek to 3D space manoeuvring.
I now play the W3DCF rules, available here, http://w3dcf.com/information/laws, as they were created by a pilot to teach aerial fighting techniques.
petemcool - Thanks for the link! Interesting that the rules were revised to create a better game! So the game can actually help you learn 3D tactics! I'll have to study the rules, I'm not sure if I understand them yet. Too bad I did not see where you could play this online. So do you play tridimensional chess with friends?
There's a fairly lively discussion on board game geek about the various rules and their history.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/336338/tridimensional-chess/forums/0
My friends and I play the World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation rules, as they are slightly more intuitive from a Western 2D chess perspective.
I have an old Franklin Mint board and a homemade board made from a lamp stand, a globe stand, aluminium rods and hand cast resin boards.
We've all tried playing on the Noble Collection board, but it isn't straight and is a major headache to enjoy a game on.
Craniomax I think you've identified the episode! There were several episodes which featured the tridimensional chess set. In one Spock comments after losing to Kirk how his unexpected intuitive attacks have defeated his logic. In another where Kirk is held prisoner Scotty refuses to obey orders from a false Kirk who cannot give the correct response to a chess move. And I think in the Episode Charlie X, Charlie uses his mind power to melt the chess set!
manekapa wrote:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708489/quotes/qt0553814
I don't think even Mr Bartmess paid any attention to the perceived moves on the telly program and his rules were approved by the technical drawing guy, whose work in turn was approved by Mr Roddenberry himself.
I (quite recently) implemented what I think is a reasonable version of the 3D chess game. It's on my "mjollnir" site (a dot com). Currently it seems to work on Firefox only. I'm really not much of a chess player (though I'm a good loser), and I wanted the 3D version to be as close to the 2D as possible. Thoughts?
Wow
rchuso wrote:
I (quite recently) implemented what I think is a reasonable version of the 3D chess game. It's on my "mjollnir" site (a dot com). Currently it seems to work on Firefox only. I'm really not much of a chess player (though I'm a good loser), and I wanted the 3D version to be as close to the 2D as possible. Thoughts?
I loved the game @rchuso, but do you have any plans to include the ability to play by World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation rules, please?
I played a very similar chess variant that was made of 3 imposed chess boards allowing pieces to travel up and down. It “works” but it makes chess unnecessarily too complicated. I didn’t like it.
Pokemon! Gotta catch ‘em all!
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/3-dimensional-cubic-chess-88613629
I think 8x8x8 cubic chess is the only real 3 dimensional chess. Star Trek tri-chess makes no sense.
Never played it, but the Tri-D chess does seem a bit awkward. The 8x8x8 variants often seem to have way too many pieces. Just an odd thought, if the moves of 2D chess are basically like zero dimensional (occupying a singe square) pieces along one dimensional lines, shouldn't 3D chess have pieces that occupy lines and moves would be along changes of planes?
As a Chess player and science fiction fan I have long been fascinated by the Tri-D Chess board as shown in the Star Trek series. The board looks really cool! I see that actual rules have been invented for this imaginary game and you can even buy the 3D board (rather pricey). Now regular chess is complicated enough for me, but just curious if anyone here has played this variant and what they think of it as compared to regular chess? Will it really help in 3 dimensional tactical thinking in case I am ever fighting a space war?
