Three-dimensional chess, or 3D chess, are examples of chess variants. Three-dimensional variants have existed since the late 19th century. One of the oldest versions is Raumschach (Ger. for "Space chess"), invented in 1907 by Ferdinand Maack and played on a 5×5×5 board.

Tri-Dimensional Chess

Probably the most familiar 3D chess variant to the general public in the early 21st century is the game of Tri-Dimensional Chess (Tri-D Chess), which can be seen in many Star Trek TV episodes and movies, starting with the original series and proceeding in updated forms throughout the subsequent movies and spinoff series.

The original Star Trek prop was assembled using boards from 3-D Checkers and 3-D Tic Tac Toe games available in stores at the time (also visible being played in the original series episodes) and adding futuristic chess pieces. Rules for the game were never invented within the series; in fact, the boards are sometimes not even aligned consistently from one shot to the next within a single episode. The Tri-D chessboard set was made popular by its inclusion in the Starfleet Technical Manual  by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, who invented starting positions for the playing pieces and short additional rules. The complete Standard Rules of this game were originally developed in 1976 by Andrew Bartmess, who has subsequently expanded and fine-tuned them.

There also is a Creative Commons-licensed manual written in Italian by Marco Bresciani, which presents a complete and faithful translation of the latest version of Bartmess' Standard Rules, with instructions on how to build a chessboard and many other things. This manual is available through the Star Trek Italian Club (for members only, see external links, below) or through its primary site (for everyone except Star Trek Italian Club members). There also is a set of tournament rules for Tri-Dimensional Chess written by Jens Meder, and available on his website, However, Meder's rules are based on FIDE's Rules more than Andrew Bartmess's Standard Rules, with some deviations too.

There is a lot of computer software for playing Tri-D Chess, although to date no software completely follows Andrew Bartmess's Standard Rules. There exists a project, about creating a software as a Computer Science Engineering Laurea Degree final thesis, that should allow playing Tri-D Chess with Bartmess' Standard Rules full support.

Other variants

Another variant of 3D chess is that simulated by the 3dchess program for GNU/Linux. This variant is played on three standard 8×8 boards, stacked vertically. The middle board features the standard pieces, while the following new pieces populate the other two boards:

• Prince (King)
• Princess (Queen)
• Abbey (Bishop)
• Cannon (Knight)
• Galley (Rook)

The movements of various pieces have been modified to allow them to move across boards (for example the Cannon must move three spaces in one direction, two in a perpendicular direction and one in the remaining perpendicular).

A variant possibly similar to Star Trek 's Tri-Dimensional Chess is seen in Legend of Galactic Heroes, a Japanese science fiction novel. Another SF 3D chess game is Cheops or Pyramid chess, mentioned in the Dune novels of Frank Herbert, which has the object of simultaneously placing one's opponent in checkmate and one's own king at the apex of the pyramidal board.

Isaac Asimov's science fiction short story A Perfect Fit refers to a 3D chess game which is effectively eight chessboards stacked upon each other, making the playing area cubic rather than square (i.e., exactly one dimension more than ordinary 2D chess).

External links

Material about Star Trek Tri-Dimensional Chess:

• Tri-Dimensional Chess Rules (http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~abartmes/tactical.htm) – Standard Rules by Andrew Bartmess
• 3-D Chess Site of Jens Meder (http://private.addcom.de/meder/3dschach/) – Tri-D Chess rules, boards and more
• Star Trek Italian Club (http://www.stic.it/sca_manuale.html) – Tri-D Chess manual* in Italian
• Scacchi Tridimensionali (http://www.startrekitalia.com/Siti/Manuale/) – The primary reference for the Italian Tri-D Chess manual; the website also includes game software**
• Parmen (http://www.parmen.com) – Free Tri-D Chess for Windows, from HempTrek (http://www.hemptrek.com/) (does not completely fulfill Bartmess' Standard rules)

    (* The manual is fully based on Bartmess' Standard Rules. It is GFDL-licensed; the next edition will use the Creative Commons license.)
    (** As of early 2005, this Tri-D Chess game is still a work in progress; reportedly, the software is nearing completion.)

Other variants of three-dimensional chess:

• 3-D Chess Games | Chess Variant Pages (http://www.chessvariants.org/index/mainquery.php?type=Any&category=3d&orderby=LinkText&displayauthor=1&displayinventor=1&usethisheading=Three+Dimensional) – By Peter Aronson, Hans Bodlaender, and David Howe (eds.) et al.
• Package: 3dchess (0.8.1-9) (http://packages.debian.org/stable/games/3dchess) – 3dchess for X11, with source code (debian package)
• Chess: The Next Generation* (http://www.dimensionalized.com/game/rules4_3d_chess/index.php) – By Paul Glover; rules, diagrams, pictures (* no relation to ST:TNG, and thence, neither to Tri-D Chess)