3D Chess Variants

Generally speaking, 3D chess can be any chess variant using multiple boards in which pieces can move across boards (ie. starting on one board and finishing on another). The term 3D is used because the boards are stacked vertically above each other. However, boards do not have to be placed in any specific configuration as long as they can be logically linked some how.

Some notable variants include

• 3-D Chess: a.k.a. Star Trek chess
• Strato Chess: 3x8x8
• Chess In The Third Dimension: 3x8x8
• Chess³: 3x8x8 (Often confused with the above entry, however the rules governing Bishop and Queen inter-planal movement are different)
• Raumschach: 5x5x5
• Millennium 3D Chess*: 3x8x8
• 3D 8 Level chess: 8x8x8
• 3 Dimensional Chess: 4x4x4
• Dragon Chess: 3x8x12

* Note that this was not a commercial release, but instead an alternative ruleset created by William D'Agostino, which can be downloaded from here http://www.geocities.com/william_dagostino.

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A good resource for comparative explanations of (some of) the various 3-Dimensional variations is http://3dchessfederation.com/wiki/index.php.