Board game

3D games

The recreation facilities on Starfleet vessels were typically equipped with several board games of Terran or alien origin. These games were quite popular among Starfleet crews as an off-duty pastime. There were two-dimensional as well as three-dimensional board games. 2D games are played on a single, flat game board, whereas 3D games usually feature several flat game boards on different planes.

2D board games

The recreation room on the Enterprise NX-01 was equipped with a standard Terran chess set. (ENT: "Observer Effect")

Kadis-kot was frequently played in the mess hall of the USS Voyager. (See kadis-kot main article.)

3D board games

A very popular 3D board game in Starfleet was three-dimensional chess. 3D chess sets were present in the recreational facilities aboard the USS Enterprise, the USS Defiant and the USS Enterprise-D, here most notably in Ten Forward. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before", ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly", TNG: "Q Who")

3D game with checkers-pieces

The recreation room on the Constitution class-Enterprise was also equipped with a 3D board game consisting of four vertical acrylic rods in a quadratic arrangement, where each rod supported three 2x2 game boards which closely resembled the moving boards on a 3D chess set, so that there were twelve boards with a total of forty-eight squares (twenty-four white and twenty-four transparent). The game was played with red and black checkers pieces, eight of each color. (TOS: "The Naked Time")

It is unknown whether this game actually is "3D checkers".

File:3dchess 24thcentury.jpg

3D game in Ten Forward

Ten forward on the Enterprise-D was equipped with a three-leveled board game. The game set consisted of two chess-like 6x6 checkered boards on the upper two levels, and a lower board of the same overall size, but closely resembling a Nine Men Morris board. The three levels were arranged stair-like. The game was played with silver and gold game pieces which were all alike. (TNG: "Pen Pals")

The fact that the game pieces of this board game are all alike makes it implausible that the game is a variant of 3D chess.

Ten Forward also provided the facilities to play Strategema, a 3D board game which was played with a holographic projection of three game boards instead of a solid game set. (TNG: "Peak Performance")