Rationale

Problem:

Chess in three dimensions doesn’t feel like chess. The pieces lose too much power, a one pawn advantange no longer yields the game. Every contest is a draw. Boring, frustrating; in equal measure.

Conundrum:

Over the last hundred years lots of rule sets have been proposed, a few are interesting, a couple even have followings. But none feel like chess. Is chess in three dimensions impossible?

Quest:

Assume it is possible, but that one or more paradigm barriers block the way. The goal is not to invent another way to move chess pieces around a three dimensional manifold, but to discover the rules that lead to play which feels like chess. Rules which are compelling, even if…a little odd, even if unlike any other game, ever.

Dig until the rules feel inevitable, refine until they are obviously correct, craft until they are defensible - the one right rule set.

Confirmation:

The end games work out the same. Midgame gambits display all the features that make conventional chess so fascinating. Openings still reward initiative, the strategy to control the center still critical, White’s objective to contain, Black’s desperation to escape.

A projection of the 3D rules onto 2D manifolds faithfully reproduce the rules of 2D chess.

Reward:

What kind of a game does one end up with? Is it just a scale up, or do new tactical situations materialize? Will understanding it improve your 2D game?

Why is there a sudden echo of quantum physics? What do you mean the pieces no longer have trajectories? Who ordered that?

No one would intentially invent these rules, they are too counter intutive, too radically unfamiliar, but they show that flat chess is just a special case of N-dimensional chess. Perhaps it is time for the training wheels to come off.