This weekend's work: Chess, Checkers, and TIc-Tac-Toe! The late great Greg Schnitzer's thread (https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/3d-checkers.178648/) on these games provided a lot of good information for building these 3 games seen in the mess halls of the Enterprise. As a matter of fact, the famous tri-dimensional chess board was constructed by cannibalizing pieces from both commercially available "Space Checkers" and "Checkline: The Classic Space Tic-Tac-Toe Game". Needless to say, hype over the space age was in full swing in the 60s Here we have "Space Checkers", with it's groovy 60s logo emblazoned on the red base, just as it was in the show (I spent over an hour trying to hunt down the exact font used, but had no luck, so I used an approximation. Like anyone really cares or anything. Ha!) Second, we have the Checkline Tic-Tac-Toe game, which I've dubbed as "Neutral Zone Attack!" in the in-game interactive prompt. Note I've added the Starfleet command star to the "king" side of the checkers, in lieu of a crown. Next up, we have Tri-Dimensional Chess, the hallmark of Star Trek recreational games. Great care was taken to replicate all the exact details of the board and it's pieces, which were 1961 Peter Ganine Art Deco Chess pieces. I'm particularly proud of the job I did replicating the knight piece. Note that this is the state the pieces were in, more or less, as they were when Spock was playing against the computer in "Court Martial".
@Donny Referring back to your heartfelt post, I totally get what you're saying. Without muddying your thread, I get it more and more lately. Keep it up, and keep it FUN!
Anything's possible. Remember those Star Trek nitpickers guide books from a couple decades ago where they were lambasting centralized computing with dumb tubes in favor of PCs and distributed computing? Fast forward to today and technology is centralizing everything again due to the internet and web browsers, so the prediction that everybody would be responsible for their own data and such didn't pan out. Even Siri has to send voice data to a server because the local node (the phone) lacks the power to transcribe voice into text, but who doesn't mind having to spend much more for slightly larger data plans? But I digress. It's very possible for board games to make a comeback.
Amazing. Stuff I never even knew I didn't know! Does anyone know what the base and the supports of the chess set are made from? Looks like a ceiling lamp of some kind.
I've seen at least one replica made using a globe base and arm, and then adding the second smaller arm custom. But I don't know if the original was made like that off the top of my head.
I've been trying to picture where I've seen that shape from in a real-world sense forever...I think you've nailed it!
Quick, someone figure out what globe that's from and then I can snap them all up off ebay before the price goes through the roof.
In this thread over at the Fleet Workshop (http://discuss.fleetworkshop.org/t/poor-mans-3d-chess-set/2104/20), someone made a base for their 3d chess set using pot lids and a handbell, and I gotta admit that's pretty damn close. Actually, board games are making a comeback right now and have been for the last few years. Maybe not traditional ones like Chess and Checkers or the more commercially-standard ones like Monopoly or Scrabble, but indie board games are killing it right now. At Crytpic studios, a lot of us get together over lunch to play some of the newer board games and they're a ton of fun (My personal favorites are Pandemic, Cosmic Encounters, and Kingdom Builder. I also am pretty hardcore into the modern version of the card game Netrunner). Whose to say that these trends don't continue into the 23rd century?
Solitaire, anyone? We see both standard playing cards and round playing cards being played with in the mess hall, and I've started tonight by creating a full deck of standard playing cards (yes, I know. I'm insane). We see the standard cards used in at least Charlie X and A Piece of the Action, both with plain grey/silver backs. I don't know how much luck I'll have at creating a full deck of the round cards, as I can't find a good image file of all the card faces in a round deck, unlike the standard deck in which there are plenty of clean reference images available online. It's all in these little details that will make this feel like a lived-in starship I had an idea, and it would require some extensive programming, but it would be neat to add playable mini-games for all these games in the mess hall. That, however, is a stretch goal.
Wow, the lengths you go to make sure absolutely everything is pixel perfect is incredible! Bravo, sir. Regarding the circular cards, they're Jajaco cards, here's a full deck: Sources: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Deck-of-Jajaco-Round-Playing-Cards-Japan-1950s-/273220362440 https://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157603091337167/
Only if they have Janice Rand on them. Careful, before anyone goes and buys it. The description says it's missing some cards. The picture shows the nines of hearts, diamonds, and spades are missing.
Oh, I'm definitely placing these as an easter egg somewhere Thanks for that! I actually have downloaded Greg Schnitzer's entire flickr reference images and came across that same ebay auction yesterday! I may not have to create an entire deck, just enough to show a few of the cards as if they're being played and the rest turned face down. I honestly didn't have to create a full standard deck either, I just did it for the completionist inside of me. Either way I'll tackle that this evening.
I think I've hit the jackpot, ladies and gentlemen: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/albums/72157630970278470 These aren't an exact match to some of the the Jajaco faces, but they're close enough, and they're clean and well photographed.