The Recreation Deck Games

[Captain Clark Terrell]

The recreation deck is shown several times in TMP. Decker demonstrates a few of the games in the room for the Ilia probe. But do we know what the games are called or what the object of each is? I don't remember seeing similar games at any other time during TOS or the other series. And the post-TMP novels I've read don't mention them.

--Sran

 

[FormerLurker]

TMP was released just as the videogame industry was beginning to take off. The filmmakers probably thought that showing that the concept continued into the 23rd century would provide the viewers with a sense of continuity between the two time periods.

 

[trevanian]

The novelization explains the Decker/Ilia game as a pattern matching thing that involves matching someone else's thoughts in some fashion, probably pushing the 'new human' aspect GR was not able to keep in the film, where you had some humans like Decker intrigued by shared or group consciousness, who theoretically were more advanced than the primitive Kirk types who were too stubborn to do the groupmind stuff (unless it was in private w/ Spock.)

I've read that some of the games really did stuff, and that folks on the set played the games between takes. It was either in Susan Sackett's STARLOG trek report or CHEKOV'S ENTERPRISE, don't remember which, but I'm sure THERIN and many others here can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[drt]

I recall that the TMP "Peel-Off Graphics" book had stickers that named several of the games.

 

[Maurice]

Wasn't one like "light cube tables" or something?

 

[FormerLurker]

"Light Cube Tables" sounds like some version of Tetris. Prescience, maybe?

 

[Maurice]

That's a stretch.

 

[trevanian]

Tetris on THAT rec deck in that century would probably have involved things like the pyramid antibodies (from the dropped spacewalk) falling from the ceiling in clusters and folks beneath directing them with tractor beams.

 

[Workbee]

I think Decker called it "Audio Visual Association"

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

I think Decker called it "Audio Visual Association"

That was McCoy. And he wasn't talking about the game itself but how Decker was using both modalities to teach the probe about human behavior. He talked about the games as he was demonstrating them- audio and visual.

--Sran