Tri-Dimensional Chess from 1960s Star Trek TV series

Here's a wiki that includes an image from the 1960s Star Trek TV series, featuring the famous Tri-Dimensional Chess set:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-...ensional_Chess

[edit: I've so far failed to find an online image from the 1960s Batman TV series, where in one episode at the end of a game of 3D chess played at Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne checkmates Dick Grayson; it might make for an interesting thread/post to this forum, if someone can find it ("Holy Reshevsky"! is one possible reference point).]

Image from Batman 1960's TV series episode 'The purr-fect crime', featuring a four level three dimensional chess set, with Bruce Wayne (Adam West) thinking over his next move in a game (vs. Dick Grayson [Burt Ward]):

https://www.google.ca/search?q=wikip...oL7JUIdWlnk4M:

[edit:Here's a blurb from a search result about the 1960s Batman TV series episode The Purr-fect Crime (i.e. Holy re-watch...):
"The Bat-phone interrupts Bruce and Dick playing four simultaneous games of chess piled on top of each other"

If this is to be taken literally (and as true), the game being played isn't at all typically 3D chess-like, but rather it could also be played using 4 seperate chess sets (though piling them on top of each other sort of saves space in one's living room).

My first guess is that indeed simply 4 separate chess games are being played at once, with each unaffected by the others (though based on the picture it may be that one player always gets White (and the other gets Black) on all 4 boards.

My second guess would be that the rules are that whichever game on a level (i.e. board) ends with a checkmate first would decide the whole 4 level 'battle' (unless all 4 levels result in drawn games, in which cases the whole battle's a draw). The moves are to be made one board at a time by each player, say from the top level down to the bottom level, and then back up to the top level again, and so on, until the overall battle ends. If this all is so, then in a way a sort of real 3D variant is actually being played.

edit2: I'm now thinking of a slightly more involved 3D chess variant idea (based on the above link's image) that might be called '3D Chess War'. The rules I'm thinking of at the moment would be: each player moves, in virtually 'independent' chess games played on each of the 4 boards, until a checkmate occurs on one board (or a resignation), and that wins the whole 'game' (or war). White on his first 'turn' moves once each only on the bottom 2 boards (C and D), and from then on each player makes one move on each of the four boards, from top to bottom board if White, or from bottom to top board if Black (i.e. Black in order moves once on board D then on C, B and A, then White moves once on board A then on B, C and D). White moved only on two boards on turn one to compensate Black for the disadvantage of having the second turn to some degree. If any board is agreed to be a draw, one way of handling it is that one player places his king on that board next to the other player's king, where adjacent squares for the kings are possible, and play on that board is discontinued for the rest of the 'game' (war), with any draws not counting (except that draws resulting on all 4 boards would mean that the 'game' [war] is a draw). A draw offer for any specified particular board(s) is offered at the end of a player's overall turn, with a comment to that effect.

It seems that the 4 boards would simply be almost totally independent of each other (checkmate on one deciding the war, aside), and that this variant idea is not truly 3D-like, but I can imagine if a player gets into a disadvantage on some board(s) he may well be able to start taking bigger risks on other board(s) than he might normally. This variant idea also has the point that if ever played between strong players, an overall draw result would be less likely than for a single game of chess, and perhaps fewer premature draw offers would be made (for particular board[s]). Also, upset wins against a stronger opponent might happen more often than in case of a single game of chess. ]

Note: I added an edit to my previous post. [edit: I added a 2nd edit this day.]

Here's a link from The Chess Variant Pages about Tri-Dimensional Chess from 1960s Star Trek TV series, including more pictures and rules for the game that have been invented since that TV show:

https://www.chessvariants.com/3d.dir/startrek.html