History of 3D Checkers, 3D Chess and 3D Shogi

I was about 10 years old in Hamilton Ontario when I came up with many ideas. One of them was 3D Checkers. Nothing became of the ideas because my dad thought nothing of them. But later on though, many years later, while living in Parksville (1989) on Vancouver Island, the details of one of them got written down.

The game started out by using books and bound volumes and cardboard boxes supporting the different board levels. We only had two checker boards so (thinking outside the box) came up with the idea to use tape on a cardboard box (as seen below) for the 3rd board. Gary was called 'The Word Man' and I was called 'The Idea Man' and there he was, busily writing it all down. I drew the pictures and built the game.

The game came to be called: "3-D Checkers The Next Generation".
Here are the rules, pictures and how to play in detail.
That booklet also included 3D Checkers on two boards. That game came to be called: "Expanded Checkers" Hear are the rules, pictures and how to play in detail.

The reason I was doing all of this, is - so I thought, I could make some money. - Even though I enjoyed the games, not everyone felt the same way. In-fact, out of all the people in the world that enjoy playing games, very few enjoy playing chess, checkers and shogi. Of all those people (those who play chess checkers shogi), very few of them want to play those games in 3D. Of them, very few want to buy the game. We were entering into a time period that the world did not want to think, but rather exercise their thumbs on video games.

Then I moved to Victoria (on Vancouver Island) and in my spare time began to wonder how it would work for chess. In Parksville, just before moving to Victoria, I quickly came up with how the game would work but I thought that I had resolved the issue to quickly - the game was played out on just on two levels. So I developed it further into 4 levels with four players. So the game came to be called:
"Chess - The Future Generation".
Here are the rules, pictures and how to play in detail.

But before I could get copyright on "Chess - The Next Generation" a Japanese man found out about these games and wondered if the game that he plays, Shogi, could be made into a 3D game. So in a matter of a few weeks after learning how to play the game and learning how to read the Japanese characters for the pieces, I wrote it all down got it translated and sent away for copyright:
The game came to be called: "Shogi - The Next Generation".