Celtic Challenge from Find It Games

Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide – Day 12

I can’t resist a challenge. Tell me a game is a challenge and I will be intrigued. Put it in the name, however, and the temptation is just too much. When I heard that the local Find It Games had the ultimate challenge for me in the form of Celtic Challenge, I just had to have it.

And, the game Celtic Challenge just looks cool, even in the box. With the rustic tiles and the Celtic Staff peeking out of the glossy game box and the beautiful wooden game board visible below, I could already tell that this wasn’t going to be one of those games that is put in the closet and never seen again. Upon opening it, I realized how correct I was. This is the type of game you could easily leave on your coffee table when entertaining {or even year-round} to challenge all your guests to a friendly 2-person game or a game of solitaire.

Celtic Challenge is an ancient game that centuries of players have tried hard to beat. Included in the game is the hardwood board, 45 rustic tiles with traditional Celtic symbols, a Celtic Staff, an embossed marker stone and a history of the game/rule book to explain some of the tradition and the ways you can play solo, one on one, or as teams.

We mostly play Celtic Challenge solitaire-style because we’ve been busy trying to beat our own record and it is fun to see if we can actually master the game instead of just casually playing. Playing it solitaire-style is also oddly calming, even though you are always planning your next move and strategizing. Just the act of flipping the tiles and the satisfying sound they make as you place them in your removed stack is relaxing, which is why we’ve been playing it all month long.

The way it’s played is simple enough since it just involves matching tiles and seeing how many you can remove in each round, but don’t worry, there definitely still is a challenge. When playing on your own you have 6 rounds which are designated by the Celtic Staff, a peg that you move each time you place a turn. To start the game off, you set the “stone” on the symbol of your choice. After removing all the tiles with that symbol, you can only flip over the tiles that are not touching any visible piece.

Then you move the Celtic Staff to round 2, choose a new symbol and then remove those from the board before following the steps from the first round to see how many you can take off the game board. Repeat until you can no longer play or all the tiles are removed from the game board. The Celtic Challenge is to remove all of {or, in my case, as many of} the tiles as you can in 6 turns alone. Rumor has it that no one has ever been able to remove them all in 6 turns or less, which sounds like a challenge I’d like to beat.

The Celtic Challenge is the perfect gift for the puzzle lover on your list, or simply a great game to have out when guests start arriving for the holidays. With all the craziness of the holiday season, I can attest to the fact that just playing a game or two a week is a great “break” that we can all enjoy.

You can find out more about Celtic Challenge at Find It Games and read about all the recent awards it's won as well as purchase it for $40.00.

A big thank you to Find It Games for sending the Celtic Challenge for review. All opinions are 100% ours and no monetary compensation was received in exchange for this Rave Review.