Celtic knots are part of a rich tradition of Celtic art and culture. The looping design patterns commonly known as Celtic knots are found in art from nearly 1,400 years ago, though repeating interlacing patterns can be found even earlier. These beautiful patterns are a sight to behold and today we are going to look at a game and series of puzzles that showcase this beautiful artwork!
Knot Dice is published by Black Oak Games for 1-4 players. Many of the games and puzzles play in 30 mins or less. There are numerous designers to the games and puzzles.
Overview
Knot Dice is a set of beautiful dice that can be used in a variety of puzzles and games. These are provided in a booklet for each type in the main set and in the Squared expansion.
The original set gives you 18 dice and the Squared expansion gives you 26 more dice to add to the mix. The dice are beautiful, large and very well made. They are smooth and well-designed, similar in size to a King of Tokyo die. Each one has a variety of patterns on it, giving the players a chance to really have fun mixing them up. The patterns are continuous as you look around the sides of the cube. The color is a dark forest green with bright silver patterns on it.
First let’s talk about the games. There are a number of different games you can play with them, and each one is designed by a different designer in the booklet included. There are cooperative games, competitive games, speed games, puzzle games and storytelling games all available. There is a playing board and scoreboard. The difficulty of them range from pretty easy all the way up to high difficulty.
Some of the games are more competitive than others, I really enjoyed the Celtic Yarn where your job is to untangle the yarn of the dice. Snakes where you are helping to drive the snakes from Ireland as St Patrick is fun and thematic as well. The games give a good variety of options and are pretty straight forward to understand. Once you get a favorite or two I can see the dice staying out and the book staying in the box as a quick and easy game play.
The puzzles are a little different and provide a more thinly challenge for one person, or a few if you want to work together. You count your turns to keep score. Each puzzle has specific restrictions and rules with how to move them. The completion puzzles focus on taking set dice and completing a design, or the transformation puzzles has you move one design to another. I liked the 3D shape puzzle design challenges as well as it made you work to create on all the sides you could see.
The puzzles were a fun way to work through the dice and the patterns on the Knots as you become more familiar with them. I especially enjoyed the oxvo puzzle that was similar to the sliding games you play as a child.
The expansion, Knot Dice Squared adds 26 new dice and more puzzles and games. The dice are four different types and add some variety compared to the first set. The bridge dice are completely different in design and each of the crossed, squared and rounded are different from he original set as well.
The games feature two new Knot dice games and makes changes to the eight original games so you can play them with these new dice. I really enjoyed the Elizabeth Hargrave and Matthew O’Malley competitive game Hedgerows where you and the other player are planting hedgerows to mark your fields.
The puzzles are great again as well, giving players six types of puzzles demo completion to transformation types. I found that the building puzzles still continue to be one of my favorite types in the game. Adding these to the main set is the only way to play it, you need both to make it work.
Overall
I would recommend these dice for anyone looking for a fun and challenging set of puzzles and games that are quick and easy to play. There is little setup and learning involved with these-you can grab the dice and go pretty easily. In-fact I think it might work even better for me in a bag to go (which I think may be available also for it). Grab a dice bag, toss ’em in and you’ve got an easy to travel game or solo set of puzzles.
I am a big fan of dice and these are very well made and sturdy. They have a heft to them without being obnoxiously heavy. I enjoyed using them and found a simple playmat worked well when playing with them to absorb some of the sound and play.
I highly recommend this one for solo or duo gamers to enjoy the most. There are opportunities to play more than 2 players but it feels best at the 1-2 player range. If you are interested in it, definitely start with the main set and don’t get the expansion until after you have a good handle on the main set. The expansion adds a lot and is a great level up to your puzzles and games once you play it a few times. Check this one out and see if it a good fit for you and your family!
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