Raising the cairn…
No ads in Celtic Merge — just the well, the board and the shrine
Play Celtic Merge: The Four Treasures — a free merge puzzle in your browser
Celtic Merge: The Four Treasures is a free browser merge puzzle. Forge 24 Celtic relics across 30 chapters and free the goddess Eriu from Balor.
Balor of the Evil Eye, king of the Fomorians, has shattered the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann and sealed the goddess Ériu — the sovereignty of Ireland herself — inside a cairn of black glass. You come ashore with a stone well, two hands, and thirty-six cells to fill.
Celtic Merge is that rebuilding as a merge puzzle: tap the well for a broken relic, drop it onto an identical relic, and the pair becomes the next thing up the chain. Two chipped shards make a carved stone. Two carved stones make an ogham pillar. The well never runs dry — the board does.
How to play
- Tap the well. A relic surfaces near the water at the bottom of the board — a chipped shard, an iron nail, an ash twig or a bronze nugget.
- Merge two identical relics. Drag one onto the other, or tap one and then tap its twin. Two of a kind is always exactly one of the next kind, up to tier 6.
- Watch the board, not a clock. There is no timer and no energy meter. The only way to lose is a board so full that nothing on it can merge.
- Crack the slabs. Sealed slabs of the old road block cells. A finished relic landing next to one sends a shockwave into it — a good merge is also a demolition tool.
- Give to the shrine. Drag a relic the shrine is asking for onto the Shrine of Ériu. Deliver everything the chapter wants and the chapter is won.
- Spend your boons. Undo takes back a move. The Silver Branch plants a relic of a family you choose. The Stone Song shatters one sealed slab outright.
The rules of the board
| Element | What it does | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| The well | Free to tap, forever. It yields one of four families at random; from act II it leans toward whatever the shrine still wants, and from act III it lifts work that is already half-made. | Tap it, but remember every relic it gives you has to live somewhere. |
| The board | Six by six, thirty-six cells. Merging is the only way to make space. | Merge early instead of hoarding — a full board with nothing mergeable ends the chapter. |
| Sealed slabs | Stone that cannot hold a relic, with one to three health. | Land finished relics in the cells beside them until they shatter. |
| The shrine | Shows exactly what the chapter wants, with a running count. | Only relics the shrine wants can be given. Everything else is material. |
| Duplicate goals | From chapter three the shrine wants two of the same relic. | Hold them side by side. Joining them throws away everything they were worth. |
| Boons | Earned from cleared chapters, spent on undo, the Silver Branch and the Stone Song. | Spend them on the move you are about to regret. |
Three stars, one honest measurement
The well never runs dry, so a chapter is never lost to luck — it is lost to a full board. Stars measure how cleanly you avoided that: par taps for the second star, a board that is still breathing for the third. Par is not a guess. A solver plays every chapter before it ships, and the number on the HUD is that run plus a margin for a human.
| How you finish | What it means | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| Finisher | Deliver everything the shrine asks for, however messily. | ★ |
| Clean hand | Finish inside par — the tap count a solver needed for that exact chapter, printed on the HUD. | ★★ |
| Board master | Finish inside par with six or more cells still free and no undo spent. | ★★★ |
The four acts
| Act | Chapters | Where you are | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| I · The Shore of Inis Fáil | 1–7 | The grey strand where the Tuatha burned their ships | Tier 2 and 3 goals, the first sealed slabs, and the rule that the board is the only thing you can run out of. |
| II · The Silver Wood | 8–15 | The birch wood where the Tuatha hid their craft | Two-health slabs, all four families at once, and the well deepens to lift half-made work. |
| III · Balor's Tower on Tory | 16–23 | The black tower off the Donegal coast | Three-health slabs, tier-5 goals, and a well that leans toward whatever the shrine still wants. |
| IV · The Cairn of Ériu | 24–30 | The hill of black glass where the goddess is held | Everything at once. Chapter 30 asks for all four six-tier treasures on the same thirty-six cells. |
Past chapter thirty the Ever-Cairn opens: an endless run on a board that is rebuilt every time it fills, where the shrine never stops asking and each wave wants rarer relics than the last. Your best wave and the deepest relic you have ever forged are kept on your own device.
Built with nothing but code
The whole game is a single page with no engine, no framework, no external assets and no network calls. All twenty-four relics, the cauldron well, the shrine, the carved board, the knotwork borders and every particle are drawn at runtime on a 720×1280 canvas, and the music is synthesised in the Web Audio API from a D-major pentatonic harp, a bodhrán and a set of bronze bells. Each chapter's sealed slabs come from a fixed per-chapter seed, so the puzzle in front of you is the same puzzle on every device and every attempt. Par values were measured, not chosen: a protecting solver plays all thirty chapters in Node and each chapter's par is that run plus a margin for a human.
JustPlays Original — handcrafted, ad-free · Browse all free puzzle games →
Celtic Merge: The Four Treasures FAQ
How do you play Celtic Merge: The Four Treasures?
Tap the well to bring up a relic, then drop it onto an identical relic to merge the two into the next thing up the chain. Two chipped shards make a carved stone, two carved stones make an ogham pillar, and so on to the sixth tier. Drag a relic the shrine is asking for onto the Shrine of Ériu to hand it over. The well is free, so nothing limits how many relics you pull up except the board itself.
What is the goal of each chapter?
Every chapter has a short list of relics the shrine wants: one carved stone, two bronze bowls, a standing stone. Deliver all of them and the chapter is won. From chapter sixteen the demands move up the chain, and chapter thirty asks for all four six-tier treasures at once — Lia Fáil, Claíomh Solais, Areadbhair and the Coire Dagda.
How do I lose a chapter?
The board is the only resource in the game. Tap a full board and the well refuses to give you anything; fill every cell with nothing mergeable and the chapter is lost, because a merge is the only way to make space again. The fix is always the same one: merge early instead of hoarding, and never merge two relics the shrine wants separately.
What are the three stars for?
One star for finishing the chapter at all. A second for finishing inside par — the tap count printed on the HUD, which was set by replaying every chapter with a solver rather than guessed. The third for finishing inside par, leaving six or more cells free, and never spending an undo, which is a clean board rather than a lucky one.
What do the sealed slabs do?
Sealed slabs of the old road sit on cells and cannot hold a relic. They crack whenever a finished relic lands in a cell next to them, so a merge is also a tool: one shockwave per adjacent merge, and slabs with two or three health need two or three merges beside them. Heavy slabs can also be shattered outright with the Stone Song booster.
Is there an endless mode?
Yes. Finish chapter thirty and the Ever-Cairn opens: an endless run on the same board where the shrine never stops asking, each wave demanding higher tiers and sometimes two of them, with no par and no undo limit. Your best wave and the deepest relic you have ever forged are kept on this device.