DaVinci's Challenge
Da Vinci's Challenge is a game of patterns based on Leonardo Da Vinci's Flower of Life.
The objective is to score the most points by using your pieces to create patterns worth different point values.
Your pieces can also be used to block your opponent from creating patterns.
The game is over when no more patterns can be made by either side. The player with the highest score is the winner.
The Da Vinci Game is a board game inspired by Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.
Players solve puzzles, riddles, logic problems, and conundrums in a race against the clock, and the other players. It can be played with three to six players or teams.
The game was created by Martin Woods and Allison Carmichael and developed and designed by Games Talk.
It is being distributed by Fun and Games.
Symbolism and codes in the game
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The Da Vinci Game game board with the pentacle symbol.
The Da Vinci Game uses symbolism on the board and for the playing pieces, much of it referring to the Virgin Mary and linking to Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code. The board itself is in the shape of a pentacle; an ancient symbol representing peace, harmony, and cosmic order.
Cards are represented by four types of symbols, also used on the board:
- The codex, a handwritten book from late Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages, is a symbol for secret messages because it corrodes easily. The symbol is used in the game for riddles that reveal secret words. It is claimed that Leonardo Da Vinci used codes from the codex for added secrecy.
- The key denotes power over whatever the key unlocks and in the game is used as the symbol for the logic clues, where logic is needed to unlock a numeric answer.
- Roses have different meanings depending on their colour -
- the white rose is symbolic of innocence and the feminine;
- the red rose of true love and the masculine.
- The Da Vinci Game uses a pink dog rose to signify a graceful merging of both. It is used to denote geographical locations on our planet, many of them, but not all, reflecting the beauty of the rose.
- The Vitruvian Man shows the perfect human dimensions and is indicative of the divine number Phi.
- In The Da Vinci Game; the Vitruvian Man represents creative genius, art, music, film, and literature and the amazing people who created them, their names, and creations hidden within anagrams.
The game pieces represent goddess or feminine symbols and are:
- An Owl. For the Greeks, the owl was associated with the goddess Athena, who was a goddess of wisdom.
She was considered to be the embodiment of spirituality and wisdom.
- A Chalice, an ancient symbol completely female in its symbolism long before it became the symbol of the Holy Grail.
- A Cat. In ancient Egypt, the cat had her own goddess, Bastet. The symbol is also seen as sacred to witches and wise women.
- A Bell. Bells are used in rituals to focus the mind, summon spirits, and cleanse an area of negative energy. Their shape also signals femininity.
- A Shell, or Ammonite. It resembles the ram-like horns of Ammon, the Egyptian deity of life and reproduction.
- A Dolphin. This symbols represents a joyful and playful animal of the sea and has always symbolized fun, harmony, playfulness, and joy.