Reserve builders · The Vault
An open two-deck patience game with 13 arch reserve piles, four fully visible tableau columns, and eight foundations building simultaneously upward and downward by suit.
Select any reserve card or a tableau top, then choose a highlighted destination.
Archway is one of the few patience games where the entire layout is visible from the first move. Both decks are fully dealt: 48 cards in four tableau columns, one card per suit per deck on the foundations, and all remaining cards sorted by rank into the arch reserve. Nothing is hidden.
The challenge is sequencing. Eight foundations run simultaneously — four climbing from Ace to King and four descending from King to Ace — and any card in the arch reserve can be used at any time. The bottleneck is the four tableau columns: only single-card moves are allowed between them, so unlocking the right arch card at the right moment is everything.
The arch reserve holds all cards not in the tableau or foundations, sorted by rank into thirteen piles (one per rank). Any card in any arch pile is freely accessible at any time. This makes the arch a completely open resource — but using arch cards requires tableau space to route them through (since only single-card moves are allowed between tableau columns).
The key skill is planning which arch cards to extract, in what order, and creating the tableau space to receive them before the foundation gap forces a specific rank. Empty tableau columns are rare and should unlock a column sequence, not store a single parked card.
Archway has eight foundations — four ascending (A→K) and four descending (K→A), one pair per suit. Tracking both directions simultaneously is essential: a 7 of hearts may be immediately needed by the ascending foundation (if at 6) or the descending foundation (if at 8). Missing either opportunity delays the game.
The gap between ascending and descending foundations for each suit tells you which ranks are urgent. A suit with ascending at 5 and descending at 9 needs ranks 6, 7, and 8 in the next several moves; ranks outside that window can wait.
Archway is part of The Vault · Reserve builders.