Base of Spades is Gregg Jewell's puzzler disguised with a theme for the 2024 traditional playing card contest, where you rearrange a row of cards to match them and score within a range.
To bring down the defenses of the tyrannical Ace of Spades (whose only appearance is to take part in the pun), you must rally your nine even-numbered cards (kingdoms) by matching them with nine odd-numbered cards (champions) by suit. Every turn a commander dictates how a champion of a suit can move on the line, after a move another commander takes charge.
Once you match all cards by suit, you then make an attack based on how many matches total seven. You flip down the card that equals this total if it's still face up. Commanders can give champions optional movement range adjustments depending on how many defenses are down.
Taking down three cards of the defense is a win, a bigger win if it's one of each row of the pyramid. Once the deck of commanders is used up you shuffle it again, retiring a random card. If you use up all your turns this way without hitting three you lose.
Doing all this in 21 turns seems daunting, but matching suits is rather easy if you think of the other cards that shift to make room of your move. The extra moves you get whenever you take down a card means fewer moves thanks to additional options and thus finer moves
The goal is not to make as many sevens as possible, but you can't just match suits willy-nilly. If you have seen any skill-based arcade game that counts for example the number of spins a ball rolls around a circuit this game sort of works like that, overshoot or undershoot this six-number range and you've wasted moves.
There is a reference sheet for commander movements, the only real external piece of equipment. The gameplay is simple and works as a puzzle.
