Interchange deals seven columns of seven with every second row face down and asks you to build down in suit with only Kings allowed into a space — one of the hardest boards in the Forty Thieves family. Breakwater keeps that deal and loosens both rules: the tableau builds down by rank regardless of suit, and any card may enter an empty column. Runs still move as a unit, and the stock is still one pass with no redeal. The result is a game you can actually dig through, where the skill is in choosing which of the twenty-one hidden cards to uncover first. Free in your browser, no sign-up.
Goal: build all eight foundations from Ace to King by suit.
Three hidden rows sit between you and the bottom of every column. The suit-blind build makes moving cards easy; the question is always which column to dig.
PySolFC derives three games from one deal. Interchange builds down in suit with Kings into spaces; Breakwater builds down by rank with any card into spaces; Alternation builds down in alternating colours with any card into spaces. Many play sites describe the rank-building game under the name "Alternations" and mention the colour rule as a variant, which is why the same name means two games in the wild. This catalogue follows PySolFC's registrations: the rank game is Breakwater, the colour game is Alternation, and each guide says so.
Like every game in this family here, the first stock card is left for you to turn rather than dealt to the waste at the start.
Two rules. The tableau builds down by rank in any suit rather than down in suit, and any card may enter an empty column rather than only a King. The deal — seven columns of seven with rows two, four and six face down — the run move and the single pass through the stock are identical.
Because several play sites describe a rank-building game with alternating hidden rows under that name, and treat the alternating-colour build as a variant. PySolFC registers the rank game as Breakwater and the colour game as Alternation, and this catalogue uses PySolFC's names for both.
Twenty-one: three in each of the seven columns, in the second, fourth and sixth positions. Each turns face up the moment the card on top of it is moved away.
Yes. Interchange's king rule is not carried over; Breakwater's row stack in the source has the default open base, and the play sites agree. A space is therefore a place to split a run at any card, which is the main way to reach the hidden ones.
No. The 55 stock cards are turned once. That is why a playable waste card should almost always be played before a board move that can wait.
Considerably. PySolFC rates Breakwater mostly skill where Interchange is extremely difficult; the suit-blind build and the open spaces turn a board that often cannot be dug at all into one that rewards choosing the right column to dig.