Four in a row is the easy part. Earning each square is the game.

Every cell on the board shows a number. To claim it you have to build that number out of the cards in your hand — and there is always more than one way. First to line up four wins: across, down, or along either diagonal.

THE MATH IS THE MOVE

Your hand is five cards, worth 1 to 6. A cell reading 96 does not want a 96 — it wants a 9 and a 6 glued together. A cell reading 30 will take 5 × 6, or 6 × 5, or 2 & 4 + 6. You get up to three cards and six operations:

• Concatenate — 9 & 6 = 96. The shortcut to the big two-digit targets.

• Exponent — 4 ^ 2 = 16.

• Multiply and Divide — division must come out exact. There are no fractions in this kingdom.

• Add and Subtract — and dipping negative part-way through an expression is perfectly legal.

The board reads strictly left to right — no order of operations, ever. 2 + 3 × 4 is 20 here, not 14. That one rule turns plain arithmetic into a puzzle about sequence: the cards you hold matter less than the order you spend them in.

TWO KINGDOMS, TWO RULESETS

ROYALS 7 — the open game. One to three cards, any operations you like, two-digit targets across a 6×6 grid. Every number on the board is yours to shape.

DECREE — the board dictates the math. Every column flies a banner: + − × ÷ ^. That is the only operation permitted in that column. Targets are single digits, and every move is exactly two cards — never one, never three. You do not choose the operation. You choose two cards and go hunting for the column that will accept them.

And once per match, you may issue an EDICT.

An Edict demolishes an entire column. Everything standing in it is destroyed, every column to its right slides one place left, and a freshly rolled column — new law, new targets — marches in at the far end. Pulling a column out makes its neighbours adjacent, which means the slide can complete a line of four that nobody ever actually played. Those lines count.

Demolish at your own peril: if the shift completes a line for both players at once, the victory goes to the player who did not call the Edict.

THE DECK NEVER RUNS OUT

Forty-eight cards, eight copies each of 1 through 6. Spend them and they leave your hand at once, but replacements only arrive at the start of your next turn — so a three-card play leaves you thin for a round. That is the real cost of a clever move.

Nothing is ever destroyed, though. When the last card leaves the deck, the discard pile is shuffled and becomes the deck again. You can always draw. You just cannot always draw well.

WAYS TO PLAY

• Same Device — two players, one screen, taking turns.

• Vs Computer — face the court's strategist at three strengths.

• Online — host a match or join a friend's across the network.

• The Proving Grounds — eight short trials, one move each, teaching the ways of both kingdoms. Replay any of them freely.

CHOOSE YOUR BATTLEFIELD

• Standard — the hand-tuned layout, identical every game. Each number appears exactly twice, at opposite ends of the grid, so no corner favors either player.

• Mirrored — a fresh board every match under the same fairness rules: every number twice, the grid symmetric about its centre.

• Random — every cell drawn on its own. Common numbers land often, awkward ones rarely. No symmetry, no promises.

Every printed number is reachable with the deck. There are no dead cells.

THE SUMS ARE NOT THE TEST

Select your cards and every cell you can currently claim lights up. Stuck? All results lists every number your hand can reach and flags the ones sitting on an open cell right now — click a row and the operations drop straight onto the play line.

The game will happily do the arithmetic. It will not tell you which square to take.

AT A GLANCE

• Two complete rulesets — Royals 7 and Decree — each with its own board, its own maths, and its own tutorial trials

• Local two-player, three AI strengths, and online play against a friend

• Three board generators, from a hand-balanced fixed layout to a weighted random draw

• Eight one-move challenges in the Proving Grounds

• Six operations including concatenation and exponents, with strict left-to-right evaluation

• A 48-card cycle that recirculates forever — no dead hands, no unwinnable draws

• Fullscreen, reduced-motion, and brisk-animation options