Personal Demons — A Wickedly Funny Puzzle About Facing Yourself | Review
Review by Lincoln Hoppe: The Game Bard
A RITUAL OF PUZZLING CHOICES
Do you have personal demons? I do—and Personal Demons invites you to take a look.
From designer Judson Cohen, the wonderfully weird mind behind Deep Regrets, Personal Demons is a card-drafting and tableau-building puzzle where you join a therapeutic ritual to summon, befriend, and ultimately conquer your inner demons. The theme could have been a gimmick. Here, it is woven into a genuinely clever and rewarding puzzle.
HOW A ROUND WORKS
The game plays over three rounds. On your turn, you draft a demon card, place it in your personal summoning circle, and pass the rest of your hand to your neighbor.
The puzzle is in the arrangement. Each card has four corners, each showing a piece of a sigil. When four matching-color pieces meet—at the corners of cards or along the board’s edges—you form a complete seal. Add the matching token, and it will score at the end of the round. Purple is wild, which makes the ritual just a little more friendly.
“The theme could have just been a gimmick, but here it’s woven into a genuinely clever and rewarding puzzle.”
DEEPENING THE PUZZLE
Some demons also cause you to gain Sin, which you can spend on powerful bonus actions: summon small Fragment cards, use special cards, or unleash your own Personal Demons.
These Personal Demons are massive cards that have to be placed on top of other cards in your circle. That creates an awesome layering puzzle. As the tableau grows, it becomes stranger, more crowded, and more satisfying.
FACING DEMONS WITHOUT THE DARKNESS
The game is a tongue-in-cheek take on a mental-health journey. You are literally facing your demons, but through the best way possible: a board game. It makes them strategic and playful rather than dark.
Shining a light on them makes them less scary. Some are even kind of lovable. I call one the butt-cheek demon. He is not so scary. In fact, I love him.
WHAT ELEVATES THIS GAME
The drafting puzzle is fantastic. Every pick comes with that delicious uncertainty: what do I keep, what am I passing to my opponents, and will the card I wanted second somehow come back to me?
With three different round decks plus the Royal and Fragment decks, no two games feel the same. The drafting decisions and the spatial problem of your summoning circle offer a ton of strategic paths to explore.
COMPONENTS & PRODUCTION
The art is wonderful: unsettling, funny, and vibrantly colorful all at once. It is hard to peel your eyes away from because something says you should look away, but something deeper says you should not.
The cards come in every size, from itty-bitty Fragments to enormous demons you could cover your whole face with. Managing all those different cards across your tableau is a big part of the fun.
MY EXPERIENCE
For me, Personal Demons is uniquely satisfying. It oscillates between feeling wickedly funny and like a spiritual journey without ever feeling dark. The theme, art, and mechanisms all reinforce one another.
It is a reminder that sometimes facing your demons can be a surprisingly fun and puzzling thing to do. Because we all have demons, and somehow life feels just a little better when you imagine one of yours looks like this.
WHO SHOULD PLAY THIS?
Personal Demons may be for you if you love a good puzzle—especially a spatial puzzle. It is also for players who appreciate unique, quirky themes and incredible art. If you enjoy card drafting and tableau building, this is a refreshing and totally different experience.
WHO IS THIS NOT FOR?
Personal Demons may not be for you if the face-value theme of demons makes you uncomfortable, even when it is presented in a lighthearted, therapeutic way. Player interaction is also mostly indirect through the card draft, so players looking for more direct interaction will not find much of it here.
FINAL VERDICT
Tettix Games has created a game whose theme and art are delightfully unsettling, but whose puzzle is satisfying and unique. Personal Demons does not merely ask you to look at your demons; it lets you arrange them, layer them, turn them into seals, and somehow have a wonderful time doing it.
And that is why I love it.
CREDITS
Original Music by Lincoln Hoppe: The Game Bard
A review copy of the game was provided.
Publisher: Tettix Games
Designed by: Judson Cowan
Lincoln Hoppe
Lincoln a professional film & Television actor based in Los Angeles, California.
He has a family with 5 kids, and one of his joys in life is playing games together as a family.
He's on a mission to spread the love and mental health benefits of play and board gaming to the world.
Email Me
lincoln@thegamebard.com
Website
theGameBard.com
Lincoln Hoppe Website
lincolnhoppe.com