How to Play Demon Fan Solitaire

Demon Fan deals the whole deck across 18 tableau piles, with just the top card of each pile face up. Build down in alternating colors to uncover new cards and send them up to four empty foundations.

Setup

1. Four foundation piles start empty, waiting for an Ace of each suit.
2. Deal the entire deck across 18 tableau piles, with only the top card of each pile face up.
3. The rest of each pile stays face down until you uncover it.

How to play

• Only the face-up card on top of each tableau pile is available to play.
• Build the foundations up in suit from Ace to King.
• In the tableau, move a top card onto another top card that's one rank higher and the opposite color (a black 7 can hold a red 6).
• Only single cards move in the tableau—you can't move a run at once.
• Cards move to the foundations automatically once they can't be built on anymore—you can change this behavior in Settings.
• Use the Redeal button (up to 6 times) to shuffle all tableau cards and deal them back out.
• Empty tableau piles can't be refilled.

How to win

Objective: Move all 52 cards to the four foundation piles.

You win once all 52 cards are on the foundations. If no legal moves remain, the game is lost.

Tips

• Look for chains of alternating colors you can build down before you need the foundations.
• Uncovering a pile's hidden cards is often more valuable than an early foundation move—don't rush.

Play Demon Fan free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Demon Fan alongside 300+ other games. It saves every move as you play, so you can close the window and pick the game up later, replay any deal, and take on a new Daily Challenge deal every day. Browse every game in the Game Gallery.

Related games

More games from the Fan family:

• Indefatigable — A single-deck solitaire where the entire deck is dealt out at the start, four Aces already in the foundations.
• Linus — Linus deals all 52 cards across 18 small tableau piles and challenges you to free them one at a time into suit-ordered foundations, building tableau sequences in alternating colors along the way.
• Perseverance A — Perseverance A is a tableau-heavy game where the four aces start on the foundations.
• Perseverance B — Perseverance B is a companion to Perseverance A: the four aces start on the foundations, and you clear the rest of the deck from twelve tableau piles by moving same-suit sequences.
• Ripple Fan — A one-deck game related to Cruel, spreading the deck across thirteen tableau piles instead of twelve so you have a little more room to build same-suit runs down to the foundations.