If you think, based on the name of this game, that I would start with some treatise on the battle good and evil and whether or not you can fight devils corporeally, you will be mistaken. So let us continue.
The Devil is the latest in D. Teuber's series of solitaires based on a 78-card tarot deck, where you try to defeat the titular devil card (15) who has corrupted a court's worth of powers. Before you can confront the tempter though you have to free all 16 court cards through intercession by playing cards of a matching suit from your hand (trumps take on any suit but you cannot mix suits) and matching the card's value, playing out suited cards and exchanging them for a trump card is also possible.
Of course the fallen angel has brought his own bunch of trump cards: if you draw a disaster, you will lose your cards to martyrdom (used cards in a successful intercession are discarded and out of the game). Their deaths are not in vain for you can call upon the help of the martyrs whenever you free the court of a suit, letting you draw any martyred card into your hand.
The disasters consist of the four aces affecting all cards in hand an in play of the suit drawn, Death (13) affecting all cards in your hand, the Tower (16) affecting all played card, Judgement (20) affecting all card and the Fool the brings back a freed court back in the Devil's grasp, martyring any unmatched cards below it. A disaster is discarded after taking effect and any newly drawn disasters also take effect. If you draw two or more disasters all your cards become martyrs.
You can also make a deal with the devil in the game, though not recommended in real life. Discarding at least 15 points' worth of cards lets you see the next five cards on the draw pile and discard one of them (Judgement is sent to the bottom of the deck instead).
The goal is to free the courts before the draw deck runs out, then battle it out against the prince of evil himself in a version of War. If you have cards that sum exactly to 15 you win, bringing peace to the land, if not then he will be back to wreak havoc once more.
Theming the game to fighting the devil with nary a fistfight in it is interesting given the theme concept. The way combat works where it isn't a series of one-on-one battles while not allowing multiple targets per attack balances out the pace for a game with 53 usable cards.
Another balance is between using plain suits or trumps. Here are some things to consider: a plain suit just barely goes above what you need to clear a court; there are only five trump cards that are worth enough to match any court card alone; disasters take out viable cards only four of which you can recover.
I haven't found a need to make a deal with the devil, though the tradeoff of losing cards to avoid disaster works, in my case I haven't found a need to do so, even after a disaster wipes my progress.
Underwhelming the final confrontation may be, it's also a gauge of how well you played your cards, not only in finishing the game with cards to spare but also in what cards you have left, as it's not how many cards that determines your win, but which.
The layout isn't too large and card play is simple. If you're using a bourgeois deck you might need to memorize which trump numbers spell disaster.
