What are the demon circles in Planet Apocalypse?
Planet Apocalypse organizes its demons by Circle, from the swarming low-tier creatures spawned in Limbo all the way up to the unique Fourth Circle horrors. Each tier is tougher, rarer, and harder to put down. Your team of 1 to 5 heroes has to manage all of them at once while the Doom track creeps toward 13.
The game draws on a framework of escalating damnation: the higher the Circle, the more punishment a demon can absorb and dish out. That structure is baked into the component design too. Each demon type comes in a distinct plastic color, so you can read the board at a glance and instantly see how bad the situation is in any given area.
What demons come in the core game?
The core box includes five tiers of opposition, verified straight from the product listing:
- Larvae (Limbo) - Ten figures. The weakest creatures in Hell's hierarchy, these spawn ahead of the main wave and flood your board positions.
- Grylluses (First Circle) - Six figures. More dangerous than Larvae, these are the workhorses of the invasion. Expect to see a lot of them.
- Fiends (Second Circle) - Four figures. Mid-tier demons that require real resources to clear. Ignoring them is expensive.
- Cacodemons (Third Circle) - Two figures. Sandy Petersen originally designed the Cacodemon for Doom in 1993, and here it shows up as a Third Circle terror with the visual presence to match.
- The Hellhound (Fourth Circle, unique) - A creature that can attack heroes even when they're not in the same location. That alone changes how you position your team.
- The Catoblepas (Fourth Circle, unique) - Spreads pestilence across the board. This one punishes you for leaving it alone.
All figures are scaled to 28mm, which means they work with other miniature systems if you want to pull them for use elsewhere.
Who is the demon lord in Planet Apocalypse?
Baphomet is the demon lord in the core game. It arrives protected by a Wall and can't simply be brawled down. Your team has to work through the demonic horde, build up enough hero power through gifts and troopers, and eventually break through Baphomet's defenses to close the Hellgate and win.
That's the whole arc of the game. The demon lord isn't just a big hit-point sponge. It has special abilities, a specific set of conditions you'll need to satisfy, and the ability to do real damage to heroes who aren't ready for it. Different lords demand different approaches, and swapping the lord changes the game meaningfully.
What other demon lords exist in Planet Apocalypse?
The expansion ecosystem adds significantly to the lord roster. Lords available through Petersen Games include Jabootu, Scylla, Asmod, Procrustes, Pulgasaur, Orobas, the Spider Mastermind, and even a crossover with Great Cthulhu for players who also own Cthulhu Wars. Each brings its own mechanical quirk. Orobas is a regal figure on an animated living throne. Jabootu leans on unique ability interactions. Procrustes has multiple spined arms and plays with reach and range.
The design philosophy across all of them is the same: no two lords fight the same way. Some are tanky. Some are fast. Some hit so hard that your combat dice setup from the previous session becomes irrelevant. That's intentional. Sandy Petersen has been building asymmetric threat design since his work on tabletop RPG scenarios and Doom, and it shows in how distinct each lord feels at the table.
What is "Mr. Shiny" in Planet Apocalypse?
Community nickname. Likely earned. Planet Apocalypse ships its demon types in color-differentiated plastic, so veterans can identify a demon tier across the table without picking up the figure. The community has developed nicknames for certain standout pieces, with "Mr. Shiny" becoming a recurring way to refer to a particularly visually striking demon in a given set. Don't expect an official rules card with that name on it. It's shorthand for the moment when something catches the light from across the table and you realize you're in trouble.
Worth noting: Petersen Games designed these figures with actual display value in mind. The demon lord miniature in particular is built to dominate the table physically when it's placed. That centerpiece presence is part of why players use nicknames at all. A game where every figure looks the same doesn't generate that kind of vocabulary.
How does the invasion escalate during play?
Three phases per round, every round, tightening the screws.
The Team Phase is where you breathe. You recruit troopers, heal heroes, and spend Courage (the game's main currency, earned by killing demons or through normal progression) on Gifts, which are the skills and upgrades your heroes carry. This is the only moment in the round where you have full agency over your team's state.
The Player Phase gives each hero four possible actions: move to a new location, attack, set an ambush, or use a special ability. The ambush action is where the tower-defense logic lives. You place your troopers onto the map in ambush positions, and they'll activate later to intercept approaching demons automatically. Getting ambushes right is what separates teams that survive from teams that hit Doom 13 halfway through the game.
Then the Enemy Phase hits, and it doesn't negotiate. Demons advance one space toward your heroes' starting area. Invasion Tokens that enter ambush zones or hero zones trigger Despair Dice rolls that add more demons to the board. If you can't add enough demons because the supply is exhausted, the Doom track goes up. If demons march off the edge of the board entirely, the Doom track goes up. Hit 13 and it's over.
What happens when the Doom track reaches 13?
You lose. Game ends. No last-stand exception. The Doom track is the game's hard clock, and it ticks up through multiple pathways: dead heroes, demon overflow, waves the team couldn't intercept, and failed attrition against the growing horde. Managing all those pathways simultaneously, with the same limited resources, is the whole tension the cooperative game format is built to create.
The double-sided map adds another variable. The Invasion map is the standard layout, a squiggly path that creates a flow of demon movement you can anticipate and set up against. Flip the board and you get the Doomgate configuration, a circular layout that changes angles of attack and forces a different kind of defensive planning. Same demons, same heroes, very different game.
How do heroes build power against the demon horde?
Gifts and troopers. Gifts are the hero skill cards you buy with Courage during the Team Phase. Every hero has a different gift progression, and the order matters. The six core heroes (John Dark, Naomi Joslyn, Cindrew, Hannah Hazard, Tarang, and Professor Maxwell) each have a starting stat profile and a set of gifts they can acquire as the game goes. Getting the right combination for your group composition, and spending Courage at the right tempo, is where most of the strategic depth lives.
Troopers are the people your hero gathers along the way. They sit in ambush positions and roll dice against demons that walk through. You can only have so many, placed so far, which forces real triage decisions about what to protect.
The whole system creates a character-building loop inside a survival race. You're leveling up while the invasion is getting worse. That's the design tension. And it explains why the game rated 3.13/5 for complexity on BoardGameGeek earns that weight. Not complicated to learn, but genuinely deep to execute under pressure.
Is Planet Apocalypse good solo?
Yes. The game supports 1 to 5 players. Solo mode puts you in control of a single hero against the same invasion mechanics, which sharpens the resource tension considerably. You have one set of hands and the same number of demons. The Doom track doesn't care how many heroes are at the table.
The design holds up at all counts. Community best-play numbers on BGG point toward 3-player as a sweet spot, but solo sessions run cleanly and the game was clearly built with single-player viability as a real priority, not an afterthought.
Where can you get Planet Apocalypse?
The core game, expansion packs, and individual demon lord add-ons are available through Petersen Games. Check the product page for current availability. The expansion ecosystem is substantial: Pack of the Pit, Power Pack, Void Pack, Dragon Pack, individual lord packs, and even a 5e RPG supplement that brings the invasion into a tabletop roleplaying campaign.
For a centerpiece horror game from the designer of Doom and Cthulhu Wars, built to fill a table and test a group, this is Sandy Petersen's take on what a fully realized demonic invasion looks like as a competitive cooperative experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
What type of game is Planet Apocalypse?
Planet Apocalypse is a cooperative board game for 1 to 5 players, ages 14 and up, with sessions running 60 to 90 minutes. It combines tower-defense mechanics, dice-based combat, and hero RPG-style progression. Players work together to push back a demonic invasion and defeat a demon lord before the Doom track hits 13.
What are all the demon types in the Planet Apocalypse core game?
The core game includes Larvae (Limbo), Grylluses (First Circle), Fiends (Second Circle), Cacodemons (Third Circle), the Hellhound (Fourth Circle unique), and the Catoblepas (Fourth Circle unique). Baphomet serves as the core game's demon lord, accompanied by its Wall. Expansion packs introduce additional demon types and lords.
Who is Baphomet in Planet Apocalypse?
Baphomet is the demon lord included in the Planet Apocalypse core game. It arrives on the board protected by a Wall, requires a specific strategy to engage effectively, and represents the final objective: destroy the Hellgate and send Baphomet back to Hell to win the game.
Who designed Planet Apocalypse?
Sandy Petersen designed Planet Apocalypse, published by Petersen Games. Petersen was a lead designer on Doom (1993) and the creator of Cthulhu Wars. The artwork throughout Planet Apocalypse was created by Keith Thompson. The game launched via Kickstarter in 2018 and shipped to retail in 2020.
Can you play Planet Apocalypse solo?
Yes. Planet Apocalypse supports 1 to 5 players and runs cleanly as a solo game. Solo mode uses the same mechanics and the same demon invasion structure as multiplayer, with one hero managing all decisions. The Doom track and invasion escalation don't scale down for solo play, which keeps the tension high.
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