Review: Déjà Vu

Introduction & Overview

Have you ever had the feeling of experiencing something that is actually happening for the very first time? That is called «Déjà Vu»: a feeling of familiarity that alters your perception of time. Face a mental duel: trust your memory and follow your hunches to uncover hidden coincidences between memories that never existed.

This is the premise behind Déjà Vu, designed by Nico Cardona (Panots). First published in 2026 by Too Bad Games alongside Zacatrus in a trilingual edition featuring English, French, and Spanish. Artwork is handled by Ricardo Cavolo, marking his debut in the board gaming industry.

The game is completely language-independent (except for the rulebook). It accommodates 2 players, with a suggested minimum age of 8 and an approximate running time of 10 minutes. The retail price is €13.95. For this review, we used a copy of the trilingual Spanish, English, and French edition from Too Bad Games, kindly provided as a review copy by the publisher.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and base) measuring 7.8×10.5×3.2 cm (a small rectangular format similar to CABO or Pixies), we find the following items:

• 33 Cards (63×88 mm):
  • 32 Déjà Vu Cards
  • End Card
• 7 Hunch Tokens (wooden)
• Rulebook

How to Play

Déjà Vu is a memory, deduction, and push-your-luck game for two players where opponents compete to uncover sets of matching values. On the table, a three-by-three grid of cards is laid out showing their blue face around an End Card, alongside a draw deck (placed directly on top of the End Card), with each participant receiving a set number of hunch tokens. Over the course of the game, players alternate turns in which they must choose a main action: secretly peek at the reverse side of a grid card to memorize its values, publicly reveal cards one at a time, or claim the End Card. When revealing, the goal is to uncover matching numbers; if a player succeeds after revealing a card, they may continue flipping cards during the same turn or choose to stop (having uncovered at least 3 matching numbers is required to bank them). If they make a mistake and reveal a card that does not share a matching value with the previous ones, their turn ends immediately, the revealed cards are flipped back to their blue side, and they must hand over a hunch token to their opponent. Additional actions can be taken by spending hunch tokens and giving them to the opponent. The game ends immediately if a player collects all hunch tokens. Otherwise, the game concludes when a player claims the End Card (granting their opponent one final turn), and the victor is whoever scored the most points from their collected hunch tokens and acquired cards.

Key Concepts

The Déjà Vu Cards are the core of the game and make up the main deck. These are double-sided cards: one side features a blue background with a single numerical value between 2 and 12; the reverse side shows an orange background with a pair of numbers ranging from 0 to 7, whose sum equals the exact figure shown on the blue side. Each combination of numbers on the orange side is unique and never repeats across the deck. During play, these cards form a grid on the table, and players interact with them by secretly inspecting them or flipping them face up to find numerical matches and add them to their personal score pile.

The End Card is a special card positioned beneath the draw deck. Its primary role is to trigger the end of the game due to deck exhaustion once it becomes visible in the grid. A player who chooses to take it as their sole action of the turn places it on top of their accumulated score pile, concluding their participation and granting the rival one final turn before moving to final scoring, where this card also counts as one point in the stack.

Hunch Tokens function as currency, tactical resources, and an alternate victory condition. Players may hand one of these tokens to their opponent to execute an extra action on their turn (either peeking at a card in secret or revealing cards), but they must also surrender one if they slip up and flip a card whose values do not match the number shared across the previously revealed cards. Conversely, managing to reveal four or more matching numbers during a reveal action allows a player to steal a token from their opponent. If a player manages to collect all of these tokens, they claim an instant win; should the game proceed to regular scoring, each held token grants half a victory point.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Shuffle the 32 Déjà Vu cards together with the End Card to form a single deck.
2. Place the deck face up in the center of the table, showing the blue side of the top card.
   Next, form a three-by-three card grid around the central deck, dealing cards from the deck and placing them with their blue face visible. The central slot of the grid will be occupied by the deck itself.
3. Distribute the hunch tokens between both players, handing 3 tokens to one player and 4 to the other, or placing one neutral token aside and giving 3 to each.
4. Finally, randomly select the starting player.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Déjà Vu unfolds over an indeterminate series of alternating turns between both players, starting with the first player.

On each turn, the active player must perform one mandatory main action.

The available actions are:

• Peek. The player selects one of the cards in the grid, secretly looks at its orange face, and returns it to the exact same position and orientation within the grid.
• Reveal. The player flips cards over to their orange face one by one, resolving the action based on the outcome:
  • Success. If the player gets the same number to appear 3 or more times across the cards revealed this turn, they may decide to stop or keep revealing cards:
    • If they choose to stop, they take all cards revealed during the turn and place them in a pile in front of them with the blue side up (checking or recounting this pile during the game is not allowed). In addition, if the matching number appears 4 or more times, they steal 1 hunch token from their opponent. Finally, the empty spaces in the grid are refilled with cards from the deck.
    • If they decide to continue, they flip another card in the grid, applying the success or failure rules once again.
  • Failure. If the player flips a card and neither of its two numbers matches the values shown on previously revealed cards this turn, they blunder. In this scenario, they must surrender 1 hunch token to their opponent, all cards revealed this turn are returned face down to their original positions (showing their blue face), and their turn ends immediately.
• Take the End Card. This action is only available if the End Card is visible in the grid. The player claims this card and places it on top of their scored cards pile. This must be the only action taken during the turn, ending that player’s involvement in the game (the opponent will have one final turn before scoring).

Additionally, at any point during their turn (except when taking the End Card action), the active player may hand 1 hunch token to their opponent to carry out an extra Peek or Reveal action. This can be repeated as many times as desired, provided the player has enough hunch tokens to pay the cost.

Once the active player chooses not to take further actions (or suffers a blunder), they declare the end of their turn and play passes to the opponent.

Game End

The end of the game can be triggered through two avenues:

• If a player manages to collect all 7 hunch tokens, they claim an instant victory.
• Alternatively, if a player takes the End Card, the opponent takes one last turn and the game ends, proceeding to a final tally where each player scores:
  • One point for each collected card (including the End Card).
  • Half a point for each hunch token.

The player with the most points is declared the winner.

Personal Opinion

Memory games have always sparked a fair amount of debate among gamers. For many, relying purely on visual or spatial recall feels uninspiring unless paired with a layer of interaction or meaningful decision-making that goes beyond basic mnemonics. A mental faculty that, moreover, tends to decline with age.

However, when a designer introduces fresh dynamics and weaves in deduction, risk management, and tempo control, the experience transforms completely. Memory ceases to be a simple storage mechanism and becomes another tactical asset, creating that persistent tension between absolute confidence and the nagging feeling that you are about to make an enormous blunder.

All of this brings us to today’s focus: analyzing Déjà Vu, a title that serves as a statement of intent all on its own. It is time to see how this proposal turned out for our admired Nico Cardona, but not before thanking him and his publishing team for providing the review copy that makes this lengthy write-up possible.

In Déjà Vu, two participants compete to collect cards or hunch tokens across a series of alternating turns. The game revolves around a three-by-three grid formed by cards showing a visible number on their blue side while hiding a unique, non-repeating pair of numbers on their orange reverse, the sum of which equals that visible value.

During their turn, the active player chooses a main action: secretly inspect the back of a card and put it back, or initiate a reveal sequence. Once the draw deck runs out, a third option unlocks, allowing someone to claim a special card that triggers the end of the game. On top of that, players can pass hunch tokens to their rival to buy bonus actions before passing the turn.

The reveal action consists of flipping cards one by one, aiming for each revealed card to share at least one digit with the cards previously revealed in that run. The target is to find at least three matching values, which unlocks the chance to bank them and tuck the revealed cards into one’s personal scoring stack.

Even so, you can choose to push your luck and keep flipping cards, because finding four or more matching values allows you to snatch a hunch token away from your rival. If you reveal a card whose reverse side shares no digits with the previously exposed cards, you blunder. The cards are flipped back down, a hunch token is handed over to the opponent, and the turn ends on the spot. Any gaps left in the grid by claimed cards are promptly replenished from the central deck.

The match can wrap up through two distinct paths. First, there is a sudden-death condition if a participant collects every single hunch token, winning outright. Alternatively, should someone spend their turn taking the End Card once exposed by the depleted draw deck, the opponent receives one last turn before final tallying.

In that second scenario, the match is decided by a final count where each banked card awards one victory point—including the End Card itself—while each remaining hunch token provides half an additional point, handing victory to whoever tallied the highest score.

Right, I think that gives you more than enough context to dive into feelings and game flow, although you have likely gathered that the design does not hold too many mysteries, as it remains a spin on classic pair-matching games—only here you are hunting for trios.

The primary difference compared to standard matching games is that every time a player succeeds, the active card pool shifts, creating a burst of tension whenever your rival inspects a card you already know inside and out.

This dynamic gives hunch tokens substantial tactical weight, as they allow you to take extra actions whenever sacrificing that half-point feels worthwhile to beat your rival to a card combination you believe you have pinned down.

Yet players must not only track the position of what they have seen, but a whole cluster of numbers. That mental juggling quickly leads to brain fog, as the natural instinct is to fixate on the target value spotted across two cards, giving rise to that nagging illusion of seeing certain numbers where they simply do not exist.

The game allows for a deeper layer of strategy, given that each card is unique; even if values repeat on the blue side, the orange-side pairs that add up to that value never duplicate. Consequently, if a player can remember that the 7 card hiding a 3 and a 4 has already been claimed, and another 7 pops up while hunting for 3s or 4s, there is no need to flip it—its reverse side can hold any combination except 3 and 4.

Furthermore, if someone possesses that level of total recall, there comes a point where flipping certain cards becomes redundant; by pure deduction and elimination, a card could only conceal one specific pair of numbers because the alternatives have already left the board.

Even so, to be completely frank, hardly anyone with standard human capabilities will be able to play like that. Most mortals will struggle just remembering which three cards share a number, let alone tracking unique combinations and math sums on the fly.

In fact, the design really shines the moment mental gears start grinding, forcing players to take calculated risks to keep pace with their opponent. Driven by the fear of blowing it, players will often double-check the same card multiple times before gathering the courage to publicly reveal what they think they know.

Messing up does not just result in a wasted turn. Beyond giving away a hunch token (which essentially hands the opponent an extra turn), you might be feeding valuable intel to your rival if they were oblivious to the cards exposed right before the blunder.

The design also leaves room for daring gambits, especially with extreme values. For instance, cards with a value of 12 only support two possible splits: double six, or seven and five. By contrast, cards of value 2 only permit two and zero, or one and one. Remembering whether those combinations have already shown up is fairly manageable. Middle values are another story entirely, since a six offers four possible splits, often with adjacent numbers.

I think it is clear by now that I enjoyed the game, but it remains an exclusively two-player memory challenge. If you enjoy this genre, it will likely work well for you, though it undeniably targets a specific niche. It functions very much like a Button Shy wallet game, albeit with a slightly larger card count packed into a sturdy box.

Still, a good portion of my humble blog’s readership may not find this title compelling simply because the right context to get it to the table will rarely occur. It is an ideal design for killing downtime, such as in an airport lounge or a waiting room, or perhaps as a light palate cleanser between heavier two-player sessions.

Most memory games that remain in my personal collection lean into the filler-party category—such as Trio (read the tocho-review here) or That’s not a Hat (read the tocho-review here)—which thrive precisely because human recall is so fallible. Against a computer or an infallible mind, they lose their charm entirely. If you are specifically hunting for a dedicated two-player option, this is one worth keeping on your radar.

Turning to the production, we are greeted by an exceptionally sturdy box in a very compact format. Inside, the cards feature great stock, linen finish, and excellent snap. Sleeving might be worth considering to avoid marked cards (which would be fatal for a game of this kind), though you will need snug-fitting sleeves or they will struggle to fit back into the box. The rulebook is cleanly organized and leaves no ambiguities.

Aesthetically, the game embraces a retro psychedelic vibe, drawing inspiration from underground comix and esoteric symbolism. It stands out with bold, crisp black linework paired with saturated, flat colors that prioritize sharp contrasts between warm and cool tones. Packed with mystic iconography—all-seeing eyes, bats, lightning bolts, cherubs, and celestial patterns—the artwork creates a dreamlike, slightly unsettling atmosphere somewhere between a contemporary tarot deck and a 1970s rock poster. On the cards, ornate borders frame the central digits like miniature art panels, striking a functional balance between loud visual flair and clear table readability.

And let’s wrap this up. Déjà Vu takes classic grid-based pair matching and twists it with arithmetic deduction and action economy. The tension stems entirely from that psychological tug-of-war between pushing your luck on a chain of reveals and the dread of blundering, which gifts free turns and information to your opponent. It succeeds as soon as the brain starts overheating and short-term memory falters, forcing players to navigate constant second-guessing. However, its theoretical layer of card counting and deductive play is largely overshadowed by human memory limits, leading to frequent re-checking. Its heavy reliance on memory caters to a very specific profile and loses its spark against an infallible player. A clever, neat little diversion that exploits our mental blind spots without overcomplicating things, albeit within a narrow scope. For all these reasons, I give it a…