You may be fuzzy and cute but you’re furiously competing to survive the apocalypse in Doomlings
Doomlings is a cute little tableau-building card game that blends DNA from North Star Games’ Evolution with the hundreds of other collectible card games out there. Players compete to construct the creatures with the most competitively impressive traits, surviving passing Ages and Catastrophes to ultimately win out over their opponent’s species.
We reviewed the core game and gave it a “Yes” – although I did feel its limited depth held it back a little from a more strategic style of play. However, it was always clear that the lightweight foundation was intentionally designed as a mounting point for modular expansions, and we now have several of those to enjoy.
There are two main types of Doomlings expansion here: boxed sets with 100+ cards, such as Legends of Enderas and Imaginary Ends; and smaller “bolster” 40-card mini-decks such as Castle Glass and Mokoko Village. It’s not possible to cover absolutely everything, but here are some broad strokes…
READ OUR REVIEW OF THE ORIGINAL DOOMLINGS STRATEGY CARD GAME
The boxed expansions include plenty of new traits and Ages, but also a chunk of new mechanics. Most dramatically, Legends introduces a new Treasures deck, which provide one-off boosts you can spend to turbocharge a particular move, or take extra actions. You always have one or two of these cards in-hand, giving an extra option each turn, and enabling new combo-style actions. Three of the four new sub-species of Doomlings in Legends also have game-changing new mechanics: Mythlings can perform magic spells; Techlings attach semi-permanently to augment other trait cards; while Dinosaurs are a more normal species – albeit with extremely cute illustrations.
Imaginary Ends brings Merchants, which establish an entirely new type of Ages, and reward players for collecting “trinkets”. This is effectively an objectives system, with each player gaining asymmetric achievements for a chance to earn extra points. Some of the new Doomlings here reward low hand sizes (which are usually penalised), to negate negative cards and bring some intentional player-versus-player randomness.
The bolster sets include subsets of many of the new types covered above. Specifically, Castle Glass adds a new set-collection reward, much like the cards Kidneys and Swarm in the base game. This is effective, although computing scores at the end of Doomlings can already be a slightly onerous point-salad experience, and this adds to it. Shadow Puppets includes my favourite new mechanic (Suppress), which lets you convert awful, negative-valued traits into points, and also adds some Fluxx-like randomness; while Mokoko Village doesn’t add new mechanics but acts as a booster to ideas from the base set – ideal for people looking for variety rather than complexity. I found some of the new negative Outcast traits here particularly fun.
One thing I like about Doomlings is the set game length, limited to a round for each of the 12 Ages. None of the expansions increase that, and while the new mechanics might add some complexity – my nine-year-old can’t handle everything in the expansions – this is still an accessible, 20-30-minute game. I might be detecting a hint of score-creep in the new traits, although, admittedly, some of the negative cards are also stronger, too!
There is some slightly inconsistent new placement of iconography and terminology between older and newer cards, and Doomlings definitely now needs a combined rules reference. Mechanics and rules-as-written are generally clear, but there’s just enough ambiguity that it could lead to disputes in a more competitive setting. Still, Doomlings now plays both as a fun family affair or as a significantly more complex competitive event – and there are very few games out there that cater so well to both groups.
Review by Chris Lowry
YES
Fallen in love with the Doomlings universe? Well-executed new ideas offer enough to play until the end of the world and beyond.
What’s in the box?
120 cards (boxed expansions)
40 cards (bolster expansions)
Category: Card
Designers: Justus Meyer and Andrew Meyer
Publisher: Doomlings LLC
Time to Play: 15-30m
Players: 2-6 Players
Age: 10+
RRP: £25
LORDS OF WAR
Long out-of-print, competitive card game Lords of War was simple to play at first, adding excellent new mechanics through expansions. Doomlings does the same, in a more chaotic and cute way.