Doomlings Strategy Card Game Review

These days, it’s far too easy to think that the end of the world is right around the corner. Doomlings provided us some gentle comic relief from that, as we worked to build a species that could survive the inevitable disasters bubbling up all around us.

As a family-friendly table-laying card game, Doomlings is easy to pick up. You begin with a hand of cards and a Gene Pool number. Each turn, you place down a card into your “trait pile”; these are characteristics that your species gain; such as “Sweat” (gain a point, but have a sweaty, moist card fall out of your hand) or “Fecundity” (increases the size of your Gene Pool).

Trait cards can have three aspects: a value, an action, and an effect at the end of the game. Some cards even have negative values, if their actions are particularly powerful, or if you are likely to dump them onto an opponent’s Trait pile.

At the end of each turn players “Stabilise” – which means they drop down to a hand size matching their Gene Pool size. This means each turn feels like it ends with a slightly weird rhythm, simply because it’s fairly unusual to have a hand limit that constantly adjusts.

I found that Doomlings occupies a rather satisfying middle ground between North Star Games’ Evolution and the zany take-that of Looney Labs’ Fluxx. It’s not as weighty and in-depth as Evolution, but it’s also not as silly as Fluxx, rarely robbing you of your agency or making victory seem like potluck. Instead, it’s a fun, light-weight race to cobble together a ridiculous creature, mopping up victory points and messing with your opponent’s traits at the same time.

Doomlings is certainly easy enough to run; on your turn, you almost always place down a single card, and with specific rules on the cards that are clearly written and straightforward to understand. While there’s lots of variability, it allows for potential strategy; “Do I go all in on collecting certain sets, or gamble that a broader approach will pay off?”

Even the weirder and more random cards, such as “Flight”, where you swap hands with an opponent, give you a choice of whether or not to use them. It’s also worth noting that I’m yet to find a wildly overpowered card combination, nor an edge-case ruling I didn’t understand. The Meyer brothers clearly dedicated the time to playtesting that a game like this needs. Knowing who the first player is each round is very important, so I’d have liked to see a first player token, although I found a salt-cellar worked fine…

Unlike Fluxx, which often veers in unpredictable directions, Doomlings rarely punishes you unfairly. It’s not deep – this is a light-weight piece of fun – but it’s not paper-thin and completely unsatisfying, unlike other games with similar art and complexity (please don’t ask me to play Exploding Kittens ever again). If you like zany fun but with a system underneath that has a little oomph, you’ll enjoy Doomlings.

Review by Chris Lowry

PLAY IT?

YES

Fun for seasoned gamers, fun for my eight-year-old. Sometimes you want to build the perfect beast, steal cards off your friends and completely fail to prepare for coming disasters; Doomlings is ready for your mishaps.

Category: Family and Party Games

Designers: Justus Meyer & Andrew Meyer

Publisher: Doomlings LLC

Time to Play: 20-30m

Players: 2-6 Players

Age: 10+

Cost: £50

What’s in the box?

Birth of Life card

15 Catastrophe cards

25 Ages cards

6 Gene Pool cards

160 Trait cards

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SURVIVE: Escape From Atlantis

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