Disclaimer: A copy of Doomlings was provided by the publisher for the review purposes
Evolution is a fascinating concept. The idea that over generations, the traits that help a species survive are what get passed down, and offspring that lack those traits, don’t reproduce and therefore, those traits are lost to time. Of course, no amount of heat spreading frills will let you compete against the end of the world, but this is where we find ourselves in card game Doomlings, designed by Justus Meyer and Andrew Meyer, with art by Justus Meyer, and published by Doomlings LLC in 2022.
In Doomlings, players play trait cards from their hand to try and amass the most points before the 3rd catastrophe card is revealed, and the world comes to an end. Each trait card offers points and/or actions, and many cards will play off each other, like giving you bonus points for other traits of the same name, or letting you swap cards with one of your opponents. Each player has a gene pool card that can grow and shrink over time, dictating how many cards they’re allowed to hold at the end of their turn.
Each round, an age card is revealed, and may affect what and how players are allowed to play during their turn. For instance, the Northern Winds age lets you draw one and discard one card from your hand before you take your turn, while Tectonic Shifts prevent you from playing any green traits. Once the third catastrophe card is revealed, the game comes to an end. End game effects trigger, scores are tallied up, and the player with the highest score is the winner. Although one has to ask themselves, does winning really matter if all species are equally wiped out at the end of the world?
The base box of Doomlings comes with hundreds of traits and dozens of ages, creating a unique mix of events every time you play. If you’re into this kind of game, there are also expansion packs to dive into, which the base game box has left plenty of room for expansions to sit right next to the base game.
As I alluded to at the beginning, I like this theme quite a lot. The traits you play can range from functional, like Mindfulness, to silly, like Flatchulance. The names of the traits don’t always seem to correspond to their effects (if they even have one) very well. The age cards also do quite a bit to inject a bit of theme into the round by displaying things like a super volcano spewing ash into the sky, or a mega tsunami bearing down on the land. You know, light-hearted game night fun stuff. (side note, literally as I was writing this, a small earthquake shook my house. More fun stuff)
The art is cartoony and simple, but enjoyable. It’s very reminiscent of Matthew Inman’s work on The Oatmeal, as well as the art he’s contributed towards 30 of the games published by Exploding Kittens. From reading history of Doomlings, Justus Meyer taught himself how to create digital art so he could create this game, which is an achievement in itself. Perhaps the best compliment for the artwork came from my wife. I had left the game on the kitchen table, and the box caught her eye, she picked it up, and said “Looks fun, I’d play this”. There’s nothing better than a game that makes people want to play it just by the look of it.
Like the artwork, the gameplay is cartoony and simple, but enjoyable. It’s a game to play with your family, or non-gamer friends, as there’s plenty of luck and chaos, but also the potential for combos tickles the gamer brain in just the right way. If you’re looking to play this with kids, you will need to make sure the kids know how to read, as there is plenty of text that is quite important to understand.
The base game suggests creating 3 piles of 3 age cards, and putting one catastrophe in each pile, making the game last a maximum of 12 rounds. You also shuffle each pile individually, then stack them on top of each other a la Pandemic, so the game end trigger isn’t easily known. You can make the game longer or shorter just by adding or removing age cards, and I really appreciate the flexibility, especially when playing with groups that can have low attention spans.
Because there are so many cards with so many effects, it’s difficult to remember everything that your opponents can do, or what effects their cards may have, and trying to read small text upside down and across the table is a fools errand. There’s a lot of randomness in this chaos too, in that some cards do want to have other cards of the same name, but if you don’t draw cards that let you discard or draw more cards, your ability to seek those cards out is quite limited. They’re more of a bonus to luck into, rather than a viable strategy on their own. Some games you’ll draw the perfect cards that compliment each other in your tableau. Other times you’ll be wishing for the heat death of the universe.
Okay, that was a bit dramatic. But it is worth pointing out that the randomness in Doomlings will turn some people off, as will the take-that element of the game. It’s disappointing when you pull a card that would work for your tableau very well, but then the opponent to your right forces you to discard two cards at random. And considering you only draw at the end of your turn, it is possible to have your turn come around, and you simply don’t have any cards left to play, which is a disappointing feeling.
Doomlings at the end of the day is inoffensive. The tableau building aspect gives faint hints of satisfaction that engine building games so wonderfully evoke, but Doomlings doesn’t hit the same highs as other tableau building games, such as Wingspan or Race for the Galaxy. Nor does it really lean into the evolution theme, like Evolution does so well.
So who is Doomlings for? If you like games like Exploding Kittens or Munchkin, I’d certainly play Doomlings before either of those two games. It has the randomness of Fluxx without the need for appreciating or understanding a theme, which may be a boon if you’re playing with kids who haven’t consumed the entirety of the Doctor Who cannon. A copy of Doomlings would gladly live its life at a cabin, or at grandmas house. It’s easy to play, light-hearted fun. While it wouldn’t be my first choice for a game night, if Doomlings was the game being played, I’d certainly engage with it instead of sitting on the couch trying to learn how to knit a scarf before the impending ice age.
If you’ve made it this far, and thought to yourself that Doomlings sounds like your cup of tea, you can pick up a copy for yourself from their website
