DOOMLINGS (2022)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	ARTIST	PUBLISHER
2-6	30 mins	Justus Meyer Andrew Meyer	Justus Meyer	Doomlings LLC

METHOD

Coated in thick layers of cuteness, DOOMLINGS is all about playing cards to score points at the end of the game.

Traits are adorable, spherical beings that come in a variety of colours and guises. Yet these coloured cards aren’t just for fun; Blue Traits are your defense, Greens benifit from large numbers to score big, Purple are suited to your rogue like players, and Red is all about risky plays for big rewards.

But it won’t just be other players trying to get in your way by stealing cards and screwing with your plans. Each round sees an Age card drawn, a card that dictates changes to the rules for short bursts, or sometimes offer they glorious bonuses to all.

Just don’t get me started on Catastrophe cards. The end of your world is coming!!!

POINTS OF INTEREST

DOOMLINGS sits nicely in the arena occupied by other cute party card games like EXPLODING KITTENS (yay!) or UNSTABLE UNICORNS (nay!). Actions are as simple as players adding a single card to the area in front of them and then drawing up to their hand limit.

The cards themselves are nice and simple to read how their abilities work. Everything here is made to increase the games accessibility. You can easily see the end game points on most cards (though some do have special scoring based on the game end state and require a little math). Some cards have instructions that trigger either at the moment they played orgive you something ongoing. The Traits are colour coded to highlight their playstyle, allowing players to understand at a glance what the cards in their hands are best off doing.

But just playing simple cards to gather points could get old pretty fast. Something needs to be included to spice things up and keep the game fresh, play after play.

Which is where the Ages cards and Catastrophe cards come in. These are the real stars of the show, so to speak. You’ll create little Age piles at the start of the game. This not only dictates the length of the game, but also throws in a whole bunch of rule breaking interludes to keep things fresh and chaotic.

There are a decent amount of these cards included, and this massively improves the replayabilty. Each of the three Age piles is a mix of three Age cards and a single Catastrophe card, shuffled in there independent piles before being stacked together, much like the Outbreak cards in PANDEMIC.

Now, not all chaos is bad. The Age cards are a healthy mix of positive too. ‘Awakening‘, for example, let’s you take a sneaky peak at the next Age card. ‘High Tides‘ allows you to possible play an extra card on your turn. Of course, to balance out all that niceness, you’ll see cards like ‘Lunar Retreat‘ that prevents Purple cards being played and ‘Glacial Drift‘ that allows only small points scoring cards to go down. What’s great about these effects are that they have impact on all players, meaning that their reveal will lead to a collective groan or cheer.

Catastrophe cards are a little bit meaner. These more often then not reduce your hand limit and see you discard cards. And the final one played that triggers the end game, gets a little extra mean sauce on top of it.

Another type of card I really like are the Dominant Trait cards. These are exactly like standard Traits except for two striking features; they score big, and they can’t be triffled with.

You see, some cards let you screw around with other players Traits. You can forced someone to swap, discard, or return to hand. And it’s not just players dishing out this level of skullduggery. That pesky Age deck will be doing it too.

But Dominant Traits, with their distinctive gold star in the corner, can’t be messed with. Once they are down, they are standing their ground. With you until the end.

Pretty powerful, right? Well we can’t have someone thinking that they can only have Dominant Traits, so there is a limit of how many you can play in a game (2) to keep things fair. This also means you’ll need to play them strategically to make them most affective. Because while players can’t take the Dominiant Trait away, they could interfere with the normal Trait cards that affect the Dominant scoring. Something to be aware off.

And what of the art? Well, it’s simple. These Doomlings are just spheres, looking like cute little balls or berries. But each one has something distinct about it (I believe there are no duplicate designs in the game box). Some are animal themed, others are dressed up in costumes. There is enough sillyness in the deck that you’ll often find yourself showing other players a card when you draw it to show off another stand out design (I love ‘Automimicry’).

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

One thing I see when designers go all in on a theme is the need to bring a whole bunch of key words to the rulebooks. DOOMLINGS is one such game. Words are flung around in the rules like Trait, Stable, Gene Pool, and it makes teaching the game to non gamers a little tougher without first translating all the terms to their core label. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but in my experience playing the game with gamers and non gamers, I’ve seen those not of the hobby struggle a little on their first play.

I bring this up because of something I mentioned earlier. DOOMLINGS fits in a nice niche with other big name casual card games. This easily sits on the store shelf next to EXPLODING KITTENS and deserves to be in as many family homes. That’s not to say it isn’t a game for “gamers”. But it has more reach in the causal gamer market and the rules pamphlet is a little rough.

Something else I’ve struggled with when it comes to DOOMLINGS is everything that comes after the core box (which I’ll cover in more detail in the Extra Content section below).

The base game comes with a decent amount of Ages and Trait cards, enough that you can play a couple of games and still find new cards. Which is great. It’s enough. Of course we gamers always crave more, and here, in the world of Doomlings, that is available. There are some nice themed expansion decks that bring in new Doomling types like Techlings and Dinolings. Each does have it’s own small mechanic to bring new things to the game; useful if you play a lot of DOOMLINGS.

But there are a few other things about the game, the expansions, and the cards, that almost confuse me as to their inclusion.

The cards come in rairity levels from Common to Legendary. There are Holofoil cards too. None of these change the cards nature itself, but it brings a trading card feel to the occasion and, in my mind at least, it doesn’t make sense.

I was in the original Kickstarter for DOOMLINGS, and I saw other backers feel the same after the campaign delivered and these booster style packs were announced. I, like others, see the game as a nice family card game, one with default expansions available to bulk out the contents of the game. But the TCG cloak that it wears leaves a strange feeling of opposing target demographics.

Of course, you might enjoy collecting the different Doomlings, trying to get the original 125 cards in Holofoil style. And that’s fine. But it’s not for me.

EXTRA CONTENT?

There is a decent amount of content available past the core box. As mentioned, I backed the original Kickstarter which included the following small deck expansions. I’ve always included them in with the base game when I’ve played and they work well.

• DINOLINGS – Adds dinosaur themed cards that mostly utilise the discard pile.
• MYTHLINGS – All based on fantasy creatures and characters, bringing a little extra mischief to the game.
• TECHLINGS – These add the ability to attach Traits to other Traits.

I was recently sent a copy of IMAGINERY ENDS by the publisher for review, which brings in even more small sets of themed Doomlings, each with their own twist on abilities.

• DEEPLINGS – Denizines of the deep, these quirky looking fish Doomlings bring in a Suppress mechanic that allows you to place them face down in your Trait pile. This allows them to be worth a single point while not affecting certain cards that reduce score for number of Traits.
• FUZELINGS – These are a mix of Deeplings, Glitterings, and Moonlings all fused into single Doomlings. Useful to score across the different types.
• GLITTERINGS – These cards bring an increased level of chaos while also helping your opponents (friends), when maybe you don’t want to.
• MAGICAL MERCHANTS – The most complex of the additions, this adds Merchant cards to the Age deck and places a Trinket deck into the game to give players extra little objectives (like play a certain colour card) to gain more points. But, while the Trinket is face up and incomplete, it gives you a negative effect to contend with.
• MOONLINGS – More of the risk/reward types cards, these work well for players who have a lower Gene Pool.

All the expansion bring enough extra to the game to make them fun inclusion, with the MAGICAL MERCHANTS a great little extra mechanic for people that play a lot or wish for a little more weight put in.

The one issue I’ve found with the explanions are when you have cards that score based on certain expansion types. If you include too many expansions to the starting deck, you’ll dilute it, meaning that the different Doomling types your searching for might never show up in a game that only plays between 9-12 rounds. Not a game breaker, just something to be aware of before you shuffle hundreds of cards together.

And as mentioned before, you can by booster packs from the OVERLUSH collection with random Doomling cards contained within. This aspect I’m not keen on, especially as, unlike TCG’s like Pokemon where you’re building your own deck, these extra cards just go into a shared draw deck and make it almost unwieldy.

FOR 2-PLAYERS?

The came is one of simplicity, and not much is lost when reducing the player count. Like all games with a take-that element, it will mean that there are less targets out there to pick for your skullguggery. For some people this might be off putting if they are always at the recieving end of negative cards. But in that same vein, you can dish out equally, so it’s not too bad.

– – CONCLUSION – – Core DOOMLINGS is a super fun, family friendly, card game with really nice and simple art. It brings just the right amount of chaos and laughs to the table. For those looking for more content, the IMAGINARY ENDS set brings a nice mix of extras, but the Trading Card collection element of OVERLUSH leaves a sour taste for a game that makes a perfect palette cleanser.

Review #0206