Hey, let us tell you about this wild card game called Doomlings!
So picture this: You’re basically playing God with these little creatures on a planet that’s totally about to bite the dust. We’ve played it with our friends a bunch of times now, and it’s perfect for 2-6 players. What makes it super fun is how chaotic it gets while still maintaining enough strategy to keep your brain working!
Overview and Initial Impressions
The moment we opened the box, we we’re like, “Okay, this is pretty sick!”. The art on the cards is so colorful and fun, and there’s some hilarious text. What’s cool is that you don’t need to deal with a million pieces, just some Trait cards, Age cards, and these little trackers to keep count of your “Gene Pool” (a fancy way of saying how many cards you can hold).
How To Play Doomlings
Real talk, the game’s actually pretty simple to get your head around. You’re basically juggling cards in your hand while trying to build up your species. Each round starts with this “Age” card that shakes things up with new rules. Then you’re just drawing cards, playing them, and making sure you don’t hold too many cards past what your Gene Pool allows. And watch out for these nasty surprise cards called Catastrophes, they’ll mess up your whole game plan real quick! Our friend was crushing it until one of these bad boys showed up and totally wrecked their strategy!
Mechanics and Strategy
We love how this Gene Pool thing works, because it’s basically your card limit counter. Everyone starts being able to hold 5 cards, and you have to figure out if you want to get more slots or keep it small and simple. Some cards let you mess with this number. And the Age cards? They keep things fresh every round; sometimes, they’re super helpful, and other times, they make some of us want to pull our hair out!
Then there are these special cards called Dominant Traits. They’re like the power moves of the game. We had this one game where our friend Angelina was all excited about getting this “Ingenious” card that gave her extra points for collecting certain colors. She felt pretty clever until… wouldn’t you know it – a Catastrophe card showed up and wiped out half her cards.
Dominant Traits, powerful cards that often have unique scoring conditions, adds an element of risk versus reward. For instance, in one playthrough, we leveraged the Dominant Trait “Ingenious,” which allowed us to score additional points for specific Trait colors. While initially advantageous, the strategy backfired when a Catastrophe wiped out several cards from our Trait pile.
Our Game Night Highlights
We’ve played this game tons of times now, and it never gets old. We even played it once while waiting for the new year. This one time, we were all getting comfy with our strategies during the “Age of Discovery” (which lets everyone draw extra cards) when BOOM! A “Nuclear Winter” card showed up, and suddenly, everyone had to drop one cards from their hand. The frown seen was priceless.
And get this: During our family game night, one of our team members’ moms (who usually hates board games and never wants to play) got super into it. The “Feast or Famine” card made everyone scramble to pick their best three cards to keep, and she won that round! We couldn’t stop laughing at how proud she was.
The Artwork and Theme Behind Doomlings
Can we talk about how cute and funny the artwork is? Every card is just delightful to look at. Our favorite has to be the “Flatulence” trait, we don’t need to give you any explanation for this one… And when we played during that big storm last week, and the “Nuclear Winter” card came up, we all got goosebumps.
Replayability and Variability
No two games of Doomlings are the same, thanks to the randomization of Age cards and the sheer variety of Trait cards. Sometimes we take out cards we think are too powerful (looking at you, “Mega Evolution”!), especially when playing with newer folks. It keeps things fair and fun for everyone.
Strengths
- Learning: Super easy to learn; you’ll get it after one game
- Complexity: Enough strategy to keep it interesting but not enough to fry your brain
- Dynamic Gameplay: It never gets boring, thanks to all the random stuff that can happen
Considerations
- Randomness: If you’re the type who likes to plan everything out perfectly, the random elements might drive you nuts
- Component Quality: Those Gene Pool trackers feel a bit cheap compared to the awesome cards
- Player Interaction: Don’t expect tons of player interaction – everyone’s kind of doing their own thing most of the time
Final Thoughts on Doomlings
Look, if you want a game that’s gonna make you laugh while still giving your brain something to chew on, Doomlings is your jam. It’s perfect for those game nights when you want something fun but not too heavy. Sure, sometimes the random stuff can throw you for a loop, but that’s half the fun!
Our group has been playing it for a while now, and it still hits the table regularly. Even one of our friends who usually only likes super serious strategy games (yes, Vincenzo, you) admits it’s a good time. And let’s be real: Any game that can make the apocalypse this much fun is doing something right!
