Doomlings Review: It's The End of The World and it's Fine.
In a distant planet the dawn of life has just sparked. This world is doomed however. Players will evolve their Doomlings through a series of catastropese and then finly at the end of the world players take stock and see who was the most sucessful doomling. Doomings hit the scene in 2022 and has several expansions and-ons to the game. The game is designed by Justus Meyer, Andrew Meyer With Justus Meyer providing the artwork.
Setup
We recived a copy of the base game of Doomlings and thats what we are reviewing today. In the box there are two different kinds of cards "Ages" and "Traits". The Ages cards are seperated into three types the "Birth of Life" card, Catastrophe cards and normal ages cards. The Ages deck is built by creating 3 piles of three normal Ages cards each of those piles has one random catastrophe card mixed in then the piles are stacked on ontop of the other. This gives the catastrophes some space of their own so you dont pull 3 in a row at the start of the game and guarantees that your game is at least nine rounds long. The last step to setup the Ages deck is to put the Birth of Life card on top.
Doomlings takes only a minute to setup and a minute to get playing.
The next part of setup is to deal each player 5 trait cards. These are the bulk of doomlings. these cards are what players will play into their tableau. The Trait cards have actions on them and the Dominent Trait cards include more plentyful points. Players can only play up to 2 Dominent Trait cards into their tableau.
Finally the last thing players get is a Gene Pool card. A Gene Pool card is what players use to track their hand size. Doomlings takes only a minute to setup and a minute to get playing.
Game Play
To get started the player to the left of the dealer is the first player. The first player flips over the top ages card. The Ages cards set the unique rules for the round. The Ages can have players drawing cards, reducing their gene pools or not being able to play cards of certian colors. There are 25 Ages cards in the basic Doomlings box and each game only uses 9 of them, this adds a lot to the replay value of this game.
Now The first player plays a Trait card from their hand into their tableau and follows the action on the card if there is one. The trait cards have 3 charecteristics to them. First in the bottom left they have a point value, this is going to be part of your score at the end. Each trait card has one of four colors or is coloress. The colors are how the cards interact with eachother and posssibly the the Ages cards. For example an Ages card might says players cannot play red cards.
The third age is over and so is the game (even if its Reputations Era).
There is a second kind of Trait card in the deck, These are Dominent Traits. A dominant Trait card is played similarly to a normal Trait card with the exception that a player may only have 2 in their tableau ever. Once a Dominent Trait card is played in a players tableau it may bever be swapped, stolen or discarded. Players are stuck with these cards. They are usually decent cards so its really a matter of choosing wisely. There are several special card in the Ages deck too, they are Catastrophe cards.
The game ends when the 3rd catastrophe card is drawn from the Ages deck. The third age is over and so is the game (even if its Reputations Era). Players then preform regular actions from the Catastorohe card, then players in turn order do any actions on the trait cards in their tableau that have the worlds end marking on it. Then the Worlds End action on the catastrophe card is taken. Players will then tally scores and determine a winner. If there is too the much math Doomlings has an on-line score sheet or a printable score sheet theat players can use.
Thoughts
The simplicity of the game is great. It took me only a few minutes to teach having read the instructions just before. As the instructions say"... you might overthink your hand, like there's some hidden, perfectpath to take....play something cutem try somethings, and trust that the cards will help you find your way.". You really can just play cards from your hand until you get a feel for it. There are strategies to be had in the game so don't pass on this cause it seems simple. Hand management is definatly part of the game and will dictate how you play. It is easy to learn but you can put a lot of thought into your play.
There is a lot of randomess in the game, that garuntees that every game will have it's own path. This is going to be a staple at the game night I host because of the ease to learn and it supports up to 6 players. Its listed as 20-45 minutes but that will be a little higher with the upper end of the player count.
Doomlings is a fun game that would be great for family game night or at the brewery with some friends. Speaking of family friendly there are a bunch of stuffies in the Doomlings store. There are also plenty of expansions to add to your set and spice up your game life. Doomlings is a great staple game to add to your collection.
Players: 2-6
Year Published: 2022
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play: 20-45 minutes
A review copy Doomlings was provided to Bert's Tabletop Games for this review by Doomlings.
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