Doomlings Review: Perfect for Casual Gamers Looking for a Challenge

Looking to have some fun before the world ends? Then Doomlings might be the game for you – especially if you are a casual gamer looking to up-level your typical game night strategy.

The creators of Doomlings recently sent me their base set product for an honest review, and I very much enjoyed playing it.

The thing I like best about Doomlings is that every time you play it, it feels like a different game. There are enough variations within the base set alone to have a different and unique experience with each game, and the color combos within the trait cards offer unique and distinct paths to victory that you can build from as you go.

For TCG fans out there, it sort of feels like the equivalent of attending a draft event – you have to build from what you’re given at random, and make it work.

Not that I want to give the impression that this game has all that much in common with TCGs: despite being heavy on cards I’d consider it solidly in the board game side of the aisle meant much more for a casual game experience than you would expect with a TCG. Yet there’s enough strategy here to entertain even tough strategy nuts, with the key being randomness built into the game’s core.

What it’s like to play Doomlings

Doomlings looks much more intimidating out of the box than it actually is. Playing the game is straightforward and I pretty much got it after a trial run. Essentially, you are building up a board of traits that give you different points and advantages that frequently interact with one another as you tiptoe your way on thin ice through a few happy ages, and a few sad ones.

Each era ends with a Catastrophe: a special age card with (typically) adverse effects for all players. You never know when the next card from the age pile is going to be a Catastrophe which adds an element of surprise and anticipation to the game. And not only do you get to build up your own board with traits, you get to interact with your opponent’s board, hand and even discard pile in meaningful ways, making it a very fun and interactive game.

Some card effects feel open to interpretation

Indeed, the only thing that I found confusing when playing Doomlings is that some card effects aren’t very clear in how they work. For example, Dominant traits tell you to do something that make them appear like Action cards, but they don’t have the Action symbol that let you know when the effect happens, and there’s no clear instruction on when these effects happen and how frequently.

Take the following dominant trait, for example: Denial.

This trait has a very neat-seeming effect that lets you ignore the next catastrophe. But what exactly does that mean? Does that mean it doesn’t get played? Or does it just not affect you? There’s no Action symbol here, either, making me wonder what the timing of this effect is. Does it happen when it is played? Or as it’s in my trait pile does it just stay in effect forever?

Given this isn’t a competitive TCG like the ones I usually play, I didn’t let the ambiguity bother me much – I just self selected what the card meant and moved on. However, I think a keyword system would help here to better inform players of how and when to use their effects.

I’m sure answers to questions like this one and more could be revealed with a simple Google search, but it would be an even more positive game experience if these rules were more streamlined or explained within the base set instructions or cards themselves.

The best thing about Doomlings is its core concept

In essence, Doomlings is a game that’s all about one thing: the end of the world. It’s innevitable that it will happen, you just don’t know how or when. All you can do is build up the best possible traits until it comes. Things happen along the way that you are totally not in control of, and you learn to live with that reality.

Sound familiar?

It should – it’s not a whole lot different than our own reality, and yet it’s spun up in such a fun and immersive way that playing Doomlings is as much an experience as it is a game. The key movement of the game is so easy to grasp that really the whole thing works very intuitively.

And while the fantastic core concept in the game really drives it, my two favorite aspects of the game are the unique Ages cards and the Dominant traits. Dominant traits being limited to only two on your board add an intriguging level of customization to your experience playing the game. Unlike the rest of the traits that you can play at a whim, you have to really think hard about your dominant traits as they will largely dictate the course of the game for you.

I especially like how these traits interact with certain age cards, like the Vampirism interacting with the Age of Dracula to give you an edge over the competition (so glad I chose Vampirism as my dominant trait, by the way).

All-in-all, I would give Doomlings a solid 9/10 – ideal for casual gamers looking for a challenge.