Upgrading is Evolutional – Doomlings Upgrade Pack Review

There’s nothing I enjoy quite like a nice lunchtime card game with co-workers to unwind after a long morning, not to mention resting up for a stressful afternoon.

Especially when there’s a bunch of Work that’s making the Day so chaotic!

Doomlings was a game that was very helpful with that.

Having read that review (you have, haven’t you?), you know that Doomlings is a card game where you are a race on a doomed planet, trying to evolve as much as possible before the world ends.

Placing trait cards in front of you every turn, you go through the ages, experiencing catastrophes along the way, and eventually the world just ends, forcing you to count up your points and wonder about the reason behind it all.

Why evolve when it’s all just going to end anyway?

Sorry.

However, if you liked the game like I did, why not add some more stuff to it?

That’s what the Doomlings Upgrade Pack does, adding a little bit of variety to the various trait cards that you can play.

There are a couple of new mechanics but mostly it’s just variations on cards with a few twists.

Note that you can get these packs individually, if some appeal to you and not others, so I’ll link to each individual pack when I name it.

The Dinolings card pack adds, well, dinosaurs to the game.

These cards are often related to playing Dominant traits, either yours or other players’, as well as interacting with the discard pile.

Like Orcish Tusks, which can be played whenever an opponent plays a Dominant trait.

Or the Carnosaur Jaw, which is a Dominant trait and eats up two of your other red traits!

Maybe one of those pesky negative point ones?

Nothing really special about this set, but the variety and how they relate to Dominant traits is a nice bonus.

Mythlings are based on creatures that are not real.

But really…is any of this real?

Whoops, sorry…went existential again.

They are pretty neat cards, and can sometimes even be helpful to you and others!

But mostly they’re just different.

The Multicolor cards are exactly what they say: cards that dig into our unconscious motivations and bring out some of our worst tendencies…

Whoops, did it again. Sorry.

I meant that they’re multi-colour.

That means they count as two or more colours!

Yes, I is an English major.

This does mean they can trigger multiple bonuses for you if you have the right traits out.

Or they can hamper you if you get negative points for a particular colour.

But that’s the chance you take!

There are icons above the point value that indicate which colours the card has, in case of colorblindness.

That’s a nice touch.

Techlings are the cards that add to the gameplay the most.

These cards attach to other trait cards in your area (or anybody’s trait area, if you’re Subdermal Plating).

If they are attachments (they have the gear symbol underneath their effect wording), then they must be attached to another trait.

Adding these four small sets of cards to the already extensive deck of trait cards is really easy, with only the techlings actually requiring any extra rules knowledge.

They aren’t needed to enjoy Doomlings, but they do add a little extra spice if you’re up for that.

One thing you do have to be aware of (especially if you play with future expansions, the next one of which I will be reviewing shortly) is that you could be diluting the deck a little bit by adding a bunch of cards all at once.

You may not get any techlings, for example, if you just added 50+ cards to the deck.

As long as you’re fine with that, these are pretty good.

But let’s get to the best part of the Upgrade Pack, as far as I’m concerned.

The Meaning of Life doesn’t contain trait cards.

Instead, it contains end of game goals that may help you focus your game a little bit more.

They may also indicate how you want to play your trait cards during the game.

The Fellmonger makes you want to limit your blue traits. Or maybe at least play a trait that lets you change a colour to something else at World’s End so you can change all of your blues to something else.

The Maven encourages you to play lots of traits and the Bilbies makes you want to avoid Dominant traits.

These goals add a bit of endgame scoring that others don’t know about, as well as giving you an avenue of play.

Personally, I wouldn’t play Doomlings without them now that I have them.

Though again, they aren’t really necessary, as the game is fun on its own.

But it’s nice to get a little pick-me-up when you’re faced with the end of the world…

Sorry, sorry, sorry…won’t happen again.

All of the individual packs (except Multicolor) add a new age and a new catastrophe as well.

These are thematic with how the packs work.

The Doomlings Upgrade Pack is a nice addition to the game and the cards are pretty cool.

The artwork, as with the base game, is really cute and the flavor text is also something you have to read once. Many of them are quite funny.

If you really like the game, adding these packs is definitely a good idea.

If you kind of like the game, then I suggest getting at least the Meaning of Life.

If you don’t like the game, then this won’t change your mind at all. It doesn’t fundamentally change game play at all.

But having more of something you like is never a bad thing!

Especially when it’s all going to be destroyed one day anyway.

Dang, sorry, I promised.

(Thanks to Doomlings Inc for the free review copy of the Upgrade Pack!)