Evolving in the Shadows – Doomlings- Shadow Puppets Bolster Pack Review

Card games, when given a bunch of expansions, can inevitably suffer from that bloat of having a deck of cards so massive that even God himself could not shuffle it.

Doomlings is getting to that point, but the good thing about this game is you can decide what cards you want to include and what you don’t, because each expansion or booster pack is clearly marked so you can remove what you don’t want.

The Shadow Puppets bolster pack for Doomlings is a set of 37 cards that can be added to the base Doomlings deck, adding three different factions of cards that build on each other.

It also adds a new Catastrophe and two new Age cards (as well as a foil card and five player aid cards) that can be added to your Doomlings round deck.

It’s not much of an expansion, but it certainly can add some heft to one of the other major expansions.

That’s because the new factions (Moonlings, Deeplings, Glitterlings, and Fuzelings) are the same factions added in the Imaginary Ends expansion.

Yes, this bolster pack fits perfectly with that expansion, adding more faction goodness to the deck.

I don’t know if it’s enough to play just with these two decks, though. I believe you still need the base game deck, which has a huge number of cards.

Let’s take a look at what this one adds.

There are some interesting new effects in this one, some of which I haven’t seen on other cards in the game.

I love Yobondo!

If somebody attacks you to steal a trait, play it and it becomes the target instead.

So cool!

I did notice that some of the cards require a bit of finesse to play well with them.

Furp is a 2-point card but gives you a -2 Gene Pool. It does allow you to steal another player’s trait, though.

I think Moonlings do have some more power when you have a low gene pool, getting extra benefits or points for that.

So it fits the theme.

Shadow Puppets also brings back the Glitterlings, who don’t treat your opponents as bad people.

We’re all friends here!

Granted, the Shadow Puppets Glitterlings don’t have quite as many “we’re all friends now, so I’ll help you too!” cards, and there are a few take-that cards among them (like Imperfect above, though that’s kind of random because it may just fizzle and maybe even benefit them if they want colorless cards).

In fact, Glitterlings are nothing but randomness!

You think Doomlings is random now, play a few Glitterlings.

Deeplings are back as well, allowing you to Suppress cards (which removes them as traits but still get you one point per suppressed traits).

I love the Suppression mechanic, though it can sometimes bite you in the ass if you’re not careful.

Inescapable above can even help your opponents! Unless they have nothing but good cards in their hand, cards they don’t want to get rid of.

Drowned is a fun card and can really wreak havoc with your opponents’ hands.

Finally, we have more Fuzelings, those cards that have two or more of the factions.

They allow you to Suppress cards from friends!

I do like the Shrouded card, which lets you actually draw those Suppressed cards if you might need them.

Wasahmbo doesn’t have any effects but it is all colours, meaning that it matches well with any cards that give you points for colours in your trait pile.

Shadow Puppets also gives you two new Age cards and a new Catastrophe, all of which are thematic.

The effects are interesting and they add to the general chaos of the game.

They also align with some of the cards that are in the expansion, like Shadow Puppets letting you swap hands with an opponent.

Overall, the Shadow Puppets bolster pack adds some neat things to the Doomlings universe.

I often talk about deck bloat in my Doomlings reviews (and I did above!), but if you have Imaginary Ends, I highly recommend you include that one when you use Shadow Puppets.

As well, if you have that expansion, Shadow Puppets is a nice, low-cost addition to the game to get you more of the same faction goodness that it offered.

By itself, I’m not sure how much it offers to the base game?

With over 100 cards in the base game, this expansion could easily get lost in that.

However, since I recommend Imaginary Ends anyway, this is a nice addition to that.

I’ve mentioned this in almost all of my reviews, but kudos to whoever writes the flavour text for these cards.

When we play, we often have to stop to read the name of the card and its flavour text because it is so funny.

The Shadow Puppets bolster pack is not a necessary addition to the game, but if you’re going all out (especially with Imaginary Ends), it’s well worth picking up as well.

Who can argue with more cards?

(Shut up, Bryan)

(This review was written after two plays with this bolster pack, though since it is a minimal expansion, that is probably enough)

(Edit: I almost forgot, but thankfully there are only a couple of views of this post so far, but many thanks to Doomlings LLC for the review copy of this bolster pack!)