Doomlings: Upgrade Pack (Saturday Review)

Space: an endless void with countless stars, some of which capable of harbouring a planet that can support life. Yadda, yadda, yadda. You already know the spiel. So, without further ado let me introduce the Doomlings: Upgrade Pack by Justus and Andrew Meyer from Doomlings.

I won’t go over how the base game functions. Please check out my review for Doomlings to find out more. Here, I want to focus purely on the upgrade pack and what it has to offer. So, this is going to be relatively short, but sweet.

More Doomlings

As the name indicates, the Doomlings: Upgrade Pack contains a heap of new cards that you can mix into the base game to create more variety, more weird combos, more player interaction and generally more mayhem with more Doomlings that create more havoc.

Technically speaking, the upgrade pack contains 5 separate expansions: Dinolings, Mythlings, Techlings, Multi-Color and The Meaning of Life. These add up to 81 new cards and seamlessly integrate with the base game. You can add an individual expansion or just throw them all into the mix at once. It’s really up to you what sets you want to shuffle into your base game and depends on whether you just want to have more cards, want to add a certain flavour or have some other criteria. The world is your Doomling oyster.

Actually, let me clarify this a little. The Meaning of Life expansion doesn’t add new Doomlings. Instead, it adds a new mechanism to the game. The cards from this set represent player objectives that give everyone their own personal goal to get more points at the end of the game. They are kept secret and can lead you towards a different playing style.

For example, The Dancer gives you a huge bonus of 12 points if you have the lowest score before end-game bonuses are added up, while The Weaver gives you points for sets of cards in all four of the possible colours. These objectives tweak the game just enough to create a new interesting twist, without being so different that you feel like you’re playing a completely different game.

New Doomlings

With that out of the way, let me introduce you to the new types of Doomlings you can add to the mix. All of the cards in each set have a symbol in one corner, so you can easily separate them out if you want to remove them from the base game at a later stage.

The Dinolings add some Jurassic flavour to your game experience. They come in the usual colours, as well as grey and some Dinolings have actions on them, as you would expect. So there is no new mechanism they introduce, but if you or someone in your group loves dinosaurs, then this set is a good addition.

Mythlings are fantasy-themed. They introduce a take-that mechanism to the game, which is a lot of fun. They also add another level of hand management, because some of the cards come back to you after they have been discarded or they allow you to discard your own hand. If you use them wisely, they can be really powerful.

The Techlings are quite clever. They introduce an attachment mechanism. You can attach them to other cards to lock them in, change a card’s trait colour or otherwise affect the cards that they’re connected to. It’s a really interesting twist without it being a dramatic change and a set I recommend you try out for yourself.

The last expansion is the Multi-Color cards. As the name suggests, these cards don’t have a single colour, but most of them have two, while there is also a rainbow one that is all colours. That makes them very versatile and a great way of getting bonus points and creating new combos. It’s another set I suggest you try out.

More Ages and Catastrophes

Of course, the pack also contains a number of new Age and Catastrophe cards to mix things up a little. They’re not earth-shattering by any means, but if you’ve played Doomlings a lot, you’ll really enjoy using these new cards to offer some variety to the cards you already know so well.

One more thing I need to point out as well is that some of the cards in the Upgrade Pack are already included in the Deluxe box set. So if you have that, you may want to check what you actually get from the Upgrade Pack and if you feel it’s worth it. I would say, it still is worth getting the extra cards, even if you end up with some duplicates, but your mileage may vary.

So, overall, the Doomlings: Upgrade Pack is really good. It adds a lot of new cards and introduces a few new mechanisms and twists that will force you to adapt your usual strategy to adapt to the changes. At the same time, the Upgrade Pack isn’t so radically different that it changes the wonderful Doomlings experience completely. It’s more like a good pinch of DNA that shakes up the gene pool and re-invigorates it to produce new, fun mutations. So, check it out…

Useful Links

• Doomlings: Upgrade Pack: https://doomlings.com/products/doomlings-deluxe-upgrade-pack
• Doomlings: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/376385/doomlings-upgrade-pack
• BGG listing: https://doomlings.com/
• Doomlings review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2024/06/01/doomlings-saturday-review/

Videos

Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

• I was sent a free review copy of this game by the publisher.
• At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

Sound Effects: bbc.co.uk – © copyright 2024 BBC

Jazzberry by Blue Dot Sessions

Playlist

These are the songs I listened to while I was writing this review: