Doomlings Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Setup

Find the 25 age cards and shuffle them. Deal three cards facedown to three different piles. Set the rest of the age cards to the side.
Shuffle the catastrophe cards and randomly add one to each of the three piles. Each pile should now have four cards. Shuffle each of the three piles separately.
After you shuffle the individual piles, stack the three piles on top of one another. Then place the Birth of Life card on top of the pile. Place the age pile in the middle of the table.
Each player chooses one Gene Pool card. You should place the card in front of you with the number five pointing upwards.
Shuffle all of the trait cards. Deal five cards facedown to each player. Place the remaining cards in a stack in the middle of the table next to the age pile.
The player to the left of the dealer starts as the first player. This role changes during the game.

How to Play Doomlings

Each round begins with the current first player flipping over the top card from the age pile. To start the game this will be the Birth of Life card. All of the players have to take the corresponding action from the revealed age card. The effect of the card only applies to the current round. Place the card you revealed face up in a pile next to the age pile. You should place the card in the current era pile.

Revealing an age card — For the second round the Glacial Drift age card was revealed. For this round players can only play trait cards whose face value is three or lower.

After everyone has applied the effect of the current age card, the players take turns starting with the first player and moving clockwise.

To begin each of your turns, you will choose one trait card from your hand to play face up in front of you. You will play the card to your trait pile. These cards will earn you points at the end of the game.

Playing a trait card — This player has decided to play the Endurance trait card on their turn.

When you play cards you should lay them where cards of the same color overlap one another. The color and number in the bottom left corner should be visible at all times. If you can play a card, you have to play one even if it hurts you.

Multiple cards in the trait pile — This player has played four trait cards. They will place the two green cards on top of one another so the number in the bottom left corner is still visible.

In the rare occasion where you can’t play a card, you will skip your turn. You can choose to discard your entire hand and draw three new cards. If you have no cards in your hand, you will draw five cards and then skip your turn. You will not stabilize your hand at the end of your turn.

If you play a trait card that has text at the bottom, you will try to apply the effect immediately if you can. See the Trait Cards section below for more details.

Applying a trait card's effect — A player played this Persuasive card. They will choose a color. All of the players discard all of the cards from their hand that match the color chosen by the player that played the card.

At the end of your turn you will compare the number of cards in your hand to the top number on your Gene Pool card. The number of cards in your hand must match the number on the top of your Gene Pool card. If you have less cards than the number, you will draw cards until you have the same number of cards in your hand. If you have more cards than the number, you need to discard cards until your hand has the same number of cards. This step is called the stabilizing your hand. You will only draw/discard cards to match the Gene Pool card number at the end of your turn. If the draw pile ever runs out of cards, you will shuffle the discard pile.

Comparing Gene Pool to hand — This player’s Gene Pool is currently five. They only have four cards left in their hand. They will draw one card and add it to their hand.

Your turn ends after stabilize your hand. The next player in turn order then takes their turn.

Once all of the players have taken their turn, the round ends. To begin the next round, the first player flips over the top card from the age pile.

End of Era

An Era ends as soon as the first player reveals a catastrophe card. When the catastrophe card is flipped, all players will apply the Gene Pool effect printed on the catastrophe card. This effect is permanent for the rest of the game.

All of the players then have to follow the secondary effect printed on the card. This effect only applies to the current round.

You will ignore the World’s End effect printed on the bottom of the card unless this was the third catastrophe card revealed this game. When this happens the game ends and the players determine who wins the game.

End of an era after revealing the Super Volcano — The Catastrophe card Super Volcano was revealed. This ends the current round. Each player reduces their Gene Pool by one. Each player also has to discard one card from their hand for each blue trait in their trait pile.

For the next round you will create a new era pile to the right of the current era pile. The role of the first player moves one player to the left.

Starting the second era — To start the second era the first player reveals the Galactic Drift card.

World’s End

When the third catastrophe card is revealed, the game ends. Players will take no more turns during the game.

First all of the players will apply the Gene Pool Effect and the Catastrophic Effect.

Handling the World's End — The third catastrophe card has been revealed leading to the world’s end. All of the players’ Gene Pools stays the same (+0 Gene Pool). The players then discard their whole hand and draw new cards equal to their Gene Pool.

Next in turn order each player checks all of the trait cards from their trait piles for any cards that have the World’s End symbol in the bottom right corner. Each player will resolve any cards in their pile that have one of these symbols.

Using a trait card with the World's End Symbol — This Sneaky card has the World’s End symbol (bottom right corner) on it. This card allows the player to play it after the World’s End is triggered.

Finally all of the players will apply the World’s End effect from the bottom of the catastrophe card.

Each player will then tally their score.

Doomlings Scoring

To begin scoring you will see if the World’s End effect gave or took points away from you. You will begin your score with these points/negative points.

Scoring the World's End effect — If the Ice Age effect was the third Catastrophe card, each player counts up how many red traits they have in their trait pile. Each player loses one point for each red trait. This player had four red traits, so they will lose four points.

Next add up the points printed in the bottom left corner of each card. If there is no number in the circle in the bottom left corner, the card is worth no points.

Scoring trait's face value — One of the players added these cards to their trait pile during the game. They will score 23 points for the face value of each of the cards that they played.

Finally you will tally up any bonuses/modifiers from your trait cards. Cards which could potentially add bonuses have a Drop of Life symbol in the bottom right corner.

Scoring bonuses in Doomlings — This player played three cards that have the Drop of Life symbol on them. The Sentience card lets the player choose a color and scores one point for each card in their trait pile of that color. Since they have five red cards, they will choose red and score five bonus points. The Heat Vision card scores one point for each red trait in their trait pile. There are five red traits, so the card scores a bonus five points. Finally the player played the Altruistic card. Since their Gene Pool is currently at four, they will score four bonus points.

All of the players then compare their final scores. The player that scores the most points wins the game. If there is a tie, all tied players draw a card from the top of the trait deck. Whichever player draws the cards with the highest number in the bottom left corner, wins the game.

Doomlings Trait Cards

Some trait cards have text printed at the bottom of the card. If a card has text, it will have an effect that you have to apply. If a card has no text at the bottom, it is an “effectless” card. Most effects apply for as long as they are in your trait pile. Should you lose the card, you lose the effect.

Effect from trait card — When a player adds this Dreamer card to their trait pile, they will increase their Gene Pool by one. If they lose the card, they will reduce their Gene Pool by one.

Some cards have an Action effect (A symbol). You will apply the Action effect when you first play the card from your hand to your trait pile. These actions are not optional. If you can apply the action, you have to use it even if it hurts you. If you can’t apply the action, you will ignore it. You will typically not take Action effects if you steal, swap, take the card from the discard pile, community deck, or receive it in some other way. The exception is if the card itself says to take the action.

Using an action effect — This Territorial card has the Action symbol (bottom). When the card is played, all of the other players must discard one red trait from their trait pile.

Some trait card effects have requirements to use them. You need to meet the requirements in order to apply the effect. If you don’t meet the requirement, you can’t play the card. If the card is played randomly and you don’t meet the requirement, you will immediately discard the card. Should a card with a requirement be moved, swapped, or stolen; you will ignore the requirement unless the card states otherwise.

Meeting a requirement to play a trait card — To play the Heroic card, you need at least three green traits in your trait pile. If you do not have three green cards, you cannot play the Heroic card.

There are times when an effect can be restricted. This usually is due to the current era card. If you can’t follow an effect on a card due to a restriction, you will ignore the effect.

Following a restriction — To begin this round a player flipped over the Tectonic Shift era card. For this round none of the players are able to play green trait cards.

Should a trait card have the “Out of Turn” (!) symbol on them, you can play them out of turn. If you play the card out of turn, it does not count as your turn. You can choose to play one of the cards for your normal turn, but you usually will want to play them out of turn. You will not stabilize your cards until the end of your turn.

Out of Time card — This Late card has the Out of Turn symbol on it. You can play this card from your hand after you stabilize for your turn.

In the bottom left corner of each Trait Card is the card’s “face value”. This is how many points that the card is worth. You will tally bonus points separately at the end of the game. If there is no number in the bottom left corner, the card’s face value is zero. You will determine its’ final value at the end of the game.

Trait card with face value of zero — This trait card does not have a face value. Instead its value is determined at the end of the game based on the player’s Gene Pool.

Should a trait card have an effect that randomly removes a card from your hand/trait pile, it is recommended you flip over all of the corresponding cards and let another player randomly draw a card. If another player is taking the card from you, they should be the player that draws the card.

Should you get the ability to swap/steal a card from another player’s hand, you will add the new card to your hand. If you swap/steal from a trait pile, you will put the card in your trait pile.

Dominant Traits

There are a few unique trait cards in the game called dominant traits (gold border and star). These cards are unique. Once you add them to your trait pool; they cannot be swapped, stolen, discarded, returned, or removed from your trait pile for the rest of the game.

Symbiosis dominant trait — Symbiosis is a dominant trait. At the end of the game you will look for the color that you have the least cards of. As long as you have at least two different colors, you will score two bonus points for each card you have of the color you have the least cards of.

You can only have two dominant traits.

Should you ever play a third dominant trait card due to randomly playing a card, you will immediately discard the card instead of adding it to your trait pile. You will not draw a new card to replace the card you discarded.

The only way to get a third dominant trait is if the age “Birth of a Hero” is revealed. This card forces you to play the trait “Heroic”. You will add this trait even if it ends up becoming your third dominant trait.

Gene Pool

Your Gene Pool has numbers printed along the sides of the card. The number that is currently at the top is your current hand size. The number of cards in your hand must match this number at the end of your turn after you stabilize. If you have less cards than the number, you have to draw new cards until you reach the number. If you have more cards than the number, you have to discard cards until you reach the number.

There are some cards in the game that may force you to stabilize before the end of your turn, and others may make you skip stabilizing on your turn.

Catastrophe and trait cards can increase or decrease your Gene Pool. You will rotate the Gene Pool card so the new value is at the top of the card. Catastrophe cards impact the Gene Pool immediately and are permanent. Trait cards affect your Gene Pool when they enter your trait pool. If you lose the card, you will adjust your Gene Pool.

Increasing the Gene Pool — This player played the Fecundity card. Their Gene Pool was previously five. After playing the card, it was increased to six. If the player would lose the Fecundity card, their Gene Pool will be reduced by one.

Your Gene Pool can never go below one or above eight. If a card would increase or decrease the value beyond this range, you will ignore the effect.

Dispute Resolution in Doomlings

There are occasional times when rules may contradict one another. When one of these situations occur, you should first follow the rules from the current age card. If that doesn’t resolve the issue, you will follow the rules from trait cards. Finally you will apply the rules from the instructions.

If players still disagree about a rule, each player who has a different interpretation draws a trait card. Whichever player draws the trait card with the highest face value, gets to use their interpretation of the rules.

Components

117 Trait Cards
25 Age Cards
Birth of Life Card
15 Catastrophe Cards
6 Gene Pool Cards
4 Reference Cards
Instructions

Year: 2022 | Publisher: Doomlings LLC | Designer: Justus Meyer | Artist: Justus Meyer

Genres: Card, Family, Take That

Ages: 10+ | Number of Players: 2-6 | Length of Game: 20-45 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light-Moderate | Luck: Moderate

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.