Kill Doctor Lucky
Designed by: James Ernest
Published by: Cheapass, Titanic Games
Mfg suggested: 3 to 7 players, 60 minutes, 12 and up
Category: Muder/Mystery

History: Kill Doctor Lucky is a humorous game released in 1996 by Cheapass Games. In 1998 Kill Doctor Lucky won the Origins Award for Best Abstract Game of 1997. It was picked up later by Titanic Games for mass release.

Kill Doctor Lucky is a parody on the game of Clue. Both games have many similarities. Both are set in a mansion with a number of named rooms, a variety of weapons to due the dastardly dead and a number of likely suspects. Where Clue is solving the murder mystery. Kill Doctor Lucky is just that; the murder of the Doctor himself.

Game Bits: Starting with the box; I love the art. Having a number of the suspects hovering over the doctor with their intended murder weapons really gets you into the theme of the game. As for the game board, I like it better than I do the classic Clue board. While the boards due bear some semblance to one another I have a liking for this game board. The cards are of nice quality. The meeples are very nice even if a little on the generic side and the spite tokens are of the same quality. There is an optional Doctor Lucky figure available from Titanic Games only if they would also make some other figures for the “murderers”. I would like to “pimp my Kill Doctor Lucky” game.

Game Play: As like in Clue the game board is the floor plan of Doctor Lucky’s mansion. The deck of cards represent the rooms in the mansion, the murder weapons, failure cards (more about this later). Players take turns moving through the mansion one step at a time searching rooms (accumulating cards), all the while the doctor is strolling through is house. When ever you and the Doctor are in the same room you may make an attempt on the Doctors life as long as no other players are able to see you. You may play a weapon card--if you have found a weapon. Each weapon has a murder value attached to it, certain weapons have higher values in different rooms. As the game progresses you will earn spite tokens for each failed murder attempt. These tokens have two uses, one to help elevate your murder value and the second use is used like a failure card.

To Win: The one to successfully kill the Doctor wins. As a player makes a murder attempt he succeeds in murdering the Doctor. Unless the other players decide to foil his attempt by playing the Failure cards found in the various rooms or by spending their spite tokens. To further complicate the process of determining if an attempt has failed or not is that play continues in a clockwise fashion and players are able to play their cards or tokens giving each player one opportunity to foil the murder. If it makes it around the table and enough failure points are used the attempt is foiled if not then the murder is committed and the winner has been decided.

When a failure card is played it is removed from the game. When the spite tokens are played to foil a murder attempt the player collects all the tokens used against him.

Final Thoughts: In all I like this game. I have played it with gamers and non-gamers a like and everyone has seemed to like the time spent while in the Mansion. I find it a nice gateway game for those who like clue and are reluctant to play anything new or out of the mainstream. My only complaint is that the players really decide on the length of the game and the winner. It is easy to not play your cards to have a murder attempt succeed. That is what is most frustrating for me. There is never a clear cut winner.

Happy Gaming
Eric