Wednesday Review - Kill Doctor Lucky

This is a review of the Kill Doctor Lucky Board game produced by Paizo Publishing, LLC. http://www.paizo.com

First Glance: High quality heavy duty box game. You get 9 stand-up counters representing The 7 players, Doctor Lucky and Shamrock, the Doctor’s little dog. You get a nice thick board, with nice quality artwork. You also get a nice Deck of cards and 30 spite tokens.

Main Review: The easiest way to describe this game is as reverse clue. The goal of the game is to attempt to kill Doctor Lucky. Of course, you also attempt to keep the others from killing Doctor Lucky as well.

Doctor Lucky moves through his mansion from room to room in a set pattern, though that pattern can be altered by the players, either moving him with a room card or a move card. The players can attempt to kill the good doctor with weapon cards or their bare hands, certain weapons are more powerful in certain rooms. There are no dice involved, just the cards. The cards are weapon cards, move cards, room cards and failure cards. Weapon cards range from a shoe horn to a cannon, each has a value representing how powerful the attack is. Failure cards are how the other players stop you from winning; cards ranging from, ‘You slip on an out-of-place banana peel, hurtling hilariously into the air’, to, ‘The Doctor wheels around and accidentally hits you in the head with a shovel’. Failure Cards range in value from 1-3, players must attempt to stop an attack. When an attack is stopped, you gain a spite token, which adds to your subsequent attacks. Eventually, the other players run out of failure cards, especially after a few unsuccessful attacks. It’s murderous fun for the whole family, without the gore. One caveat for attempting a murder, you can’t be seen by other players on the board.

Artwork: Excellent, The artwork is stylized and the board is gorgeous.

Replay Value: Excellent, this game is never the same, and while you might have some winning strategies, you’re not going to win every time. This is a family favorite, everyone can win.

Comprehension Level: Excellent, The rules for Kill Doctor Lucky are very simple. Publisher’s suggested Age Range is 10+

Humor: You’re trying to kill Doctor Lucky, the others are trying to stop you, the failure cards are very humorous, especially if you put yourself in your characters place and imagine the bad things in a cinematic manner.

Family Rating: 10+, rules are easy enough to younger, but that’s a parental call, after all you are trying to Kill the good doctor. If you have younger children check out the prequel game Save Doctor Lucky.

Kill Doctor Lucky may be purchased from Paizo.com or your FLGS.