Wednesday Review: Save Doctor Lucky

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

First Glance: High quality heavy duty box game. You get 8 stand-up counters representing The 7 players and Doctor Lucky. You get 4 nice thick boards, with nice quality artwork. You also get a nice Deck of cards.

Main Review: Save Doctor Lucky is the prequel to Kill Doctor Lucky.

In Save Doctor Lucky, you must conspicuously save the Doctor from the sinking cruise liner. The first difference between this game and the original is the boards, you lay each of the decks of the ship out with ¼ of the cards (after dealing cards out). The Doctor wanders on his standard pathway around the ship, but as the cards run out, boards sections disappear. Another difference is that when you attempt to save him, others must be able to draw line of sight to you, as you’re not saving him for no reason, you’re trying to get ahead in the world. No spite tokens are awarded in this version, the game length manager is the sinking ship. As the sections disappear, the game play speeds up quite a lot.

Artwork: Excellent, The artwork is stylized and the boards are 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 Save Doctor Lucky are very simple. Publisher’s suggested Age Range is 10+

Humor: Decent, While Save Doctor Lucky tries to maintain the same level of humor as it predecessor, it does not quite succeed, the jokes on the failure cards just aren’t as funny as the jokes on the failure cards for Kill Doctor Lucky.

Family Rating: 8+, rules are easy enough to learn, and there’s no moral ambiguity of murder in this version of Doctor Lucky.

Price Tag: $29.99 retail. Well below the price point of similar games, for something of this quality, you can usually expect to pay $40.

Value: For us, it’s still worth the money. Not as good as the original, but it’s a nice alternative.

Overall Rating: 4.5 Stars

You can purchase Save Doctor Lucky from from Paizo.com or your FLGS!

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.