{"id":87,"date":"2010-05-12T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T13:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pagan-gerbil.net\/?p=87"},"modified":"2010-05-12T14:04:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T13:04:00","slug":"game-review-kill-doctor-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"Game Review – Kill Doctor Lucky!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kill Doctor Lucky<\/a> is a board game, the spiritual prequel to Cluedo<\/a>. Instead of stalking around a mansion trying to work out who did it, you\u2019re stalking around the mansion trying to do it.<\/p>\n

\"150pxTitanicKillDoctorLucky\"<\/p>\n

The way to win the game is relatively simple \u2013 get yourself in the same room as Dr Lucky, make sure no-one can see you, and try to do him in with whatever weapons you may have picked up (or your bare hands). Other players then take it in turns to play failure cards to try and thwart your attempt. If you succeed, you win! If you fail, you get a spite token \u2013 which, for as long as you hold it, increases your chances of success.<\/p>\n

The rules themselves are easy to pick up, and the game has become a staple in our games nights for being quick to learn, quick to play, ruthlessly mercenary and with a splash of gambling too. \u201cShould I play this failure card to stop Ann, or should I refuse and make Carl use his cards… ensuring that my own murder attempt will be more likely to succeed!\u201d This does, of course, backfire occasionally \u2013 we\u2019ve had more than one game end early due to over-ambitious would-be-killers.<\/p>\n

The game has nice, black humour and each failure card includes a reason for the failure – \u201cThe doctor spins around and waxes lyrical on his recent polar adventure.\u201d The weapons in the game are also good \u2013 a monkey hand (bonus in the lobby), \u2018loud noise\u2019 (bonus in the carriage house, picture of a French horn) and killing joke are all in there, as well as simpler ones (revolver, knife, etc). Besides, competing to murder someone is a fairly funny thing to do when you\u2019ve got a bunch of friends, a glass of wine and some takeaway pizza.<\/p>\n

We picked up the reprint of the game in full technicolour glory, nice wooden playing pieces and big box. Originally, it was released by Cheapass Games<\/a> in much less glamorous style. Cheapass Games are a frugal gamer\u2019s friend \u2013 they believe that all you need to play a game is the rules and any unique components (such as cards). Everyone has dice, false money, pawns and counters so there\u2019s no need to pack all that stuff in a big box and hike the price up. They argue that the quality of those components is generally poor anyway, so it\u2019s better to leave them out, keep the cost down, and allow people to invest in one really good set of gaming accessories to use for all their games. Of course, since the big games companies are unlikely to follow this pattern, the only games you\u2019ll really get good use out of this philosophy are other Cheapass Games. The big box version is good quality, but possibly a little over-priced looking at the content alone, and I believe that the Cheapass printing is no longer available.<\/p>\n

There are also expansions to the game that introduce the Doctor\u2019s dog, and a prequel game still sold by Cheapass Games called Save Doctor Lucky \u2013 wherein you must stop the Doctor drowning on the Titanic (making sure people do<\/em> see you save him!) The game is slightly harder, since the Titanic is sinking while you play, and there is the potential for nobody to win!<\/p>\n

Overall, I would heavily recommend this game \u2013 even the more expensive big box version \u2013 because it is quick to learn, doesn\u2019t seem to get old, provides a lot of potential strategy or luck, and appeals to a wide range of people. I have even had to consider banning it, because about half the time in any games night we hold is spent playing Kill Doctor Lucky \u2013 and it usually comes out again for rematches the following day too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kill Doctor Lucky is a board game, the spiritual prequel to Cluedo. Instead of stalking around a mansion trying to work out who did it, you\u2019re stalking around the mansion trying to do it. The way to win the game is relatively simple \u2013 get yourself in the same room as Dr Lucky, make sure … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Game Review – Kill Doctor Lucky!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[48,35,55,34],"series":[72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pagan-gerbil.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}