Dr Lucky is an old boy living in a large rambling house in what appears to be the 1910s or 1920′s based on the characters appearance on the cards. The rather unfortunate Dr has drawn the ire of some people (the players) who are not really given a proper motive other than they may think he is the King of the Vampires, his dog may have fouled your lawn one to many times or something equally as bizarre. Infact all of the characters seem to be a few brainwaves short of a coherent plan and their motive to kill the Dr is largely unimportant next to the actual doin’ part.
All the players (chunky wooden pieces) start in the foyer while the good Dr (a large black wooden piece which could be a nod to Cluedo as the murder victim is Dr Black in the UK version) starts in a random place on the board. Each player is dealt card from a deck which includes murder weapons, locations, movement and failure cards.
All setup and ready to go
Once you start, the trick is to get yourself alone in a room with Dr Lucky and make sure none of the other platers have a line of site to the room you are both in. Next you try to kill the silly old duffer with obvious items such as a silken cord or more exotic weapons such as a cannon leading up the the outright bizarre like a monkeys hand. Each weapon has a basic murder value based on how dangerous it is and some have a bonus value if you use it in a specific room (the monkey hand is rather devastating if you are in the foyer). Once a murder attempt is made the other players must try to foil the attempt with any failure cards equal to the value of the murder attempt and the comments on the failure cards are dark little nuggets of comedy gold. You question your freshness, you get distracted by a passing train only you can hear, distant strains of Mozart make your cares melt away, wizened kung-fu masters, Dr Lucky vanishing into thin air… Yeah, this game is not taking itself, or the sanity of the would-be assassins, that seriously. While not actually affecting the game in anyway, they do add a touch of humour and help Dr Lucky earn his name.
As you try and (inevitably) fail, you build up a stack of spite tokens which add a plus bonus to all attempts, meaning it gets easier and easier as you go on. This build up helps to keep the game moving along at a fast pace. As the room cards allow you to move yourself or Dr Lucky to a specific room in the house, you need to plan ahead or move Lucky out of harms way Lucky he gets the chop.
That brain houses such a cold and calculating mind
The game is aimed at ages 10+ but Miss Smarty Pants managed to grasp the rules pretty fast. Infact she managed to pull off a rather classy murder in the foyer with the Monkey Hand which would have impressed me if I hadn’t been annoyed at losing. It does need a minimum of three players and would probably work better with more but for killing an hour in the evening, it does very well.
Hmmm, seems about time for the link to Kill Dr Lucky on Board Game Geek