KILL DOCTOR LUCKY: DELUXE 19.5TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Kill Doctor Lucky, a pre-murder mystery of sneaking, drawing cards and keeping others from killing Doctor Lucky so you can off him, has been a staple of Cheapass Games since their beginning.  The game went out of print, returned with a deluxe edition, and returns again with Kill Doctor Lucky: Deluxe 19.5th Anniversary Edition. This version keeps most of the core rules but adds several to expedite gameplay.

As with previous versions, the goal of Kill Doctor Lucky 19.5 is to, well, kill Doctor Lucky. Players move around the mansion of the fortunate doctor, with one free move and being able to play Move cards to either add to their movement or jump to a room.  After moving, players have two choices.  If a player can't be seen by any other player or Doctor Lucky, that player can draw a card.  Of if a player is in a room with Doctor Lucky and no other player can see them, the player can try to kill the Doctor, either with a basic attack (which starts at 1) or by playing a Weapon card (which are worth more points in certain rooms and add to the basic attack strength).

Going clockwise from the would-be murderer, the other players can play Failure cards to try and stop the murder.  If the points of all Failure cards are less than the murder attempt, Doctor Lucky is killed and the murderer wins!  If the Failure cards equal or exceed the murder attempt, the Doctor survives, all played cards are discarded, and Doctor Lucky jumps to the next-highest numbered room.  Play proceeds clockwise, unless Doctor Lucky moves into a room with another player; if that happens, that player then starts.

There are several changes in Kill Doctor Lucky 19.5 -- and they work pretty well.  First, with fewer players the left wing, right wing, or both wings of the mansion are closed; this makes games quicker, as fewer players have fewer rooms to move around in.  Second, only being able to draw a card when out of sight of all others makes finding privacy important (and eliminates the left-to-right "train" on the top of the board, allowing a player to take multiple turns while drawing multiple cards).  Third, players now move past the unnamed hallways automatically, making movement around the mansion much quicker.  Fourth, every time a player fails at a murder attempt, one card is placed under their character card -- and each card adds 1 to the strength of a murder attempt, so characters become much more lethal as the game goes on.  Finally, when the draw deck runs out of cards, the lights go out in the mansion, and a player can only be seen by other players in the same room -- so it becomes far easier to try and kill the Doctor.  (This edition also has several variants: two-player, pets (Doctor Lucky's cat or dog), and Escape from Lucky Mansion! where Doctor Lucky is now a zombie out to kill the players!

Kill Doctor Lucky 19.5 is the third edition of this game, and it maintains the quality of the first two with some pretty good rule changes.  The fundamentals of the previous game are all there, but the changes make gameplay faster -- without making the game easier or ridiculously quick.  The game maintains a fun (if slightly morbid) sense of humor, from the character cards' motivations for wanting the Doctor dead to the bizarre reasons for failure on the Failure cards.  And the board and pieces are very well done.  Kill Doctor Lucky 19.5 remains a really great board game.

Overall grade: A
Reviewed by James Lynch

KILL DOCTOR LUCKY DELUXE EDITION

The company Cheapass Games began with the philosophy that most of the expense of board games went into pieces you already had -- dice, counters, money -- and they would give you the essentials (rules, board) for a low price. This makes it a mystery that years later, one of their flagship games, Kill Doctor Lucky, has been released with all the "fancy pieces" as Kill Doctor Lucky Deluxe Edition from Titanic Games.

The gameplay of Kill Doctor Lucky Deluxe Edition is virtually identical to earlier versions of the game. In this pre-murder mystery, you're in the mansion of Doctor J. Robert Lucky with the goal of doing him in. However, several other people are in the mansion -- and they want to kill him to! So as Doctor Lucky blithely wanders through the mansion, the players try to get him alone so they can do him in.

The board, which represents the mansion, is divided into main rooms (numbered 1 through 20), halls, and a few unnumbered rooms. Each turn a player can either do nothing (moving zero or one spaces) and draw a card, or play movement cards (moving them or Doctor Lucky either a certain number of spaces or to a room) and draw no cards. After all movement is done, if the player is in the room with Doctor Lucky and no other players can see into the room, that player can try to kill him.

A player can try and snuff the good doctor by either playing a card (which have a point value; many are worth more in certain rooms) or making something up for a one-point murder attempt. Going clockwise, the other players can play failure cards for all or some of the points of the murder attempt. If the total points equal the murder attempt, the try fails and Doctor Lucky wanders off to the next-highest numbered room. (And if the Doctor moves into a room where another player is, it becomes that player's turn.) But the other players can't share information on their failure cards, so it's a balance between keeping the Doctor alive for the turn and blowing all of one's failue cards that could be used against other players. Also, failure cards don't get recycled into the deck, so when they're gone the Doctor's lifespan is very brief indeed.

The game Kill Doctor Lucky is wonderful, a great blend of simple rules, substantial strategy, and pure chance. I'm a bit conflicted about Kill Doctor Lucky Deluxe Edition: While it keeps the same game play as the original, it goes against the direct philosophy of its original company. It is nice to have a solid board instead of having to lean several pieces of paper together to make up the mansion, and the pieces are nice. However, the only addition to the rules are "spite tokens" (that give a +1 bonus to all murder attempts for each failure) that could easily have been included in the original rules. Kill Doctor Lucky is a must-have game. If you don't have it, get Kill Doctor Lucky Deluxe Edition; if you don't have it, the upgrade is more of a luxury than a necessity.

Overall grades: A if you don't have it already, B if you already have the Cheapass Games version

Reviewed by James Lynch