Kill Doctor Lucky

Hello reader(s). I’m back from a long summer holiday! First blog post this term is going to be an analysis of Kill Doctor Lucky, a board game.

The best parts of Kill Doctor Lucky:

My Favorite part of Kill Doctor Lucky was the line of sight aspect to the game, which I thought was pretty unique for a board game. I had never earlier heard of a board game with line of sight in it. Line of sight is not only one of the best parts of Kill Doctor Lucky, but also one of the most important. The game in my opinion is heavily built around the lines of sight aspect.

Another part of Kill Doctor Lucky was the Spite token system. Each time you tried to kill Doctor Lucky you would gain a Spite Token. You can choose to use your Spite Tokens at or you can save them up to deal a lot of damage. This rewards the player in more ways than one. It gives your next murder attempt more potency, but also forces more failure cards to be played to stop your attack.

Doctor Lucky’s dog was a big part of the game. The game could be played in multiple modes. The dog played a big part in the modes that we played. In one mode the dog would just be a nuisance and stop you from killing the doctor. In the other mode the dog would help you by being able to trade your cards for spite tokens. When we were playing the game we wanted to try a round without the dog. Playing without the dog drastically reduced the game time.

The worst parts of Kill Doctor Lucky:

One of the worsts parts of Kill Doctor Lucky was the possibility to ‘camp’ and ‘farm’. Each time Doctor Lucky walked into a room with a player in it, it became that players turn. At the end of a player turn that player gets to draw a card. This means that a player could exploit this aspect by moving into the room that the doctor would walk into next, drawing a card, and then becoming that same players turn again because the doctor walked in, in that way one player could gain a lot of cards, there was no way to stop it either until the player ran out of rooms, move cards, or Doctor Lucky ran into a different player.
Attempting to kill the doctor required that no other player was within the line of sight of you and the doctor. This meant that players decide to stand on opposite sides of the map and wait for the doctor to walk into his/her room.

In my opinion the absolutely worst part of the game was the extremely limited movement. If you are 5 players it would take you 10 rounds just to move two spaces. This is if you are lucky, because if the doctor walked into a different player’s room then the turn queue would reset, this really encouraged camping on opposite sides of the map.

In my opinion when the doctor walks into a room with a player in it, then the player should get a chance to kill the doctor if it is possible, not that it becomes his/her turn.

Core Game System:

Kill Doctor Lucky is a game for 3-7 people. The game takes place in Doctor Lucky’s mansion. The object of the game is to be the first player to kill Doctor Lucky, while at the same time stopping the others players from getting to him before you.
To kill Doctor Lucky you must be in the same room as him.

You must also be out of line of sight from the other players, and his dog who tries to follow Doctor Lucky around as best he can, but has the same movement system as the players. He always tries to take the shortest path to reach the Doctor, counted in number of rooms. If two paths have the same length, the player whose turn it was previously picks which way the dog walks. Line of sight only works perpendicularly and not diagonally.

All players start in the drawing room. To determine who goes first and where doctor lucky is positioned at the start of the game, you deal cards face-up. You keep dealing the cards face up until someone gets a room card. That player goes first and Doctor Lucky starts in that room

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The components in the game are:

Modifiers:

The modifiers are the cards and tokens that modify turns within the game.

• Movement cards – When you play a movement card you can choose to either move yourself or Doctor Lucky as many steps as shown on the card.
• Room cards – When you play a room card you can choose to either move yourself or Doctor Lucky to the room shown on the card. After playing a room card you may still use your move.
• Weapon cards – During a murder attempt you may play a weapon card. Weapon cards change your base murder value of 1 with the murder value on the card. Some weapons are stronger in specific rooms.
• Failure cards – When someone tries to murder Doctor Lucky the other players can try and stop the murder attempt by playing failure cards. If the sum of the failure card is the same or exceeds the value of the murder attempt, the murder attempt fails. When a Failure card has been played, it is placed into a separate pile and not used again. This means that the longer a game is played, the less failure cards remain, thus making it easier to win.
• Spite tokens – A player’s gains a Spite Tokens after a failed murder attempt. These Spite Tokens can be used to increase the value of a murder attempt by 1. Spite Tokens can be used at once, or saved up for a larger murder attempt value.

Players:

Each turn you are allowed to move to an adjoining room (hallways count as rooms), play move cards, attempt to murder Doctor Lucky (or his dog), draw a card. You are not allowed to draw a card if you have made a murder attempt, played a card, or you are standing in an unnamed room.

Rooms:

Doctor Lucky’s mansion has 32 rooms. 24 named rooms, 20 of which also are numbered, and 8 Hallways. Doctor Lucky follows a predictable route. The numbered rooms determine where the doctor will move next.

NPCs:

The NPCs in this game are the doctor and his dog. The doctor moves from one numbered room to the other using their numbers to determine where to go. Doctor Lucky’s dog moves one step at the time and always towards the doctor taking the shortest route possible.

The most interesting system

The most interesting system in the game was without of doubt the line of sight system. You cannot attempt to murder Doctor Lucky in a room where there is a player who is in line of sight of you. Positioning is very important, you have to try and block other players from killing Doctor Lucky by standing in line of sight from them, at the same time as you try and plan where Doctor Lucky will move and try to intersect him where killing him is possible.

Failure cards were another key deciding factor in the game. Without them the first attempt at killing Doctor Lucky would succeed. The failure cards were also the main deciding factor in how long a match would take.

Target group

The target group for Kill Doctor Lucky is 10 and up. I think that children over 10 can enjoy the game, but not much younger than that.

The main reason why I don’t think children under 10 would enjoy this game is that they wouldn’t have the patience to play it, or at least not with a lot of players. It can take a long time between turns since the doctor can walk into another player’s room and then reset the turn order. It could also be hard for younger players to keep track of everything that can happen within a turn. Moving Doctor Lucky as well as the dog, whose turn it is, and what a player has done in their turn so far.

Summery

All in all I think that Kill Doctor Lucky is a pretty fun game. If I would play the game again I would without a doubt suggest that we change some rules, mainly the rule that it becomes a player’s turn if Doctor Lucky walks into the room that that player is in. I would change it so that the player should get a chance to kill the doctor if it is possible, not that it becomes his/her turn. Less failure cards could also be an option for faster matches. Long matches could start to become very tedious.

We played 4 matches, each match with different rules. We played with standard rules (with line of sight dog). No dog and less failure cards. No dog. Dog that sold Spite Tokens. The shortest match took around about 20min to play and that was without the dog and less failure cards. The longest match took about one and a half hours. I think it took a long time because we were acquainting ourselves with the rules. That match we played with standard rules (with line of sight dog).

We played the game with 6 people. I think that it would be more fun with less players or at least add a round timer so that it doesn’t take so long for it to become your turn again. The people you play with are of course also very important.