Kill Doctor Lucky: The Unofficial Prequel To Cluedo

You’ve heard of prequels for movies, books, and TV shows, but have you ever heard of a prequel for a board game? Cluedo is a murder mystery in the form of a board game. In this game, players race to figure out who killed the unfortunate victim, which room in the mansion the poor guy died in, and what weapon was used to do the deed.

In “Kill Doctor Lucky,” players race to kill the target instead, but when they make an attempt, there must be no witnesses while the attempt is underway. Very similar to Cluedo, the gameboard looks like a rendered floor plan of Doctor Lucky’s mansion. Players place their tokens in any one of the many rooms inside the mansion.

Lucky moves through the mansion through a predetermined path for every turn. Players are equipped with weapon and failure cards, each which has a point value. Whenever Doctor Lucky is in the same room as one of the player’s token, and out of sight from all the other players, that player has the opportunity to use a weapon card in an attempt to kill the doctor. The attempt will surely succeed unless the other players use their failure cards of the same value to block the attempt. If the attempt fails, the game goes on, until the doctor dies.

That’s why the good doctor is called lucky. Despite the name, this game has got nothing to do with luck. Winning the game is dependent on skill, positioning, and timing – just like the real thing. Kill Doctor Lucky was designed by the great James Ernest and released in 1996 by Cheapass Games. It was later published by Titanic Games with some minor rule changes. Go try it out now, the black and white version is free and downloadable.

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Via: [wikipedia] Image Credits: [paizo] [NoSoloWerewolf]