Kill Doctor Lucky - Tips & Strategies

This game is great fun but also died with my group before its prime. The game play is, so-so, but a great game. Everyone would have scored it well above most Hasbro has to offer, but with so many great games out there that doesnt say much. What saved the game for my group was making it mandatory to read out the texts on the failure cards. It seems odd at first if your group isnt too keen on story telling but as the game goes on and each murder attempt is foiled with more and more failures those little bits of flavor text start to tell a hilarious story. I mean your sneaking up behind a feeble old man with gun in your hand, and then you remember you left the oven on, and what is that dang song, and you start to come off as the worlds most incompetent killers. As the murders take more and more failures to stop it gets even funnier. We have gotten to the point we know most the card values purly by the flavor text. Its great fun now, and gets requested all the time.

The biggest complaint I’ve seen about Kill Doctor Lucky is that it can drag on forever. This was especially true right after it was released, but the inclusion of spite tokens helps and eventually you do run out of failure cards.

If you find that the game is still too long, it might help if you modify the deck before starting by reducing the number of failure cards. Also, I think adding a second free move would make things less tedious too.

All the failure cards have flavour text, so make it mandatory as a house rule to read it aloud every time one plays it in attempt to prevent murder. The texts are rather amusing, and it would make the play less dry.

This games is about being the right place at the right time with the right cards.

Dr. Lucky moves along a set path and when he ends up in a room containing a player, that player takes the next turn. If you plan things right you can “lead him around” several rooms and get several turns in a row. This will let you pick up cards and hopefully land a killing blow.

Keep in mind that this strategy works best if you can lead him through multiple Named Rooms.

Don’t trust the turn sequence in this game; especially in a large game, Dr. Lucky’s movement can cause the turn order to jump around erratically. If you’re not careful, it may be a very long time before you get another turn!

All else being equal, try to end your turn in a numbered room. That way, you’ll at least get a turn when Dr. Lucky arrives in that room (well, almost always). Think of it as a safety mechanism, to make sure the game doesn’t pass you by.