Kill Doctor Lucky

Kill Doctor Lucky

Kill Doctor Lucky box cover from Titanic Games
Designer(s)	James Ernest
Publisher(s)	Cheapass Games Titanic Games
Players	3 to 7
Setup time	5 minutes
Playing time	40 minutes

Kill Doctor Lucky is a humorous board game designed by James Ernest and released in 1996 by Cheapass Games. In 1998, Kill Doctor Lucky won the Origins Award for Best Abstract Board Game of 1997.

Kill Doctor Lucky is, in concept, a sort of inversion and perhaps a parody of Cluedo (Clue in North America). Both games are set in a sprawling mansion full of colorfully named rooms, feature a variety of dangerous weapons, and deal with the murder of the mansion's owner. Cluedo begins after the murder has been committed, and players compete to solve it; Kill Doctor Lucky ends with the murder, and players compete to commit it.

In October 2015 a "Deluxe 19.5th Anniversary Edition" with new art and updated game mechanics was launched on Kickstarter.

The gameboard is a floor plan of Doctor Lucky's mansion, and it is accompanied by a deck of cards representing the objects and opportunities that can be found there. Players take turns moving through the rooms of the mansion and accumulating cards, while Doctor Lucky moves through the mansion following a predetermined path. A player may attempt to kill Doctor Lucky by playing a weapon card (such as a runcible spoon, a monkey hand, a letter opener, a trowel, a chainsaw or pinking shears) while the player's token is in the same room as Doctor Lucky and out of sight of all other players. Each weapon card has a certain point value, and certain weapons are worth more points when used in certain rooms (for example, the trowel is worth extra points when used in the wine cellar, an allusion to Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado").