Get Lucky

A grey and wet Sunday in August means no outdoor skating or frolicking on the beach, it means indoor time, which means game time (although, any kind of weather forecast means game time at the moment!). Today's morning game was Get Lucky by Cheapass Games. Get Lucky is the card game adaptation of Kill Doctor Lucky, the classic board game and first game by Cheapass Games. You can still fully appreciate the card game even if you are yet to play the classic, and I think it is a nice way to introduce it to people. 

Doctor Lucky certainly lives up to his name, he has managed to sail through life angering everyone he has met along the way and has lived to a ripe old age...so far. Now it is time for his enemies to seek revenge, their lust for his blood has built up and one of them will be victorious tonight and succeed in killing him. We hope. 

Like most evenings that end in vengeful bloodshed, it begins with a dinner party. Doctor Lucky is hosting an elegant soiree at his mansion and has decided to invite every person who wants him dead. Every dinner guest has a reason for killing him, which is printed on the beautifully illustrated guest cards. The flavour text is witty and fun, all ending with the same reasoning: that Doctor Lucky must die!

The set up of the game is simple, I have been playing the two player version which involves an imaginary player called Howard, I shall elaborate on Howard later. Each player starts with three characters and a hand of 8 cards from the deck. Three additional characters are placed in the Drawing Room, laid out on the table in a row, with the main deck of upgrade cards face-down nearby and the other guest cards at the other end. Doctor Lucky is represented by the pawn, he moves from character to character on every turn, in numeric order. When he is on your character this signals it is your turn to play. I like to imagine him shmoozing around the room, drifting around party guests and leaving once he has delightfully insulted them enough.

On your turn you may equip a card to a character, draw a card from the deck, swap the character whose turn it is for one in the Drawing Room or make an attempt on Doctor Lucky's life. Luckily there is no hand limit in this game, which is great because if you play like me you may end up with quite a few cards! The upgrade cards in the deck are Weapon, Motive and Opportunity cards. There are also some dubious looking Spite cards in the deck that can be used to weaken your opponent's characters, but they can be used to weaken yours too so be prepared! You can equip the upgrade cards to your characters to make them more powerful and give them points that can be used to kill Doctor Lucky. The points to kill him are counteracted by luck points, these can also be found on the cards and will be used by your opponents when you make attempts to murder him. You do not want to let anyone beat you to the killing, your character wants to be the one to kill him because that is how you win the game!

There are specific upgrade cards for your character in the deck that share their name and number, if you equip these to your character then you get extra points, this helps build up your character's strength for the slaying and helps out if you are stung by a Spite card. Spite cards are used to stop a murder, they are worth one luck point and are attached to the murderer permanently, giving them -1 points. This is when the swapping of your characters with characters in the Drawing Room can come in handy, you may want to do that if one of your characters is bombarded with Spite cards. The swap also comes in handy if you have a nice stash of upgrade cards in your hand for someone in the Drawing Room and your current people are milling about with no weapon, motive or opportunity to kill. 

So, now I shall talk about Howard; the imaginary player. He comes into the game to help you out if your opponent makes an attempt on Doctor Lucky's life and you are running low on luck points to halt the murder. To counteract the murder attempt you produce luck points from your hand that correspond to the points the murderer has. If you use an upgrade card with their number on it then they immediately cease the attempt. You can also use any card that has luck points, depicted by lucky clovers on them. But when you do not have the relevant cards you must call upon Howard. He takes the reins and plays from the top of the deck, he may play up to the amount of luck that was passed to him. Any spite cards revealed are attached to the murderer whilst others are tossed onto the discard pile. Howard has been my saviour quite a few times in the past, it was rather like we were in sync, he knew the gravity of the situation and rushed to my aid like a gallant knight on his trustworthy steed, until this morning. He screwed me over big time, and our relationship will be forever strained; thanks for nothing, Howard!

Get Lucky creates a great atmosphere and is a wonderfully balanced game. The simplicity of the game play makes it appealing, and it still feels exciting even after multiple games. I find this is the case with a lot of games designed by James Ernest, such as Brawl and Button Men, which are two games that helped start my gaming obsession last year. I recommend giving Get Lucky a play soon, I think I will give it another play tonight to let Howard try to redeem himself.

Thanks for reading! I am off to Oxford tomorrow so wish me table top fun :)

Marisa xx