Introduction:

FALLING was released by Cheapass Games in 1998, and was the first full-color card game and the first real-time card game from James Ernest. You can buy the deck from our friends at DriveThruCards, and download the rules right here.

• Buy FALLING at DriveThruCards

• FALLING Rules PDF (2013 version)

This rulebook is a bit out of date, because some of our company information has changed in the last ten years, but we’ll fix that shortly. The actual rules are exactly the same.

Also, we don’t offer a print-and-play version of FALLING, because we think homemade cards won’t stand up to the abuse of a real-time game. We strongly reccomend that you get the deck from DriveThru, but if you’re really keen to print the game yourself, please let us know.

About the Game:

FALLING exists because one day in 1998, James Ernest was wandering through the exhibitor’s hall at Gen Con, and suddenly imagined that there might be a game called FALLING. The original idea was just ad for the game, based on a “Falling Rocks” sign, on which someone had painted an exclamation point whilst falling past it.

With no idea how a game like this might work, James Ernest took inspiration from the only real-time game he’d ever seen, Icehouse by Andrew Looney. Icehouse is a game without turns, but it’s relatively sedate. FALLING needed to be fast.

To set the pace, this game assigns one player to be the dealer, who starts by shuffling the cards, leaving the Ground cards on the bottom of the deck (just like in real life). This player then deals one card at a time, addressing each player in turn, and dropping a card onto their stack. The players could just sit and watch their cards come in, in which case whoever gets the last Ground card is the winner. Or they can play them in hopes of avoiding the ground longer than everyone else.

You can hold only one card at a time, and you must play that card before you can pick up another one (you can’t just set it down). Some cards are “riders,” which become instructions to the dealer. Hit means “give me an extra card,” while Skip means “give me nothing,” and so on. Other cards like Grab and Stop affect the riders, moving them around or making them go away. If you’re clever, you can force everyone else to hit the ground long before you do.

It’s not much of a goal, but it was all you could think of on the way down.

The winner of each game becomes the dealer for the next. And even though each round is only about two minutes long, you just might find yourself falling all night long.