1 7 D. Yes! I gave Cheapass Games $ for this game! How to Play: Everyone is falling. And fighting.

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1 About the Game: Everyone is falling. And fighting. The object is to hit the ground last. It s not much of a goal. But it s all you could think of on the way down. FALLING was invented by James Ernest in It is a real time card game, which means that all players are doing the same thing at the same time, with no turns. The game was nominated for the Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game (despite is nontraditionalness), and was included in the 1998 GAMES 100. It was succeeded by real time card games including BRAWL, Fightball, and Light Speed. How to Play: FALLING is a fast-paced card game with one dealer and several players. The dealer, who is not falling, distributes the cards and moderates the action. Everyone else is playing all the time. Five Ground cards are waiting at the bottom of the deck, and these cards knock you out of the game. The object is to hit the ground last. FALLING works best with 4-8 people, and you can even add more players if you don t mind the chaos that will ensue. We don t recommend playing with fewer than 4. A good playing surface is important: a small, round card table is ideal. Players should have enough room for their own cards, but should also be able to reach across the table to play cards on each other. This rulebook is split into two principal sections, Dealing and Falling. Everyone needs to understand both parts, but we felt this was the best way to sort the rules. FALLING went out of print sometime in the mid-oughts. It was reprinted in Polish (featuring adorable art of falling cows) and by Paizo Publishing in a Goblin edition. Now the original set is available in this free format This game takes some getting used to. If this is your first time falling, you will need to play a few games before you understand what is going on. That s okay, because each game takes about a minute and a half. Players 2 6 Stacks You must deal, even if you re new to the game, because it will make you a better player. A good FALLING player has sympathy for the dealer, and helps her by placing his cards cleanly and discarding his own cards when he s supposed to. As competitive and frenzied as this game is, it really helps if everybody... helps. Discards 1 7 D Dealer This Cheapass Game is free. That s right, free. You can print it, copy it, and share it with your friends. Obviously, if you like it, we d appreciate a dollar or two in return. We think this is the best way to get great games into your hands, so please help us make it work. Yes! I gave Cheapass Games $ for this game! To learn more, read the last page of this document, or visit

2 Section 1: DEALING When you deal, you aren t falling. Your job is to control the pace of the game, follow the instructions of the Riders, and referee the game. The winner of one game will become the dealer for the next. Occasionally, timing disputes will arise, and it is the dealer s job to settle them. If two players have tried to do something at the same time, and can t agree on who was faster, the dealer can pause the game and settle the problem. The dealer s solution is final, so use your best judgement and move on. The Basics: Before you deal, separate the Ground cards from the deck. Shuffle the rest of the cards, and put the Grounds at the bottom. Hold the deck face down, and deal from the top. The Grounds will be the last cards you deal. Starting with the player to your left, deal cards one at a time clockwise around the table. Deal the cards face up into stacks in front of each player, as shown in the diagram below. Each player starts with one stack. Later in the game some players might have more stacks, or none at all. 2 Stacks Riders A Rider with an Extra 1 7 D Dealer If a player has more than one stack, you deal one card into each. If a player has no stacks at all, you start a new one. (Player 5 above has no stack, but will get another card on the dealer s next pass.) Additional stacks disappear once they are empty, so you don t have to remember anything beyond the first. Altering the Deal: Your dealing pattern will be changed by cards called Riders. These are instruction cards that must be played sideways between a player and the dealer. The three Rider cards are Hit, Split, and Skip. Riders can be modified by an Extra card, which doubles the Rider s effect. There are five Riders in the diagram above, one of which (player 2 s) is being modified by an Extra. 6 When you encounter a Rider, you must follow the card s instructions, and then sweep the Rider into the discard pile. The meanings of the Riders are as follows: HIT: After dealing normally, deal a second card into each of this player s stacks. EXTRA HIT: After dealing normally, deal two extra cards to each Stack. (Sweep away the Extra and the Hit.) SPLIT: After dealing normally, deal this player one more card as the foundation of a new stack. EXTRA SPLIT: After dealing normally, start two new Stacks. (Sweep away the Extra and the Split.) SKIP: Deal no cards to this player. (This is not a per-stack effect. You skip the entire player regardless of how many stacks she has.) EXTRA SKIP: Deal no cards to this player, and sweep away only the Extra card. (The Skip remains in play.) Timing Notes: Players are not allowed to play cards that would affect a Rider if you are in the middle of executing it. Once the Dealer is addressing a player, no one can affect the deal by meddling with the Rider, either with a Push, Grab, Stop, or Extra. Similarly, when you are dealing to a player who has no Rider, if a Rider is played on him, you should ignore that Rider until your next pass. GROUND: Once a player gets a Ground card, she is out of the game. You don t deal to her, and she can t play any more cards or have any more cards played on her. Running out of Grounds: If there are so many players that the five Ground cards won t cover them all, you could add more Grounds from a second FALLING deck. But it s just as easy to imagine the last ones, and tell the last players who hit the Ground to gather their cards and turn them face down. Even though there are only five cards, there is always an unlimited supply of ground. Section 2: FALLING As a player, you will be receiving cards from the dealer, and playing those cards at your own pace. There are no turns in this game, because everyone is playing all the time. You re trying to avoid the Grounds when they come out, by saving up plenty of Skips, Extras, and Stops, and using other cards to prevent other players from doing the same. Play of cards is very restrictive: You may pick up only one card at a time, and you may only play the card that is in your hand. Strictly speaking, you should use only one hand to play, and keep the other hand out of the way. You may pick up cards only from the top of your stack. This means that once a card has been buried, you can t retrieve it

3 unless you play all the cards on top of it. Note: If the dealer is giving you two cards in a row (because of a Hit), you can legally grab the first one. But only if you are fast! When you have multiple stacks (because of a Split), you will have more choices of what to pick up. But you still can t pick up more than one card at a time. Be careful what you pick up! Once you are holding a card, you may play it right away, or you may keep holding it. But you can t set it back down, and you can t discard it. And as long as you hold that card, you can t pick up another one. Riders: Riders are instructions to the dealer. They include Hit, Split, and Skip, and their meanings are described under Dealing, above. Players can never have more than one Rider at a time. You may place a Rider in front of any player, including yourself, as long as that person doesn t already have one. Action Cards: The Action cards are Push, Grab, and Stop, and they all affect Riders. Stop can also repel a Ground. To play an Action card, you must touch the card to the Rider you are trying to affect, carry out the result, and then discard the Action card yourself. (The dealer won t do this for you!) Note: You can only affect Riders once they are in place; you can never mess with the cards in someone s stack. PUSH: This card moves a Rider away from you to another player. Since no one can legally have two Riders at once, you can t Push a Rider to a player who already has one. GRAB: This is the opposite of Push. A Grab steals a Rider from in front of another player and moves it to you. You can t Grab someone s Rider if you already have one. STOP: This card has two functions: You can use it to destroy any Rider, or you can use it to pop a Ground card back onto the deck. When you destroy a Rider, you sweep both the Stop and the Rider straight to the discard pile. If you Stop a Rider that has an Extra on it, they are both discarded together. To Stop a Ground, play the Stop card as the Ground is being dealt to you. The Dealer retrieves the Ground card, and you discard the Stop. Note: A Stop will only send one Ground back onto the deck. It doesn t necessarily turn the Dealer away. If you are due to get two Ground cards, as a result of a Hit or because you have multiple stacks, just one Stop card won t save you. EXTRA and GROUND: EXTRA: An Extra card modifies a Rider. Once played, it is attached to that Rider. To play an Extra, lay it on top of the Rider you wish to modify, but off-center so the dealer can still read both cards. If the Rider moves around, the Extra moves with it. If the Rider is destroyed by a Stop, the Extra goes away too. A Rider can only have one Extra at a time, so if a Rider already has one Extra on it, you can t give it another one. The specific effects of an Extra on all three Riders are described above, under Dealing. In general, Extra means more of the same. Extra Hit means getting more cards. Extra Split means getting more Stacks. And Extra Skip means you ll be skipped twice in a row: the Extra is swept away on the first pass, and the Skip is taken on the second pass (if it s still there). GROUND: If you receive one of these, you are immediately out. To reflect this, gather your cards together under the Ground, or turn your cards face down. Once you have hit the Ground, you can no longer play cards, receive cards, or have any cards played on you. Some General Notes: Hits and Splits can be good for you at the beginning of the game, but Skips are most useful at the end. You will discover that all three Riders have offensive and defensive uses, at different times in the game. If you want to teach FALLING to a new group of players, it helps to play very slowly, and introduce the card types one at a time. Try playing a game with just the Grounds and Riders, then add the Action Cards, and finally add the Extras. Learning the card types one at a time is less overwhelming than learning the whole game at once. And remember that people will play better after they deal! FALLING was designed by James Ernest with help from the Cheapass Games Guinea Pigs, and Illustrated by Brian Snōddy. 1998, 2011 James Ernest and Cheapass Games. Published by Cheapass Games, Seattle WA: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. There is a brief license rights summary on the following page.

4 Free? Seriously? Tell me a little more about that. Okay, here s the deal. If I made a great game and sold it to you for ten bucks, I d probably keep about a dollar. If I sold it to a big game company, they d probably make a nicer version for thirty bucks, and I d still get about a dollar. The rest of your money would go to printers, distributors, retail stores, and freight companies. And most of those guys don t know anything about what makes a great game. Mass-producing entertainment is a gamble. It s a convoluted way for creators to protect their intellectual property, by selling it in a way that is prohibitively expensive to counterfeit. And it s getting a little old. Why do you pay $30 for a board game? The story goes like this: the retail price of a game covers the cost of manufacturing it, and there is no way you could make your own copy for that price, to say nothing of the hassle of finding little wooden men in six colors. So, it s worth $30 because it costs $30, QED. But the value in a board game isn t the manufacturing cost. It s the play value. Unfortunately, this means that some games are priced way out of whack with what they are worth. And because the big gamble doesn t always work out, some of your money helps pay for the stuff that goes straight to the dump. I ve decided to try a different gamble. I m giving my games away for free. This way, you can read the rules, make a copy, and even play the thing, before you decide what it s worth. If you do like my games, I hope you will send me some money. But I m also hoping you will share this experiment with your friends. You are my sales force, my marketing department, my demo team. You re also my testers, so if you can think of ways to improve my games, please share them with me. I m easy to find at big gaming conventions, and even easier online. Look for Cheapass Games on Facebook, or drop me a line at cheapassjames@gmail.com. If we do this right, we will get famous and do shaving ads. But more importantly, we will prove that there is a better way for a creator to profit from his work. And nothing has to go to the dump. Our Creative Commons Agreement Summary: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit: or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. This agreement means... You are free: To Share to copy, distribute and transmit the work (in this case, the electronic files that comprise the work). Under the following conditions: Attribution You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). In this case, FALLING is and 1998, 2011 James Ernest and Cheapass Games: Noncommercial You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. With the understanding that: Waiver Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. (For example, a license to manufacture, or approval to distribute a new set of rules or graphics, can be obtained under a separate agreement.) Public Domain Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license. Other Rights In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations; The author s moral rights; Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. Notice For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. That means including all pages of this document, unaltered.

5 How to Make FALLING Cards: This game requires durable cards, and we have reservations about asking people to build their own. The usual methods for making your own decks just won t survive the fast-paced meat grinder that is FALLING. If you are eager for a more durable deck, here are a few ideas you can try. Method 1: Labels on Playing Cards You will print the cards on full-sheet labels and affix them to a deck of playing cards. Full-sheet mailing labels are great. Get white ones, not clear, suitable for your type of printer. You can get them at any office supply store for about 25 each (in packs) and they will be very handy for making cards and game boards. Print the six card sheets on full-sheet labels. Cut them at the edge of the artwork (don t leave the white border). You will be applying these labels to cards. The better the cards, the happier you will be. Good playing cards have rounded corners, laminated stock, and a textured finish that keeps them from sticking together. You can buy a new poker deck for around $3, or you can find canceled casino cards for around $1. Some casinos and card rooms give away their canceled decks, so keep your eyes open. Make sure that the cards are poker sized (2.5 x 3.5) and not bridge sized (slightly narrower). Trading card games are usually printed on poker-sized cards, and sometimes your game store will have a blowout price on these cards. Sometimes they are even free. Compare the price of 54 singles to the $3 you d pay for a new poker deck, and decide accordingly. Apply the cut labels to the card fronts. Your cards should now be fairly easy to shuffle and deal. The downside of this method is that the artwork on the labels will tend to wear off fairly easily. You will probably want to skip the card backs, since adding another label to the back of the card will make the deck harder to shuffle. Method 2: Card Sleeves Some people like using card sleeves. I don t have much experience playing FALLING with them; the original playtest decks were made using the label method. But you may find that this solution works. Card sleeves for trading card games are sized for a 2.5 x 3.5 card. To build this deck, print the cards on plain paper (thicker paper helps keep the images bright). Cut them down to 2.5 x 3.5, keeping the white borders on the cards. Again, you probably won t have much use for the card backs. Sleeve each card with a poker card or trading card to give it stiffness. This deck may be slightly more durable than the label deck described above, depending on the quality of your card sleeves. Method 3: Custom Deck Printing Some print-on-demand services offer playing cards with custom fronts and backs. One of these is Arts Cow, in Hong Kong, at You can upload a full deck of images and print a single copy for about $15. That s 10 for the deck, and another 5 for the shipping. We have posted a link from the FALLING page at Cheapass.com ( to the FALLING project at Arts Cow. If you want to create the project yourself, a master image for each of the FALLING cards is at the FALLING page at cheapass.com. The deck recipe is: One reminder: Whatever it costs you to print this deck, even if you use our project at artscow, we don t get a nickel of it. We still rely on your donations to keep the business running. Method 4: Find a Copy! Skip: 12 Hit: 12 Split: 5 Extra: 5 Push: 4 Grab: 5 Stop: 6 Ground: 5 The original game hasn t been out of print for that long, and there are still some versions for sale. I mean, seriously, why pay $15 for a custom deck when someone at Amazon is selling the original for $7.50? The editions pictured below are the original version (out of print), the Polish version, and the Paizo Goblin Edition (still in print as of 2011). Of course, when you buy a used copy of the game we don t get any piece of that. So, like we said above, keep those happy thoughts coming our way.