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Reminiscent of Mafia/Werewolf, All Fall Down is a short book of rules and suggestions for playing children in a village struck down by an unspecified plague. Throughout the game the children accumulate counters representing sickness and depression, both of which can be deadly. Each day they can stay inside or go out to play. Playing with the other children will let you shake off depression but makes you more prone to sickness. Staying in alone protects you from the plague, but you'll quickly rack up depression. At the end of each day, each player rolls to see if his or her child survives the night. The last child alive is the winner.
So far, then, this is a simple game of resource management and risk assessment, with a rather bleak flavour. What I haven't mentioned yet, however, is the storytelling. At the end of each day, one player (chosen at random initially, then going around the group) gets to tell a story about the children playing that day. The players involved then vote on whether the story was good or bad. Telling a good story lets the storyteller get rid of tokens; telling a bad story leads to gaining them. Oddly, a tie penalises everyone, presumably for failing to make a decision.
The criteria for 'good' and 'bad' stories are left entirely up to the voting players, although there are certain lapses which lead to a story being automatically bad. For example, failing to mention a particular child is a no-no. If the designated storyteller doesn't go out to play with the others, he or she doesn't get to tell a story, so nobody is ever forced to do so, but the potential gains make it an attractive prospect.
It's a great idea; a roleplaying party game with an atmosphere both morbid and whimsical. I suspect it would go down well at a gaming get-together over Hallowe'en. However, there are issues. Some of the rules in the main text seem more like options. The default counter management system, involving moving counters from your left to your right and vice versa, is fiddly and requires careful reading of the rules text.
A suggested alternate system has a central pot from which players gain and lose counters. This is more intuitive, and presenting this as the default would clear up the writing a great deal. One other small suggestion I'd make is to have players roll for survival in a set order, say clockwise from the storyteller, so that the game always has a winner.
As you can tell, the game can be easily adjusted to personal taste. This is both a strength and a weakness. A strength because you can tweak it to fit your group; a weakness because the game reads in places like a collection of house rules. An edited 'core' version, stripped of this ambiguity, could probably go onto a single page and be accompanied by additional pages covering the options.
A guarded recommendation, then. If you like Werewolf and are looking for a game in a similar vein, and don't mind putting in a little work on the way, then you'll probably enjoy this. If you want length or clear organisation, you might want to steer clear. If you even think it sounds interesting, though, pick it up. For two bucks, play it once and you've got your money's worth.
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The concept and the mood.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The general feel of being not quite finished.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>
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