Downfall is what I would call a casual game. You can put some thought into the game but it isn’t a brain burner. It is probably best when you just play it and see who ends up winning the game. I had some fun with the game and it would be something I would play occasionally if someone else wanted to play the game. Downfall does have some problems though. I mentioned semi-simultaneous turns because, even though the rulebook says you can do most actions simultaneously, in practice that only works for a few of the actions. Any action that requires a player to move to new tiles or, more importantly, discover hidden tiles can't really be performed unless all players are paying attention because it's important for all players to see what has been discovered as resources are so scarce, and doubly important once players start to expand their territory and bump into the territory of other players. For your first couple of games it will be impossible to tell where the other player’s discs are on a particular dial. Since both sides are not lined up with one another there is no way to tell where a disc is positioned on the other player’s side of the gameboard. The only way to know where the discs are located is to play the game often enough that you have memorized the differences between the two sides of the gameboard. Even if you have memorized both sides of the gameboard you could still have a hard time remembering all of the locations of the discs. Basically if you don’t play the game frequently enough to memorize the other side of the board, Downfall becomes a guessing game. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it may drive people nuts who want more control over the outcome of the game.

Hour 42 Minute Video Interview from Bonding with Board Games with John Butterfield (Downfall discussion starts at 39:30) The tiles are quite large, and a different mix is used based on player count. Even though each tile is sizable some of them can be split into as many as 3 separate spaces, which can lead to some component crowding.Thematically this game is an absolute winner. So if you are a fan of post-apocalyptic dread, you don't mind the likelihood that the board won't offer perfect balance to each player, and you like 4X games but don't often have 4+ hours to spend playing them then Downfall just might be your irradiated cup of tea. Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich Preview 4 — Action Rounds Continue, by Bob Heinzmann and John Butterfield

As a whole Downfall is a pretty simple game. The rules take minutes to read and about the same amount of time to explain to new players. The game has a recommended age of 7+. I think children under the age of seven could play the game as they shouldn’t have any trouble understanding the rules. I think the age of 7+ is due to younger children not understanding the strategy behind the game. Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich Preview 3 — The Soviet Offensive Continues, by Bob Heinzmann and John Butterfield On top of contending with the omnipresent radiation, players have to find enough food to feed their survivors, and stone, oil, and metal to fight the radiation, build shelters and units, and research new technologies. Resources can be hard to come by, and it can be difficult to feed all of your people (and it gets progressively harder as the game moves forward) so the game really feels like a struggle for survival in a deadly world, even when you don't take the other players into account.The copy of Downfall used for this review was provided by Tasty Minstrel Games . Where's the score? The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted.

What initially drew me to Downfall is the idea behind the game seemed unique and something that I had not seen in other games that I have played. I don’t think I have ever played a game before where you use gears/wheels to move discs from the start to the finish. The game’s premise is probably the game’s greatest strength. The idea of two players/teams playing against one another without knowing anything about the other player’s/team’s gameboard layout is an interesting idea. Any move you make could end up helping your opponent as much as it helps you.

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I really don’t think anyone will want to play the game frequently enough to memorize the other side of the gameboard and I don’t know why you would want to. If you have memorized the other side of the gameboard, I don’t think the game would be that fun anymore. Most of the fun comes from not exactly knowing what is happening on the other side of the gameboard. It is somewhat exciting to turn a wheel not knowing whether you will end up dropping one of your opponent’s discs helping them out. It is also interesting watching the other player/team’s turn to see if they are going to help you out. You like games with randomized setup, but don't mind that the randomization can also lead to imbalance.