Clunk, clunk, clunk! (Hasbro Downfall)

Member Name: mreyre

Product:	Hasbro Downfall
Date:	06/02/02 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: clunky noise as the discs fall down the hole, keeps older children quiet for about 10 minutes, cheap at car boot sales!

Disadvantages: older children learn the sequences (but not older teachers!!), doesn't play a tune, not available on Sky TV or Playstation (as yet)

My wife actually bought this board game last week from a car boot sale for the paltry sum of £1. “What did you buy that for?” I inquired. She replied that she had always wanted the game as a child, but was never allowed to have it. Strange reason for not ever possessing this game, and an even stranger reason for parting with a quid, I thought, but there we go!

By a strange coincidence, “Downfall” was a game which I never had as a child either – Monopoly - yes,
Buckaroo - yes,
Ker-plunk – yes,
but Downfall – no.
In fact, I was definitely a “Connect 4” kid at school and could beat anyone else during wet playtimes!

Downfall is a rather bizarre concept of a game. The playing board is quite a unique design, reminiscent of several bank vault-type safe locks which you have to turn. The object of the game is to get all of your pieces from the top of an upright board to the bottom, by turning wheels which hold the pieces in specially designed grooves. You are in control of two particular colours and your opponent is in control of the other two. Ideally, you should place the discs in numerical order in the grooves at the top of the grid so that they fall in numerical order at the bottom.

Now what makes this game all the more tricky is that the grooves are different on each side of the board, so that when you turn your wheel, this may either help or hinder your opponent. The “clunks” as the discs drop through are satisfying when it happens on your side, whilst disheartening on the other side!

One other reviewer on this section states that older children will memorize where the grooves are so will soon get tired of the game. Well, this may be, but I’m 27 years of age and haven’t worked it out yet! However I haven’t been playing the game long, so I’ll let you know! I do think that you have to be about 8 years old to really appreciate
this game for the skill involved. The problem here being that 8 year olds in 2002 are not like 8 year olds 20 years ago when I was 8. They are much more into Playstations and DVD’s than to worry about turning some wheels to make some little plastic round things fall down a hole.

Sad really, innit?

Summary: