Once Upon A Time

Customer Reviews

Fun for the creative minded Review by MC

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Don't let the unstructured game play hold you back. This is actually pretty fun. The rules of the game (what card came be played in that moment) really depends consensus of the group playing. It is difficult to not side track from the main story as well as making sense when trying to use your element cards.

If you have a book smart friend that thinks he/she's all that, try pulling this out and see how they fair. This game is great for individuals with creativity and a free flow mind. Making sense (all members agree) and entertaining the other players will be the key in winning this game.
(Posted on 2/22/10)

Story telling party game Review by Murray

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If you have a group of creative and eloquent friends, this is an excellent game for you. In Once Upon a Time, players take turns telling parts of a story. As a player continues a story, he can lay down a maximum of one story element card per sentence from his hand. The goal is to use all the element cards and then get the story to the happy ending card that the player is holding.

However, other players can interrupt the current player. If the current player mentioned something in his story that is on the story element card of another player, that player can play that card from their hand and interrupt them. The current player will then draw a new story element card to his hand and the interrupting player will get to continue the story. The current player can also opt to pass his turn or be voted out of his turn if the other players agree that he is rambling, taking too long, or moving the story in a silly direction.

The quality of the game is entirely dependent on your gaming group. If you have a clever and quick witted bunch, then games will typically be fun. However, it is usually the case that one or two players will run away with the show and the experience will feel less like a game and more like a single person telling a joke in a conversation.

The game would work well for a drama class or as an icebreaker, but as an actual game to bring out during a game session, it is very weak. (Posted on 2/18/10)

Once Upon A Time is a storytelling card game. The aim of the game is to use all the story element cards provided to you and finish with the Happy Ending as described in your Happy Ending card. This is a favorite of my gaming group because of the potential Review by TR

Quality
Price
Value

Once Upon A Time is a storytelling card game. The aim of the game is to use all the story element cards provided to you and finish with the Happy Ending as described in your Happy Ending card. This is a favorite of my gaming group because of the potential for hilarity, the quick game play (normally) and lack of competitiveness.

Appearance-: Good. The card stock is fine, the packaging is nice and sturdy and the actual images fit the theme well. Most seem to be drawn from classic children’s story tales, with the same look and feel. Nothing spectacular but nothing that draws away from the theme either.

Rules / Ease of Learning: 5-10 minutes for the basic rules. The rules are relatively simple to learn – you have story element cards that are dealt to you (varies per number of players) and a Happy Ending card that is your goal. Story elements come in 6 forms – characters, aspects, items, places, events and interrupts. You then tell your story, trying to weave the story elements into your story while not allowing other players to play their story element cards into your story. Your goal is to finish your story with your ‘Happy Ending’ but cannot introduce any new elements to the story when you have played your last card.

Two major rules dominate the game – significance of an element and pauses. Each story element you introduce via a card must be significant. If a story began with a Prince walking pass a forest, the Prince would be an important story element. The forest would not since he is not interacting with it. The game calls for the story to be passed to the next player if the storyteller pauses for more than 5 seconds. As will be discussed below, this is really a flexible rule.

Actual Gameplay – Once Upon A Time is a lot of fun to play. The rules are relatively simple and straightforward-, though it has taken us a few rounds to really get the ‘feel’ for it. Probably the most common question is – is this specific card playable now as an interrupt? It seems simple enough, but there are cards in the deck that are quite close to one another in meaning – Spell, Curse, Enchantment. If someone says that the Princess has been Enchanted, is your ‘Spell’ element card playable? What if they had said cursed?

All in all, our view is that the rules here are based more on consensus than anything hard and fast. Thus far, we’ve never had any major complaints and as a friend pointed out – this is really not a competitive game.

Game balance is relatively good. The main element of luck is the initial draw of cards which can seriously affect a player’s turn. Some cards like Poison, Giant, Fairy, Sea just aren’t going to be mentioned that often or at all unless you are in control. So their worth as ‘interrupt’ cards are limited. Also, some Happy Endings are really hard to get to, though this can obviously change depending on the kind of story being told.

One problem that we found is that players who are interrupted when they have played most of their cards can be in a real bind to get into the game. If a ‘bad’ story element card is drawn after the interrupt, it can often be a case of the player waiting in vain for his chance to interrupt.

Lastly, strategic depth. There are obvious elements of strategy (when to interrupt, when to go with a story) but it is in the end a very tactical game. You need to base your decisions on where the story is going at any one moment, more ‘going with the flow’ than long term planning. After all, it’s hard to plan for a gay Prince or cursed sheep that transform into swords.

Actual game-play can vary between 5 minutes to 15 minutes. Generally we find it takes between 7-10 minutes for each hand, though some games can just go around forever as players find themselves unable to get to their ‘Happy Endings’.

Conclusion: As we mentioned earlier, Once Upon A Time is a mainstay. It’s a fun, quick game that involves everyone – if nothing more than in the hilarity. We’ve found ourselves, more than once, just listening to a story being told and forgetting to play our cards. It’s also highly non-competitive (at least, the way we’ve played it). A great game for the family and any mildly creative group. (Posted on 12/5/08)