Step into the world of fairy tales in Once Upon a Time. It's full of wicked queens, talking cauldrons, and lucky boys who happen to stumble upon magic objects. But unlike traditional fairy tales, you control the action. 

Tell the story using elements from your cards and try to steer the conclusion toward your hidden ending. But beware — other players can take over if you mention something on one of their cards, or if you get stuck and are unable to go on.

The result? A fairy tale that could be funny, tragic, fantastical, or all three in turns. A distinctive play experience where the members of the table work together to tell a story all their own. A unique tale that happens once upon a time…

Staff Recommendation

"In this great, competitive, story-telling game players draw 11 Story Element cards minus the number of players as well as one Ending card. Your goal is to tell a story using your Story Element cards to construct your narrative. Every time you mention an item that is on a Story Element card, you can discard that card down on the table, until you are out of cards. When you have put down all of your Story Element cards, you can then place your Ending card and win the game...But, there's a catch. If your story mentions something that is on another player's Story Element card, they can interrupt and take over the story to start getting rid of their hand. Other players can also interrupt when the storyteller is clearly rambling or running out of story material or if they have a special Interrupt Story Card. It's a game that is both super fun for a group of adults, as well as a great game for kids and families. It's a personal favorite of mine, and has the added benefit of playing really quickly, since players are trying to improv their stories before they can get interrupted. However, you are all ultimately collaborating to bring a story to some sort of intelligible ending, which is a huge reason why it's a favorite as well.

Who is this for? If you have kids roughly ages 8+ who love story-telling, as well as competitive games, then this one is great. Though, in all honesty, the game is flexible enough that you could make your own cooperative rules up for it. It already has some options for playing it cooperatively built into the base rules, though they aren't explicitly phrased as fully such."