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Why we should play more "Once Upon A Time" on Wed Oct 08, 2008 2:36 am
Sweetslut
Admin
The Storytelling Card Game
Why should we play more of "Once Upon A Time" ? I think its a fun game that can find its place in gamers' and non-gamers' playing table and collection, but of coz there are always people who think its crap.
Its fun cos players tell stories in this cute little card game.
Its crap coz not many people like to talk and this game sucks with them.
Its fun cos stories are random, surprising and very funny!
Its crap coz not some people jz think storying telling is for kids, and they are better off playing analytic paralysical games to show how smart they are.
It fun coz players can geninuely show how talented they are in the game against people who think its kiddish.
So far, i have three reasons against two ones, which means the game must be really good. Ok, this is a lame intro and all these justifications so far is really circular thinking: Mouse eat cheese, cheese get eaten by mouse, so mouse eat cheese, and cheese eaten by mouse. My sincere apologies, but if you have read so far into this crappy introduction, you are really made up of good genetic material to enjoy the game. So please allow me to further convince you that "Once Upon A Time" is an underrated game in my games collection that ought to see more play (Hint hint). MuahahAHahAH 
What the Game is about
The game has a fairy-tale like kinda of theme, cool enough to make imaginative players go crazy, yet interesting enough to poke that funny bone of an analytical player. This is a card game, any number of players can play, but its really conducive among 4 to 6 players in my opinion so that creative gene gets fairly healthy amount of work in all players' head
Players start with a hand of playing cards, these cards represent characters, items, places, events, and aspects(describing words;adjectives etc) which you need to play eventually to end the game. Its that simple! These gaming cards have nice pictures that gives me a good feeling of participation; having the 'cottage' card for example, leads me into constant thinking that i need to link the current story to 'cottage' no matter how far-fetched it is. The first player starts by saying "Once Upon A Time, there is ....." and trys to play his cards. So you can basically imagine players taking turns to play their cards and adding material to the story, if they stammered or failed to make convincing connections between cards, their turn ends and they have to draw another gaming card as a penalty and allow the player to the left to continue with the story.
The intelligent twist is that all players are given a separate 'game ending card' which specifies how each player should end their story. For example, a person with the card: " So they promised never to fight again", need to play out his cards on his turn based on the story so far and try to make a connection to why the important characters mentioned in the story 'promised never to fight again' once he finishing his hand of cards. In addition, players can intercept gaming turns if their one of their gaming cards ever gets mentioned during another player's turn. Yes, if your 'shepherdness' and met the 'wiched' 'witch' at the 'cottage', i get to play the 'cottage' card immediately and take over the turn How wiched can this be? To make gameplay more interactive, there are 'interrupt' cards that allow players to intercept easily outside their turn. Coolness.....
Memorable experiences of playing "Once Upon a Time"
There are three separate gaming experience i would like you to take home with you:
1. First gaming session on "Once Upon A Time"
2. Game session among a group of cafe customers
3. Chapman's humorous solitary play
1. First gaming session on "Once Upon A Time"
I rem the first time i was taught the game. It was late at the cafe, a weekend shift ends in exhaustion in all remaining playes who decided to stay one last game before we called it a day, and that game is "Once Upon A Time". If i could recall properly, we had interesting players like Kyla, Karen, and a few other players. Most importantly, we had Javen to be our game host. Javen started the game, introducing a few characters, the places the characters met and so on, watching the eloquent gamer talk is enjoyable, if not hilarious. HaHA.
Unfortunately, it was also the time Javen likes telling pornagraphic jokes, and there was a great amount of silliness and sexuality between the story characters. Out of no where, the characters have sex, the main character found some sperm, then have sex, go to a weird place, and have more sex.
We spend more time laughing then thinking of playing our cards. Of course, Javen managed to play his entire hand through the nonsensical connections and won eventually. While this first session is shrouded in adult content, it was a unique gaming experience. How often do you get RA (really amusing) content within a game?
2. Game session among a group of cafe customers
Subsequently, i had other creative moments with the game and develop a liking for the game's imagination and interactivity. I had to introduce it the cafe customers, and introduce i did, to a group of casual players during a small gaming event. The players were around my age, and they are colleagues in the same company. I clicked reasonably with the group for me to pull out "Once Upon A Time" as the event ending game. Hee, i rem telling them this: "I hoped you all enjoyed the event, now you can have a story to take home too. Share this amazing story with those that were absent today!"
The group cooked up a story that was reasonable at times and boring at times. However, the story come to a point where the princess had to move out of the castle to visit the witch in search of a cure for the king. She flew on the magic carpet but made a pact with witch. In exchange for the cure, she had to accomplish a mission by visiting the forest. However, her was interrupted by a thief that was eventually revealed to be her lost brother at birth. Cant rem the rest of the story, but it was commendable that even aunties outside the group got so interested that they shared the gaming cards with active players.
To me, this is a huge success. How often can you get auntie to play? OMFGreatnessuperbrilliantangorangevilness in a 30 buck card game! What does it mean by OMFGreatnessuperbrilliantangorange? I dun noe, coz i am trying to make connections with the words that come to my mind, but i think u SMART gamers out there get wat i mean
3. Chapman's humorous solitary play
Lastly, this is also a gd solitary game, as proven by Chapman on many occasions. I shared my gd experiences about the game with him on some occasions, telling him how much the customers liked it, and he was ever eager to prove that it is silly, despite being fun on many occasions. At the table was samuel, a few more players and myself chatting after a few nice games. Chapman picked up "Once Upon A Time" and started to babble. it went something like:
Once upon a time, there was an old man that went to a contest, and in that contest, they have to use an axe to make people happy. What the old man dun know about the content is that it is a trap in the cottage where the contest was held. The parents in the cottage had a child that was mysteriously transformed into the old man's brother. He was disguised as a poisoned contestent that did not reveal himself to the old man, because the princess of the city was cursed and it is the death of the king that prompted him to this contest.......
While chapman did not actually make the story above,it was similar in nature. He drew and added the gaming card to the story also instaneously, working through all the cards in less than a two minutes. And mind you, there are 112 gaming cards of various events, characters, items etc. I never saw Samuel laughed heartier than this time. I made up the above story to illustrate what he did, and if you care, you can attempt to guess what cards i used in the story
(Hint: 17 cards were used).
My Game Ending Card
In closing, i hope you can find a chance to bring this game to the table! I had fond memories of it among gamers and non-gamers alike, group or solitary play (Chappie), and between a player and observer's position. If you have also being an observer at many occasions because of a fear in speaking up or looking silly, i say that you give it up and give the game a try! Be a player, and be a good story teller! Stories and gaming sessions never end the same way. If you ever need a tension-breaking games between casual and analytic gamers, you can always introduce "Once Upon A Time", so they promised never to fight again.
Cheers!
Why should we play more of "Once Upon A Time" ? I think its a fun game that can find its place in gamers' and non-gamers' playing table and collection, but of coz there are always people who think its crap.
Its fun cos players tell stories in this cute little card game. Its crap coz not many people like to talk and this game sucks with them. Its fun cos stories are random, surprising and very funny! Its crap coz not some people jz think storying telling is for kids, and they are better off playing analytic paralysical games to show how smart they are. It fun coz players can geninuely show how talented they are in the game against people who think its kiddish. So far, i have three
reasons against two ones, which means the game must be really good. Ok, this is a lame intro and all these justifications so far is really circular thinking: Mouse eat cheese, cheese get eaten by mouse, so mouse eat cheese, and cheese eaten by mouse. My sincere apologies, but if you have read so far into this crappy introduction, you are really made up of good genetic material to enjoy the game. So please allow me to further convince you that "Once Upon A Time" is an underrated game in my games collection that ought to see more play (Hint hint). MuahahAHahAH What the Game is about
The game has a fairy-tale like kinda of theme, cool enough to make imaginative players go crazy, yet interesting enough to poke that funny bone of an analytical player. This is a card game, any number of players can play, but its really conducive among 4 to 6 players in my opinion so that creative gene gets fairly healthy amount of work in all players' head
Players start with a hand of playing cards, these cards represent characters, items, places, events, and aspects(describing words;adjectives etc) which you need to play eventually to end the game. Its that simple! These gaming cards have nice pictures that gives me a good feeling of participation; having the 'cottage' card for example, leads me into constant thinking that i need to link the current story to 'cottage' no matter how far-fetched it is. The first player starts by saying "Once Upon A Time, there is ....." and trys to play his cards. So you can basically imagine players taking turns to play their cards and adding material to the story, if they stammered or failed to make convincing connections between cards, their turn ends and they have to draw another gaming card as a penalty and allow the player to the left to continue with the story.
The intelligent twist is that all players are given a separate 'game ending card' which specifies how each player should end their story. For example, a person with the card: " So they promised never to fight again", need to play out his cards on his turn based on the story so far and try to make a connection to why the important characters mentioned in the story 'promised never to fight again' once he finishing his hand of cards. In addition, players can intercept gaming turns if their one of their gaming cards ever gets mentioned during another player's turn. Yes, if your 'shepherdness' and met the 'wiched' 'witch' at the 'cottage', i get to play the 'cottage' card immediately and take over the turn
How wiched can this be? To make gameplay more interactive, there are 'interrupt' cards that allow players to intercept easily outside their turn. Coolness.....Memorable experiences of playing "Once Upon a Time"
There are three separate gaming experience i would like you to take home with you:
1. First gaming session on "Once Upon A Time"
2. Game session among a group of cafe customers
3. Chapman's humorous solitary play
1. First gaming session on "Once Upon A Time"
I rem the first time i was taught the game. It was late at the cafe, a weekend shift ends in exhaustion in all remaining playes who decided to stay one last game before we called it a day, and that game is "Once Upon A Time". If i could recall properly, we had interesting players like Kyla, Karen, and a few other players. Most importantly, we had Javen to be our game host. Javen started the game, introducing a few characters, the places the characters met and so on, watching the eloquent gamer talk is enjoyable, if not hilarious. HaHA.
Unfortunately, it was also the time Javen likes telling pornagraphic jokes, and there was a great amount of silliness and sexuality between the story characters. Out of no where, the characters have sex, the main character found some sperm, then have sex, go to a weird place, and have more sex.
We spend more time laughing then thinking of playing our cards. Of course, Javen managed to play his entire hand through the nonsensical connections and won eventually. While this first session is shrouded in adult content, it was a unique gaming experience. How often do you get RA (really amusing) content within a game? 2. Game session among a group of cafe customers
Subsequently, i had other creative moments with the game and develop a liking for the game's imagination and interactivity. I had to introduce it the cafe customers, and introduce i did, to a group of casual players during a small gaming event. The players were around my age, and they are colleagues in the same company. I clicked reasonably with the group for me to pull out "Once Upon A Time" as the event ending game. Hee, i rem telling them this: "I hoped you all enjoyed the event, now you can have a story to take home too. Share this amazing story with those that were absent today!"
The group cooked up a story that was reasonable at times and boring at times. However, the story come to a point where the princess had to move out of the castle to visit the witch in search of a cure for the king. She flew on the magic carpet but made a pact with witch. In exchange for the cure, she had to accomplish a mission by visiting the forest. However, her was interrupted by a thief that was eventually revealed to be her lost brother at birth. Cant rem the rest of the story, but it was commendable that even aunties outside the group got so interested that they shared the gaming cards with active players.
To me, this is a huge success. How often can you get auntie to play? OMFGreatnessuperbrilliantangorangevilness in a 30 buck card game! What does it mean by OMFGreatnessuperbrilliantangorange? I dun noe, coz i am trying to make connections with the words that come to my mind, but i think u SMART gamers out there get wat i mean
3. Chapman's humorous solitary play
Lastly, this is also a gd solitary game, as proven by Chapman on many occasions. I shared my gd experiences about the game with him on some occasions, telling him how much the customers liked it, and he was ever eager to prove that it is silly, despite being fun on many occasions. At the table was samuel, a few more players and myself chatting after a few nice games. Chapman picked up "Once Upon A Time" and started to babble. it went something like:
Once upon a time, there was an old man that went to a contest, and in that contest, they have to use an axe to make people happy. What the old man dun know about the content is that it is a trap in the cottage where the contest was held. The parents in the cottage had a child that was mysteriously transformed into the old man's brother. He was disguised as a poisoned contestent that did not reveal himself to the old man, because the princess of the city was cursed and it is the death of the king that prompted him to this contest.......
While chapman did not actually make the story above,it was similar in nature. He drew and added the gaming card to the story also instaneously, working through all the cards in less than a two minutes. And mind you, there are 112 gaming cards of various events, characters, items etc. I never saw Samuel laughed heartier than this time. I made up the above story to illustrate what he did, and if you care, you can attempt to guess what cards i used in the story
(Hint: 17 cards were used). My Game Ending Card
In closing, i hope you can find a chance to bring this game to the table! I had fond memories of it among gamers and non-gamers alike, group or solitary play (Chappie), and between a player and observer's position. If you have also being an observer at many occasions because of a fear in speaking up or looking silly, i say that you give it up and give the game a try! Be a player, and be a good story teller! Stories and gaming sessions never end the same way. If you ever need a tension-breaking games between casual and analytic gamers, you can always introduce "Once Upon A Time", so they promised never to fight again.
Cheers!
Last edited by Sweetslut on Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:43 pm; edited 3 times in total
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never tot of using it to play tarrots. nice idea.
