Wallenstein, Once Upon a Time, Carcassonne
Friday, February 11th, 2005I pulled this out for the first time with my regular gaming group and got none of the usual grumbling about learning new rules. The guys were impressed by the quality of the components and the cube tower. We only had time to play for the first year, but it got a very warm reception.
It looks like I have converted my historical miniatures gaming friend, at least partially, to €urogames. He went into a shop in Manchester the other week and bought Once Upon A Time and Carcassonne. I read about Once Upon A Time at The Ideal Games Library years ago, but never picked it up.
It is basically a party game, which works best for two. The idea is that you are given a hand of cards with fairy tale plot elements on it, for example: queen, tower, sword, two people fall in love, a death, cursed, long-lost, frog. There are also special cards, called interrupt cards. You are also given a single “Happily Ever After” card, for example: “the king relented and allowed them to marry, so they lived happily ever after”. The start player begins telling a fairy story and discards a card whenever one of the plot elements on their cards comes up. The aim is to discard all your cards and finish the story with the plot ending on your “Happily Ever After” card, which is not easy and you have to plan ahead. The other players can interrupt your story and continue it themselves if they have a card that matches an element in your story or if one of their interrupt cards matches the type of card just played, which is much easier. There are special voting rules to stop things getting out of hand, which is inevitable in a chaotic, silly game like this.
It is a clever game requiring you to manage your opponents artfully and it is fun if you like extreme silliness, but it is not really my cup of tea. I think I would prefer it with two, as stories would be more coherent. Ness enjoyed herself and said it would be a good game for children to teaching them confidence with story telling. I agree, but think an adult should be on hand to stop feelings being hurt when things get rowdy. At least I can add another game Ness enjoys to my collection – altruistically of course.
I still do not understand Carcassonne’s popularity. At least my friend and his partner enjoy it. Coincidentally, just as he bought this, Ness was researching a holiday around Carcassonne, so we could all go together this summer.