Once Upon a Time: Dark Tales

by Steve Jackson Games

Product Features

• An Expansion for the Fairy Tale Storytelling Card Game
• Explore the grim side of your stories with the addition of the Dark Tales expansion to your Once Upon a Time storytelling card game.
• The 56 cards included in the set are designed to be mixed in with the original Once Upon a Time game, to provide new story elements and endings.
• In these stories, trolls lurk under every footbridge, inconsolable wraiths search for their lost loves, fiends tempt the innocent, and evil stepmothers serve up children in tasty stews
• Not every fairy tale has a happy ending...Expands:* Once Upon a Time.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: 1589780604
• Item model number: 1003
• Manufacturer recommended age: 8 months and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #113,034 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Product Description

Product Description

Explore the grim side of your stories with the addition of the Dark Tales expansion to your Once Upon a Time storytelling card game. The 56 cards included in the set are designed to be mixed in with the original Once Upon a Time game, to provide new story elements and endings. In these stories, trolls lurk under every footbridge, inconsolable wraiths search for their lost loves, fiends tempt the innocent, and evil stepmothers serve up children in tasty stews.

Not every fairy tale has a happy ending...

Product Description

Explore the grim side of your stories with the addition of the Dark Tales expansion to your Once Upon a Time storytelling card game. The 56 cards included in the set are designed to be mixed in with the original Once Upon a Time game, to provide new story elements and endings. In these stories, trolls lurk under every footbridge, inconsolable wraiths search for their lost loves, fiends tempt the innocent, and evil stepmothers serve up children in tasty stews.

Not every fairy tale has a happy ending...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A scam, September 7, 2007

By 

David Zeboulon - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Once Upon a Time: Dark Tales (Toy)

Though I love the Once Upon a Time game, I just received the extention and i'm a bit annoyed i spent 10 bucks on this terrible set. Way to rip us off: the title "Dark Tales" is the only clue left by the makers to indicate it's supposed to be a dark extention.

Of course it wouldn't have sold if the title was "Boring Totally Random Tales". Thats what the cards allow, though.

It says on the box "these stories, trolls lurk under every footbridge, inconsolable wraiths search for their lost loves, fiends tempt the innocent, and evil stepmothers serve up children in tasty stews."

Just so you get objective information before you decide weather or not to buy it: there is no "troll" card, no "wraith" card, no "lost love" card, no "inconsolable" card, no "temptation" card, no "evil stepmother" card. (But there is a fiend. hurray.)

Cards you WILL find, though are such gems of creativity as "market", "day", "guard", "farm animal" (not kidding), "brave", "a cure", "in bed", "clothes", "a command", "farmer" (I guess the "farm animal" was lonely), "farm" (duh), "idle", "a barrier", "someone faints" (ouuuuuh) "empty", "sad" (awwwww) .... etc. etc.

To be honest, you won't find more than 4 actually dark cards in there.


As a small consolation, the "end" cards are good. For the rest, i'll have to use the blank cards and rely on my questionable artwork. I suggest you do the same, unless you have an interest about stories of farmers being idle with their farm animals in their farm, sad because the clothes from the market were stolen by a guard.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars By "dark" did they mean bland?, February 22, 2011

By 

Danielle Lavoie (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Once Upon a Time: Dark Tales (Toy)

Someone else on here (David Zeboulon) actually pointed out the deficits of this expansion pack perfectly. I am just writing to back them up (and address one other point). I wish I had read their review before I purchased this pack elsewhere. The other two reviews on here seem to be for the main game and not the dark tales expansion pack. My negative review is directed at the exansion pack itself (not the game it supports).

I love to create stories and I am always a sucker for a nice dark fairy tale. The summary for this expansion pack piqued my interest and seemed like a great way to add some spice to the main game. "In these stories, trolls lurk under every footbridge, inconsolable wraiths search for their lost loves, fiends tempt the innocent, and evil stepmothers serve up children in tasty stews."

You can't find 99.5% of that in the deck. The only word that makes an appearance on a card is fiend. That's it. In fact, the most interesting poissibilities are found on "interrupt" cards so basically you'll find yourself hoping another player will be cool enough to come up with the ideas on their own rather than having cards that inspire the storyteller to go in that direction (I know you can use interrupts as regular cards, but there are so few.). There are a number of cards about farms and other basic and ordinary apsects or objects. So yeah, you can expand the game a little I guess, but not in the way you are pobably looking to if you are buying the "dark tales" expansion pack. It isn't really worth the money.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good imagination generation, March 17, 2010

By 

C. SHEN (SLC, Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Once Upon a Time: Dark Tales (Toy)

Like Pictionary is for drawing, this game is great for encouraging players to exercise their story-telling skills while having fun along the way. I play this with my three sons (ages 8/10/13) and we have a blast as we laugh at the crazy stories we create. We don't follow every last rule, but for us that's not the point (so I can't say how satisfying this game would be if you're the competitive type).

The artwork and card stock are both of good quality. If you like games like charades/20 questions/Pictionary, you should consider giving this game a try.