[6] Each player is dealt a hand of cards that represent story elements: objects, people, events, and "aspects" often involved in fairy tales (for instance, there are cards for "crown", "key", "stepmother", "a death", "time passes", "sleeping", et cetera).

[4][5][7] Richard Lambert created the concept of the game, and together with James Wallis and Andrew Rilstone, developed Once Upon a Time in 1990.

[12] Writing for the British games magazine Arcane, Zy Nicholson commented that "Although I'm well aware that the first edition (now sold out) did receive some rave reviews, I'm going to award this a respectable but cautious score."

British author and game designer Marc Gascoigne explained that Once Upon a Time is "one of the best ways I ever found to grab a non-gamer by their imagination and fling them into our world".

[18] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted, "The game is straightforward, charming, plays fast, and, because almost everyone is famialir with fairy tales, it is welcoming to players of all experience levels."

Horvath did note that a major problem was the issue of "stage fright, but commented, "the cards mitigate storytelling paralysis by guiding players to the words they need to use.