Once Upon a Tower helps kids practice and improve the following skills:

Time Management

Being efficient and aware of our use of time and effort.

This game has a lot of items that are repetitive (like shooting fireballs), as well as things like soil that will disappear if the princess stands on it too long. This means that the player needs to exercise their time management skills--specifically, they need to practice keeping pace and estimating deadlines. The player needs to know how fast the princess can move and how fast the enemies or fireballs can move, and how fast they can move in relation to each other. If they can't figure out these "deadlines" and keep pace with them, they will end up getting hit or falling through the soil to a spike. This means they die and they can no longer save up fireflies. They will also have to start over at level one.

Working Memory

Recalling and retaining information in our minds while working.

There are several things in this game that require the player to exercise working memory skills. First, the player needs to remember that the dragon exists and can shoot his flame through the barred windows.  Second, the player needs to remember which enemies stand still and which can run after them. Third, there are the challenges. The player needs to remember what they are in order to do the required actions, complete the challenges, and earn the reward for them. Finally, the player needs to remember which elements of their surroundings are safe and which might dissolve or shoot things at the princess.