Review

Skinny Models! Scarcity of clothes!

Pret-a-porter

Scriping at fashion shows?

Fashion shows usually shine with thin people and scare clothing; are fashion companies hard put to find sufficient financial means to provide textiles and proper sustenance for their employees? At long last, this game addresses itself to this question and answers it with a resounding YES!

We are responsible for directing fashion companies competing with each other - and, in point of fact, scrimping is a euphemism for the style of company leadership we are asked to execute. Because, should our model-thin budget not be sufficient, we are threatened with credit interest of 120% per year. And that is cheap compared to a forced loan, which has to be taken out when the monthly costs are not covered - interest rates can get up to 360% per year.

No wonder that we have to calculate very carefully, not only when buying textiles; for actions in a round we have only three tokens available for placement, which must also used to acquire new design orders or to take out - helpful and free-of-charge but short-term - contracts. Other uses for those tokens are to to hire employees - helpful, but causing costs, to acquire buildings - even more helpful, but causing even more expenses, and if necessary, to take out loans. No wonder, that the „most fashionable“ decision can sometimes be a hard one to make.

The purpose of all that if of course the completing of apparel within the given time frame and the meeting of our design contracts, which must - in the course of a year - always be presented for evaluation in a scoring round, or fashion show, that is, after two months or rounds of work. Hopefully, in those scoring rounds, our efforts will generate income and of course also victory points. The scoring options are very competitive, but rather cumbersome in their implementation. And, in the end, the remaining money is added to your victory points, but be warned - money making alone will not be sufficient after all.

The game board gives off more of an impression of an abstract table that needs to be executed than to provide a livelier impression of events. Card texts sometimes need interpretation of their correct application and - due to the piling up of cards during the game - their manifold functions tend to become more and more confusing during the course of the game; a clearer and more concise symbol design would be helpful. Another thing that comes to mind: The amount of chance in the game compared to the rather pondering-prone mechanisms! Those mechanisms, first published in 2010, by the way, do, despite the topic, leave experts with a somewhat “outdated” impression.

Prêt-à-Porter is a highly tactical and strategic game on economics, only suitable for experienced players, featuring worker placement and use of card functions as central game elements. The element of chance and the rather long duration, at last at the start, are not in favor with all players. The very luxuriant game components, on the other hand, leave nothing to be desired, as do the cleverly designed box inserts - clothes are not the only thing that needs to be well-organized!

Harald Schatzl

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 120+

Designer: Ignacy Trzewiczek

Artist: Kwanchai Moriya, Mateusz Kopacz, Macíej Janik, Rafał Szyma

Price: ca. 50 Euro

Publisher: Portal Games / Pegasus Spiele 2019

Web: www.pegasus.de

Genre: Economy, fashion, worker placement

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: de en es kr pl ru

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Plethora of components

Clever designed box

Long duration

Interesting mix of strategy, tactic and quite a lot of chance

Compares to:

First edition of the game, still the first worker placement on the topic

Other editions:

Dice Tree (kr), Maldito (es), Portal (en, pl), Zvezda (ru)

My rating: 7

Harald Schatzl:

A tactical/strategic worker placement game for experts, with a high element of chance and long duration, but challenging and interesting due to the topic and its implementation.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0