OUR REVIEW

APPRENTICES DO NOT MAKE DRESSES

ROKOKO

At long last, no WOrker placement!

In the Baroque Era of board games we could take pleasure from many new, sumptuous and magnificent game mechanisms: Majority scorings, resources management, worker placement, deck building for card games, and so on, and so one. But the Era seems to have ended. Nowadays board games essentially only repeat mechanisms that are already well-known, in some of the better cases still developed further in more sophisticated, refined and elegant way - have we reached the Rococo Era of board games?

In the game of the same name, however, we direct a dressmaker's shop and are meant to manufacture pretty clothes for the noble ladies and gentlemen at the French Court. There will be a big ball held soon and nothing is ready anywhere and there are deficiencies, which means that our dressmaking is not sufficient - we are meant to pay the musicians, finance the fireworks display at midnight and sponsor a fountain and some statues for the garden. As a reward for all our engagement we of course do not earn some commonplace money - now, we are happy with a bit of prestige in the guise of victory points, which will probably render us open for sarcasm all night long

On the (very prettily designed ) board we find - among other things - a palace with five empty halls; so far, only the musicians have arrived and on the roof you can make out the fireworks project and the fountains and statues in the garden - but all this needs to be paid for yet - by us! The currently available designs for clothes are laid out in a row in the guise of tiles. To finish a dress you of course need some materials; therefore on each of those dress designs or cutting patters the color and amount of cloth needed is given and also if some lace or yarn is needed. So, that of course, entails that we must acquire bales of cloth, lace and yarn to swap them later on for a corresponding dress. A finished dress can then be placed on the board in one of the halls and is marked - for victory points available later - with a marker of its respective owner. The dress tile for such a finished dressed is turned over to the other side which depicts a nobleman or gentlewoman dressed in our design - what a surprise!

So far, so well-known and at the moment rather unspectacular; within the last few years we have probably used most of our time at a games table to acquire resources on slot X to process them on slot Y or Z to yield buildings, machinery, etc., which in the end turn into victory points. In this game this mechanisms does not work by worker placement, but by using cards. When I play a card I can use it to acquire resources or raw material or make up a dress from them. Albeit this being not very original, either, it is remarkable that each card basically allows each of the six basic actions (similar to Brügge by Stefan Feld). But there is a very important restriction coupled to this playing of cards, as the cards each represent a Master, a Journeyman or an Apprentice. It is not hard to guess that an Apprentice cannot do all the actions - you can only send him to acquire materials, to serve as a money-courier to finance equipment for the ball (fireworks, musicians, statues or fountain) or lay him off as fast as you can, because he cannot even be used to clean up the workshop. On the one hand, to lay off an employee gives you some once-only extra income - of course a Master would be the most valuable for this, too - but on the other hand you would then have fewer cards to play with for the rest of the game, as deck-building is a central element in this game:

All players start with the same five employee or worker cards and can supplement this selection with better colleagues. Such an additional hiring of personnel can only be done by a Master. So, if only because of this, it would not be very clever to use your own last remaining Master to get some money, not to mention the fact that each laying-off costs you one action, too. But if you hire too many new workers you have the problem here, too, that the hoped-for strong card does not turn up fast enough in your own hand of cards. After all, replenishing your hand by drawing cards does not happen randomly; at the start of each round each player selects three cards - but! The remaining stack must be used completely before you have access to your complete range of cards. In addition to this, an employee card just acquired can be used in the same round.

Besides the actions already mentioned - buy cloth, make up a dress, deliver money for financing the ball, hire new workers or laying off employees - there is as a last and sixth action the chance to secure the starting player advantage for next round. This results in loss of speed in the current round, but is sweetened by money. As the starting player you can then choose from the complete and fresh range of resources, dresses and more able employees; to balance this, early acquisitions of resources and workers are more expensive than those that are acquired at a later time. In addition to the starting player bonus and laying-off of employees, another important source of money is the sale of a completed dress; but of course, a finished dress that is sold will be missed for the scoring of victory points at the end.

Well, then - what will earn you victory points at the end? Basically, everything. Completed dresses, a majority of your own dresses in one or several of the five halls, being represented in all five halls, the (co-) financing of fireworks, musicians and statues. All the same, it is not a random choice what to do and on what one should concentrate one's efforts and what one wants to neglect. Even some of the worker cards proffer the acquisition of victory points as an exclusive bonus effect. Those extra actions of workers, among them also money or other advantages, are of course getting stronger and stronger the later the cards are introduced into the game. Albeit the number of cards and there special functions being known at the start of the game, it is not that easy to secure a certain card by directing your game play towards it. When cards are allocated to the seven rounds of the game each card can turn up one round earlier or one round later, so that it might be necessary to be starting player for two consecutive rounds. If you insist on manufacturing certain combinations this will demand a more or less spectacular success for your own strategy, or failure, maybe, so be on the safe side.

Given this variety of additional abilities and effects a little bit less might have been a bit more, some of them seem rather superfluous or not very attractive, but it might be that one only learns to treasure them by playing much more often and much more targeted. On the positive side, the symbols for the respective bonuses are designed for easy understanding; should you need some explanation all the same, you find everything quickly and easily on the respective Summary sheet. The symbols on the board and the rules must be praised too, there are really no questions that remain unanswered and most of the game is self-explanatory and very easily and intuitively understood. For example, assisting in financing the fountain is rewarded with regular extra income - the rippling of water is thus translated into effervescence of money. Or: Master, Journeyman and Apprentice are very concisely marked by the different shapes and colors of their thimble, and it is also clearly marked on the board which thimble, that is, which employee, may not implement which action.

Only the choice of colors is a bit distracting: Four of the five colors for players and the colors of the dresses are red, yellow, blue and green. In some situations in the game this can be a bit confusing and not very clear. As regards to components, the wooden parts for lace and yarn are clearly less attractive than the design of board and cards. I am also a bit disappointed that the flow of events on the board is rather static: The board is only used for placing the dresses and the respective ownership markers, and then nothing happens there anymore until the final scoring when some noble folks are moved from the top floor to the roof terrace to enjoy the fireworks - which of course brings us a few more victory points. Maybe it would have been nice if some of the special effects of workers would offer the option to relocate some dresses or nobles already placed to some other hall.

Interaction among players mostly consists of grabbing some resources from under other players' noses, worker cards, and dress designs as well as of locations or majorities on the board. But usually there are some feasible alternatives for a latecomer so that the grabbing does not result in too much aggression or frustration, and yet it remains thrilling to see if you can implement the planned and whished-for actions or if you should quickly switch tactics to something different. In a game for two players there is of course a much higher incentive for a confrontational and aggressive game play, so that the rivalry for majorities can get much more decisive here. Due to the simultaneous choosing of the three cards at the start of each round the down time remains within a reasonable length, as you should have already considered which actions you would like to do next. Only in extreme cases - one player has only four cards left, another has already a dozen cards to choose from - you will need to be patient. For the complete length of the game six instead of seven rounds all in all might have been better, but with seven you can succeed with long-term strategies.

It is also pleasant to see that all - after a rather short explanation of the rules - can begin to play instantly. There is no time-consuming pondering over your first moves, you can try out anything to see what's happening as there are no penalties, for instance for lack of food for workers or anything like that punishing your mistakes. Even if you run out of money you can always lay off an employee and need not relinquish all your chances for the final scoring. The all in all very nice, positive and very neat feeling of game play is strengthened by the topic , It might be a cliché but the making of dresses and the dressing of "dolls" might help to entice female players to try out a game who usually are rather hard to motivate to try games of that kind.

Harald Schatzl

Players: 2-5

Age: 12+Time: 120+

Designer: Matthias Cramer, Stefan und Louis Malz

Artist: Michael Menzel, Andreas Resch

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: eggertspiele / Pegasus Spiele 2013

Web: www.pegasus.de

Genre: Resources management

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Very good rules and symbols

Good graphic design

Plays well with two and five players

Rather too long with four and five players

Compares to:

Fresko without Worker Placement, Brügge for identical actions on cards, Concordia for moderate deck building, Pillars of the Earth - better worker cards in each round

Other editions:

Arclight, Eagle Games, Filosofia, White Goblin Games, Hobbity.eu

My rating: 6

Harald Schatzl:

Rokoko does not offer new or original mechanisms, albeit not much demand as regards to rules, but a really nice, challenging, neat and positive game and an attractive topic. The Brave Little Tailor earns six stars with one Blow!

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

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