OUR REVIEW

DESIGNS AND CONTRACTS

PRÊT-À-PORTER

PUBLIC RELATIONS AND FASHION SHOWS

Prêt-à-porter is the new game from Ignacy Trzewiczek and Portal, released at the SPIEL together with New Era, the new implementation of 51^st State.

Since Neuroshima Hex release, back in 2006, I'm always been interested in Portal games. Both Stronghold and 51st State are outstanding games.

Prêt-à-porter differs from the other games for the theme: not a post-apocalyptic setting but modern fashion. Despite the theme, that could make you think you have in hands a light family game, Prêt-à-porter is a deep strategic and economic gamers game.

Prêt-à-porter was first released in Polish in 2010. It was actually part of a project to teach young high-school boys/girls how to manage a company. The game got a really great success and so Ignacy made an English version. Actually it seems that most of the gamers and publishers attentions are caught only by fantasy/historical theme and Prêt-à-porter floated under the radar of too much peoples. That's a pity because it is a really great game: actually, for me, the best Portal release.

The cover artwork is striking, and the rest of the materials and artwork match the Portal standards exhibited in prior releases. The game includes 100 small cards used for buildings, employees, contracts, loans, credits and fashion shows; 50 normal cards for designs; two sheets of cardboard counters (Quality, Trend, Public Relation, Star); 72 wooden cubes (materials tokens in six colors); 12 action pawns, money and player aides.

 The theme of the game is style and fashion.  There is not real direct interaction in the common sense, that means you can’t destroy other players companies, but of course you and other players compete for the same small amount of resources (like in most worker placement games) and every 3 turns there are fashion shows where you have to run to be the best in quality, trend, public relations and variety. You have to play against other players and watch carefully what they are doing to be always at the top. It is not a game you can play alone and hope to win.

Players run clothing companies and must design and produce the best collections possible by using contracts, buildings and talented employees in order to compete in fashion shows.

The game lasts twelve months (rounds), and each third month is one or more shows (scoring round). During the preparation months, players acquire buildings, get employees and contracts, prepare new designs and buy the materials to complete the collection.

During the fashion show months, they display collections and sell them to earn money, and the player who has the most money at the end of the game wins.

 To prepare a collection you need one or more  finished designs that share a common style: Sports, Boho, Vintage, Kids and Evening. So you can bring a sport collection or a kids collection in a show but not mix. The collections are evaluated using 4 element: quality, trend, public relation and quantity. The importance of each trait depends on the city where the show takes place. In the first scoring round there is just one city and all 4 traits are evaluated (the order of evaluation and the importance of each traits vary from city to city). In the second score round two cities are evaluated with 3 traits each, in the third round 3 cities with 2 traits each and finally, 4 cities in the final round. The shows in the 3 score rounds are randomly assigned in the beginning of the game; the final score is always the same. The most valued collections based on current trends in the market receive stars, which both provide additional income when selling the collection that month and earn additional money at game’s end.

Each of the preparation months consists of an action planning phase, an action execution phase, a training and development phase, and finally a maintenance phase.

 The main mechanic is a standard worker placement with available actions being occupied. The game board features nine actions available to players, and each action can be selected 2-3 times depending on the number of players in the game. A player can choose the same action twice, but as with all such games you always want to do far more than the three actions per month you are allowed. New contracts, buildings, employees and designs are available each month, and the first player to select an action naturally has first choice to what’s being offered. In each action month a full new set of cards will be revealed and the cards left are discarded. In the two final action months (October and November) buildings, employees and contracts will be drawn from a special set, usually offering special benefits you have to read in the manual. The icons on the cards are nice and quite simple to read but there are many cards with effects you need to read on the manual in the first games. This can slow a bit the flow of the game but after 3-4 plays the game runs much more quickly.

There is no way to buy extra actions but many buildings and employees offer you the possibility to buy materials and/or designs without using actions during the turn.

Buildings, employees and contracts offer special benefits at a “cost”, with buildings and employees staying with you for the rest of the year but requiring a fixed maintenance cost each month. Buildings have construction costs, too, but you want them as you are allowed a maximum of three employees, plus one for each building you have. Contracts, on the other hand, cost only the action itself to purchase, but they last for only one show, so you need to keep going back for more.

There is not actually a killing strategy: sometimes having a lot of buildings with employees could be the road to win; at other times the right contracts and few buildings/employees are much better.

The range of possible combinations and abilities is huge, and buildings and employees can be upgraded to provide even more options – but you need to keep maintenance costs under control or else you’ll have no money for anything else, and that’s not good.
The first time you play the game you can overestimate or underestimate the cards. You need buildings, employees and contracts to win the game but you have to keep the cost under control. The amount of money each company has is not too much!

Money is both the key to victory (since the player with the most money wins) and essential for buying buildings, paying employees and materials needed to make the collections. Every design card shows the two colored cubes (always different) needed to complete that design, and unless a design is finished, you cannot display and sell it when the show arrives.

You can purchase materials in three locations: the local manufacturer for cheap one-off materials of low quality, the warehouse for medium-quality materials of all types, and importers, which offer expensive materials of only the finest quality.

Quality counters, along with public relation and trend counters, are all placed on the company board that also displays the type of design in which the company specializes, with your specialty allowing you to create trendy designs of that type.
From a single finished design you can earn something between 3 and 12 money, depending where you bought the materials and the design. Some designs are a bit less gainful but will provide extra Trend or Quality tokens that could be determinant to win the shows. It is important to be able to present more than a single design in fashion months and to do that you have to plan well your buys  and start to prepare designs in advance. Remember that all the fashion shows are displayed right from the beginning so you can plan well.

The materials are actually assigned to design just only in the fashion months so you can change your projects looking what your opponents are doing. You can accumulate materials but since the money is really tight you have to think carefully about your buys.

You should not underestimate the importance of winning fashion shows, since the extra money earned could be a determining fact for the outcome of the game. You will get one extra money for each stars earned for each design sold after the show: so winning a first trait, that means something like 4 stars, could be really relevant. Each stars gained will give you also extra money in the end of game.
In the first fashion month (March) there will be only one show and all the 4 traits will be evaluated in sequence: the first trait in the list giving much more stars than the last one. Only the first two collections will get stars so is a race for the first (highly revenue) and second (little revenue) position. The second fashion month (June) will have two distinct fashion shows in two different cities: in each city only the first 3 traits will be evaluated. The third fashion month (September) will have 3 different fashion shows: in each show only the first two traits will be evaluated. Which traits and which city in this first 3 fashion month will be randomly determined from a deck o 6 city cards with many possible combinations. The last fashion month (December) will always display the same 4 cities, with a single traits evaluated in each city. The set of the fashion show is public since the beginning of the game so it is possible to have a long time strategy.

Finally, you can visit the bank to be credited money or the preparation field which offers a sampling of quality, trend, PR or money.

Despite the “light” theme, Prêt-à-Porter is a deep strategic economics game, with a huge number of possible plays and combinations as well as big interaction between players and companies. You need to plan your strategies and looks what other players are doing. You can build up your strategies in many different ways according to the buildings and employees you have.

I think it is a game with high re-playability since the order of cards, fashions and collections can really change the flow of the game. It works with 2 players but I think 3 players is the perfect number. Also 4 players is good but, at least for the first games, the competition could be too strict.

For me one of the best Essen hits and a game I'm sure I'll play a lot in the next years.

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 90+

Designer: Ignacy Trzewiczek, Rafał Szeczepkowski, Piotr Haraszczak

Artist: Tomasz Jedruszek, Michał Oracz und Team

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Portal Publishing 2011

Web: www.portalpublishing.eu

Genre: Worker Placement Game

Users: For experts

Version: en

Rules: en pl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Classy components and design

Unusual new topic

Game experience is advantageous

Best for three players

Compares to:

First game with this topic, otherwise other worker placement game

Other editions:

Polish Edition 2010

My rating: 6

Statements:

One of my favorite Essen games 2011, the best game so far from Portal and for some time to come a permanent feature on my games table

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