Martin Stepniewski
Poland
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I have not yet seen the box with the newest Portal game, but its author, Ignacy Trzewiczek, says that my last play was also the last one conducted with test materials before sending them for printing*. As I have previous experience with playing Prêt-à-Porter for a few times I will now try to satisfy the curiosity of those waiting impatiently for the game by presenting the brief description of the game’s mechanics.
In Prêt-à-Porter players take on the roles of entrepreneurs in clothing industry. The whole game is divided into 12 months. In each of the first two months of every quarter there is a time to develop your business and prepare for the fashion shows that take place in the last month of each quarter. Each clothing design has the following attributes: type (i.e. trousers, dress), style (i.e. kids, sports collection), two specific types of materials that have to be used to sew this piece of clothing on the basis of the design and the amount of money it can be sold for after the show. Some projects contain an extra point of quality or trends. During the shows the collections are judged on the basis of: the size of the collection (all pieces of clothing displayed by the player have to be in the same style), its quality, trends and public relations. The importance of individual features during different fashion shows vary, yet the players know from the beginning, what will be important at all stages of the game.
In each of the "development" or "preparatory" months (I do not know the correct terminology of the game as I haven’t seen the finished manual yet), each player has 3 actions that can be used to acquire new designs, materials, buildings, employees and contracts, to borrow money or to increase collections’ quality, trends or PR directly, as well as to obtain a small grant. The field allowing to borrow money is available to all players without restrictions. As for the other fields – there is a race as there is a smaller number of available places than the number of players**. Also the order of placing players’ action pawns is important as it indicates the order of choosing and acquiring the available improvements. In order for the game not to be too easy, there is no limit to the number of actions a player may perform on the same field. Each month new buildings, employees, contracts and projects become available for the players. An additional difficulty is a need to place new employees in the already owned buildings (there is always the possibility to dismiss an employee, but it is connected with the cost of severance pay). Buildings, employees and contracts have various effects. Some of them allow the player to reduce maintenance costs (accountants), obtain an additional income in the maintenance phase (retail outlet) or a permanent strengthening of specific collection’s features (model increases PR), change the style of produced clothing (designers), acquire materials or designs without an action, get extra points for the end of the game and many others. Players can buy materials (6 different types) from three sources: the local market, warehouse and imports. The materials have different prices on different markets. Also, each purchase of materials is associated with acquisition of quality tokens and thus, if a player buys cheaper he or she receives fewer tokens. On the local market and from imports only 1 type of material can be obtained with 1 action, yet there is no limit to the quantity. On the other hand, in the warehouse a player can buy the whole variety of material types in one purchase but only 1 of each type.
At the end of each month, players decide whether they want to develop one building and/or train a single employee. Then, all players have to pay the monthly maintenance costs that include employees’ salaries (trained ones have to earn more), buildings’ rent (developed ones are also more expensive to maintain) and interests on loans. If a player cannot afford to pay all maintenance costs he or she has to take a punitive loan with costs much higher than ones of a voluntary loan. In my opinion, the big plus of the game is that sometimes the conscious choice of putting oneself in a position when punitive loan is mandatory is a good move. It stems from the fact that although a voluntary loan is much cheaper, it also requires spending an action (and each player has only 3 of these in one round). In addition, player’s creditworthiness is determined by collateral security of designs the player owns and can display during one fashion show, and the punitive loan gives him or her twice as much of free cash than the smallest of voluntary loans.
During the months of fashion shows, players decide which clothing designs they are displaying and afterwards they check who gained the upper hand in each feature. Depending on the number of players, the 1st and 2nd place in each category is awarded with stars (that in game’s plot are connected with the increase in company’s brand value). Stars are added to player’s final result and also increase the income from each piece of clothing displayed during the current fashion show.
What’s more, there are employees and buildings that allow a player to obtain an additional income in the maintenance phase of two following months after the fashion show from the stars they’ve earned. Players earn money from “the bank” for the pieces of clothing they displayed (they sell them) and this is their main source of income in the game.
After 12 months, players add the value of stars they’ve earned and , in the case of possessing specific improvements, additional special points (such as ones for the number of employees) to the amount of money they own. The player who has the highest score counted as shown above is the winner.
Prêt-à-Porter is filled with difficult choices. Which actions to perform? In which order? For which shows to prepare the best collections? On which collection features to focus? How to plan the expenditures? Which improvements to use? How much and in which direction to develop the infrastructure? Whether to train an employee or develop a building right now or wait a month? Whether to multiply your money directly (there are the buildings that make this possible) or though extending the collection?
Prêt-à-Porter is filled with interaction. The continuous race for acquisition of employees, buildings, contracts, designs accompany the players from the game’s beginning to the end. Blocking the possibility of buying the materials in the warehouse (the only place where you can buy different types of materials) happens very often. Behavior of your opponents has huge influence on your decisions concerning the collection’s features you want to strengthen and ones you give up the fight for.
It would be nice to write that Prêt-à-Porter is filled with climate, but those who play with me on the regular basis know that I rather see numbers and game’s mechanics than atmosphere and the storyline. From that point of view, I don’t feel qualified enough to air an opinion on climate of the game. However, I’ve noticed that the Author paid a lot of attention to the narrative layer. Capabilities given by the buildings and employees comply quite well with their names and, what’s more, actions and players’ activities have actual reference to real market operations and ventures. I remember a situation in which Trzewik became seriously anxious when the idea to change the employees or buildings card functionality undermined the relationship with its name.
Prêt-à-Porter is a full-blown economic game for gamers. It combines the need for long-term planning with a flexible modifying of player’s actions depending on opponents’ proceedings. It requires careful calculation, yet not everything can be converted into numbers and some actions may be designed solely to exert psychological pressure on other players’ decisions. For inexperienced players the first attempts to develop their clothing companies may end up as failures. Sometimes overinvestment or poorly aimed capital expenditures may lead to tightening of the credit spiral. Equal level of players’ experience increases the joy of the game without doubt.
I'll skip the formal evaluation of the game, yet still it is not difficult to get the right impression from the description above. As a conclusion, I will only write that if you like complex and demanding games you should try Prêt-à-Porter.
* Note - the participation in the last pre-production test (and any previous ones) does not in any way make me the one to put the blade on for any lack of balance of any element of the game ;-)
** In the case of two players plays there are two places available on every action field.
This is the translation of my article published on 24th November 2010 on www.GamesFanatic.pl - the 2nd ed. PaP is even better ;-)
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Jesse Dean
United States
Orlando
Florida
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious predator on Earth!
-
Thanks for the review. Could you please add in line breaks between the paragraphs?
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PK WADDLE
United States
Austin
Texas
-
Thanks for the review I am very very excited about this game !!
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Chris
United States
Huntington Station
New York
-
Sorry, Martin, I can't read this without any white space to break up the text.
doubtofbuddha wrote: Thanks for the review. Could you please add in line breaks between the paragraphs?
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Jimmy Okolica
United States
Washington Township
Ohio
-
aaarg!! I want an English version!
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Jay Levy
United States
Florida
-
I agree, I hope there is an English version ... I think my girlfriend would enjoy playing this, and it's something I wouldn't mind putting on the table.
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Lee Fisher
United States
Downingtown
Pennsylvania
-
The Essen version should be English.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/71143/item/1788405#ite...
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Jimmy Okolica
United States
Washington Township
Ohio
-
lfisher wrote:
Oh, Wow! I missed this. Any idea if there'll be pre-orders shipping to the States before/after Essen. While I'd love this game, it's not worth the price of a plane ticket (or to be fair, the price of my marriage).
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Michael Fox
United Kingdom
Milton Keynes
Bucks
-
Butterfly0038 wrote: aaarg!! I want an English version!
Well, I happen to have an English version... I'll be reviewing it ASAP 
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Jimmy Okolica
United States
Washington Township
Ohio
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idlemichael wrote: Butterfly0038 wrote: aaarg!! I want an English version! Well, I happen to have an English version... I'll be reviewing it ASAP
hunh? what? you said you wanted to send it to me to review?
ok, I'll do that for you.
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Michael Fox
United Kingdom
Milton Keynes
Bucks
-
Patience, sir... patience!
It's actually an English language version that Ignacy (the designer) made up for me to review - the full version will be available at Essen. I've played a couple of times and it's very good. Brain burning at times, but a lot of fun!
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Jimmy Okolica
United States
Washington Township
Ohio
-
idlemichael wrote: Patience, sir... patience!
It's actually an English language version that Ignacy (the designer) made up for me to review - the full version will be available at Essen. I've played a couple of times and it's very good. Brain burning at times, but a lot of fun!
Thanks. I can't wait to see the review. Any thought on how well it will play with 2? I'm always nervous about trying economic games with 2 regardless of what the box says.
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Szymon Zachara
Poland
Katowice
Silesia
-
Butterfly0038 wrote: (...)Any thought on how well it will play with 2? I'm always nervous about trying economic games with 2 regardless of what the box says.
I’ve played a lot in Pret-a-Porter games (Polish 1st Edition) and it's very playable in the version for 2 players. It does not differ much from the 4 players game. My wife won like 95% of those 2p games (that is because she is the greatest economist I know, she’s doing her PhD now).
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Jimmy Okolica
United States
Washington Township
Ohio
-
ZachiPL wrote: Butterfly0038 wrote: (...)Any thought on how well it will play with 2? I'm always nervous about trying economic games with 2 regardless of what the box says. I’ve played a lot in Pret-a-Porter games (Polish 1st Edition) and it's very playable in the version for 2 players. It does not differ much from the 4 players game. My wife won like 95% of those 2p games (that is because she is the greatest economist I know, she’s doing her PhD now).
Thanks so much! That is great news. This just moved onto my must-buy.
Any idea if there will be a pre-order option for those of us who can't get to Essen?
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Rafal Szczepkowski
Poland
Gdansk
γνῶθι σεαυτόν
-
Butterfly0038 wrote:
Any idea if there will be a pre-order option for those of us who can't get to Essen?
Every year Portal launch pre-orders, mostly with free expanison or sth. So I do belive there will be such a possibility to secure a copy before the show this year, as usualy.
-
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Ugh...paragraphs please. How did this get accepted in current form? Can't read this, even though I did want to.
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Richard Ham
Malta
Msida
One of our beagles (Taloula) is a bit of a camera hog
-
Here's the same preview but with the extra line breaks
I have not yet seen the box with the newest Portal game, but its author, Ignacy Trzewiczek, says that my last play was also the last one conducted with test materials before sending them for printing*. As I have previous experience with playing Prêt-à-Porter for a few times I will now try to satisfy the curiosity of those waiting impatiently for the game by presenting the brief description of the game’s mechanics.
In Prêt-à-Porter players take on the roles of entrepreneurs in clothing industry. The whole game is divided into 12 months. In each of the first two months of every quarter there is a time to develop your business and prepare for the fashion shows that take place in the last month of each quarter. Each clothing design has the following attributes: type (i.e. trousers, dress), style (i.e. kids, sports collection), two specific types of materials that have to be used to sew this piece of clothing on the basis of the design and the amount of money it can be sold for after the show. Some projects contain an extra point of quality or trends.
During the shows the collections are judged on the basis of: the size of the collection (all pieces of clothing displayed by the player have to be in the same style), its quality, trends and public relations. The importance of individual features during different fashion shows vary, yet the players know from the beginning, what will be important at all stages of the game.
In each of the "development" or "preparatory" months (I do not know the correct terminology of the game as I haven’t seen the finished manual yet), each player has 3 actions that can be used to acquire new designs, materials, buildings, employees and contracts, to borrow money or to increase collections’ quality, trends or PR directly, as well as to obtain a small grant.
The field allowing to borrow money is available to all players without restrictions. As for the other fields – there is a race as there is a smaller number of available places than the number of players**. Also the order of placing players’ action pawns is important as it indicates the order of choosing and acquiring the available improvements. In order for the game not to be too easy, there is no limit to the number of actions a player may perform on the same field.
Each month new buildings, employees, contracts and projects become available for the players. An additional difficulty is a need to place new employees in the already owned buildings (there is always the possibility to dismiss an employee, but it is connected with the cost of severance pay). Buildings, employees and contracts have various effects. Some of them allow the player to reduce maintenance costs (accountants), obtain an additional income in the maintenance phase (retail outlet) or a permanent strengthening of specific collection’s features (model increases PR), change the style of produced clothing (designers), acquire materials or designs without an action, get extra points for the end of the game and many others.
Players can buy materials (6 different types) from three sources: the local market, warehouse and imports. The materials have different prices on different markets. Also, each purchase of materials is associated with acquisition of quality tokens and thus, if a player buys cheaper he or she receives fewer tokens. On the local market and from imports only 1 type of material can be obtained with 1 action, yet there is no limit to the quantity. On the other hand, in the warehouse a player can buy the whole variety of material types in one purchase but only 1 of each type.
At the end of each month, players decide whether they want to develop one building and/or train a single employee. Then, all players have to pay the monthly maintenance costs that include employees’ salaries (trained ones have to earn more), buildings’ rent (developed ones are also more expensive to maintain) and interests on loans. If a player cannot afford to pay all maintenance costs he or she has to take a punitive loan with costs much higher than ones of a voluntary loan. In my opinion, the big plus of the game is that sometimes the conscious choice of putting oneself in a position when punitive loan is mandatory is a good move. It stems from the fact that although a voluntary loan is much cheaper, it also requires spending an action (and each player has only 3 of these in one round). In addition, player’s creditworthiness is determined by collateral security of designs the player owns and can display during one fashion show, and the punitive loan gives him or her twice as much of free cash than the smallest of voluntary loans.
During the months of fashion shows, players decide which clothing designs they are displaying and afterwards they check who gained the upper hand in each feature. Depending on the number of players, the 1st and 2nd place in each category is awarded with stars (that in game’s plot are connected with the increase in company’s brand value). Stars are added to player’s final result and also increase the income from each piece of clothing displayed during the current fashion show.
What’s more, there are employees and buildings that allow a player to obtain an additional income in the maintenance phase of two following months after the fashion show from the stars they’ve earned. Players earn money from “the bank” for the pieces of clothing they displayed (they sell them) and this is their main source of income in the game.
After 12 months, players add the value of stars they’ve earned and , in the case of possessing specific improvements, additional special points (such as ones for the number of employees) to the amount of money they own. The player who has the highest score counted as shown above is the winner.
Prêt-à-Porter is filled with difficult choices. Which actions to perform? In which order? For which shows to prepare the best collections? On which collection features to focus? How to plan the expenditures? Which improvements to use? How much and in which direction to develop the infrastructure? Whether to train an employee or develop a building right now or wait a month? Whether to multiply your money directly (there are the buildings that make this possible) or though extending the collection?
Prêt-à-Porter is filled with interaction. The continuous race for acquisition of employees, buildings, contracts, designs accompany the players from the game’s beginning to the end. Blocking the possibility of buying the materials in the warehouse (the only place where you can buy different types of materials) happens very often. Behavior of your opponents has huge influence on your decisions concerning the collection’s features you want to strengthen and ones you give up the fight for.
It would be nice to write that Prêt-à-Porter is filled with climate, but those who play with me on the regular basis know that I rather see numbers and game’s mechanics than atmosphere and the storyline. From that point of view, I don’t feel qualified enough to air an opinion on climate of the game. However, I’ve noticed that the Author paid a lot of attention to the narrative layer. Capabilities given by the buildings and employees comply quite well with their names and, what’s more, actions and players’ activities have actual reference to real market operations and ventures. I remember a situation in which Trzewik became seriously anxious when the idea to change the employees or buildings card functionality undermined the relationship with its name.
Prêt-à-Porter is a full-blown economic game for gamers. It combines the need for long-term planning with a flexible modifying of player’s actions depending on opponents’ proceedings. It requires careful calculation, yet not everything can be converted into numbers and some actions may be designed solely to exert psychological pressure on other players’ decisions. For inexperienced players the first attempts to develop their clothing companies may end up as failures. Sometimes overinvestment or poorly aimed capital expenditures may lead to tightening of the credit spiral. Equal level of players’ experience increases the joy of the game without doubt.
I'll skip the formal evaluation of the game, yet still it is not difficult to get the right impression from the description above. As a conclusion, I will only write that if you like complex and demanding games you should try Prêt-à-Porter.
* Note - the participation in the last pre-production test (and any previous ones) does not in any way make me the one to put the blade on for any lack of balance of any element of the game ;-)
** In the case of two players plays there are two places available on every action field.
This is the translation of my article published on 24th November 2010 on www.GamesFanatic.pl - the 2nd ed. PaP is even better ;-)
-
Christopher Incao
United States
Doylestown
Pennsylvania
-
Butterfly0038 wrote: ZachiPL wrote: Butterfly0038 wrote: (...)Any thought on how well it will play with 2? I'm always nervous about trying economic games with 2 regardless of what the box says. I’ve played a lot in Pret-a-Porter games (Polish 1st Edition) and it's very playable in the version for 2 players. It does not differ much from the 4 players game. My wife won like 95% of those 2p games (that is because she is the greatest economist I know, she’s doing her PhD now). Thanks so much! That is great news. This just moved onto my must-buy. Any idea if there will be a pre-order option for those of us who can't get to Essen?
List Price: $65.00
Boardgamehaus.com Price: $49.95
You save $15.05
http://www.boardgamehaus.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=...
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Posted Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:37 pm
