I’ve been to fashion week, you know. It’s surprisingly intense and downright brutal, with fashion designers operating the kind of psychological warfare that would make the Emperor cry, while models grimace and fight as they're shepherded around by organisers who’ve learned to treat them like wild crocodiles, using tazers to keep them in line and ready to walk on cue.
It’s not pretty. And although AMA’s new RPG isn’t easily accused of being particularly inventive or even all that entertaining, it’s captured this real essence of fashion week impressively well.
As an intern hoping to put a stiletto on the fashion industry ladder, your task is to do everything possible to please your design guru mentor. The only consistency is that everything goes wrong, and correcting it is the bulk of the gameplay.
For the most part, this means making decisions from a list of responses (a model has fallen between the cracks in the pavement on the way to the show. Do you go and find her, cancel the show, or grab that new girl off reception who’s adequately proportioned?) that will build trust with your boss.
The more this flamboyant, neckerchief-wearing luvvie trusts you, the more responsibility he’ll hand out. This lands you in a decent selection of mini-games, choosing models and dressing them, arranging the backdrops of a catwalk show and other pleasant distractions before it’s back to second guessing and mind reading by answering one superficial question after another.
It must be said that this rather formulaic and shallow gameplay mechanic does fit around the storyline quite comfortably, which is an aspect of Fashion Week Live that shouldn’t be overlooked by players who like a hefty dose of plot in their pocket gaming.
Fashion Week Live Review
What it lacks in gameplay it makes up for in an unforgiving expose of life behind the catwalk, and if that’s a world you’ve experienced then this game has something to offer. If you’re more on the coat hanger side of fashion, its charms will be lost and all that remains is a trite series of superficial dilemmas
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.