Tattoo Mania on the iPhone and iPod Touch is an ingenious game let down slightly by limitations in its current form.
The concept of the game is that you have got a job at the coolest tattoo studio in town.
Customers arrive in the shape of hard bikers and chicks-in-tow wanting beautiful body art inked on to a part of their anatomy.
As the first customer steps up the screen zooms in to the body part to be decorated.
Their chosen tattoo design is shown in outline form and you need to fill it in with your finger.
You need to be quick but also gentle so as not to cause too much pain.
When the tattoo is finished you get paid based on the quality of the job done.
As you're doing each tattoo new customers arrive expecting to be seen to as quickly as possible.
While in the studio - either as they wait in line or are being tattooed - customers' moods range from green (happy) to red (upset). If you keep anyone waiting too long or cause too much pain they leave and it's game over.
Luckily there is a swap option which allows you to move customers from the queue to the chair, and vice versa. So if you see someone in the line getting grumpy you can lighten their mood by swapping them with the person you're working on. Start work on their tattoo for a while and then put them back in the queue to go back to the customer you were originally working on, or move on to someone else.
The aim of the game is to complete as many tattoos as possible and make as much cash as you can without losing any customers.
The graphics are basic but nice shading gives the game a refined art style. The rock soundtrack creates an authentic tattoo studio ambience, while the whirring sound of the tattoo machine is also suitably realistic.
The touch controls for filling in the tattoos work well. Even with big clumsy fingers like mine it's possible to complete complex designs, thanks to the fairly forgiving accuracy threshold in the game. Once you're inking a particular line or area the game is quite kind about helping you keep within the edges.
Tattoo Mania, from HandyGames, is the first tattoo game I've ever known and the way it's been done is very clever - a test of dexterity with a touch of time management.
It deserves praise for its originality and creativity.
The game is ideal to pick up and play in quick bursts thanks to its survive-until-you-get-fired concept, but therein lays its main issue as this mode is all it currently offers. It’s crying out for some more involved features.
For instance, it would be nice to see some of career mode in the game where you work your way up the ladder, progressing from backstreet tattooist to tattooing the rich and famous.
More tattoos and a tattoo editor are supposedly in the pipeline for future updates, and these will be very welcome as the game would also really benefit from some sort of design element that allows players to create body art for their customers instead of just tracing lines on the 30 templates provided in the game at present.
Tattoo Mania is a smartly designed, stylish game that will push the limits of your composure and finger agility. The single mode on offer provides a stern challenge but there needs to be more filling in of the outline to bulk out the game’s content if Tattoo Mania is going to have more than just passing novelty value.
Verdict: 7 out of 10 - A promising start but needs more features if it is to be considered a true work of art.
Watch the official trailer:
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