Overview: Tattoo City is a shop-decoration and expansion game based around a simple minigame. It’s a clever choice of theme, if made a touch kid-friendly and cartoony for a heavily tattooed adult audience, and the minigame does require some actual thought.

As of this writing, the minigame is all there is, in terms of actual gameplay. You open your shop and get three minutes to make the required amount of cash for that shift. Customers will walk in and sit down and make requests like “I want a tattoo with green and animals on my butt.” You have to pick the appropriate image out of a collection of nine or so, then flip through images of cartoon body parts to find the right one. Some of the requests are thematic (Fantasy, Asian designs,) some refer to subject matter (animals, flames,) and some are visual (colors, symmetry.) The body parts are almost entirely self-explanatory, except that the image of a male upper back is apparently intended to match with a request for a shoulder tattoo. The early levels are very easy, but there is a certain amount of thought in picking out the tattoo, more than one of which might match (and occasionally, none match.)

The other half of the game involves spending your hard-earned coins to decorate your shop. In addition to flash displays, there are the usual collection of random art and kitsch objects that you’d expect to find in an actual tattoo parlor. The fancier decorations require the real-world currency, but you can certainly deck the place out in flames without spending actual money. There are no gameplay-affecting upgrades or items available, though, which limits the appeal for people more interested in that side of things.

While the decorating side is reasonably solid, the appeal of the tattoo challenges fades after a few repetitions. The actual tattoo images are trite and uninteresting (and really too tiny in the brief moment you see them to be particularly eye-catching) and there’s no apparent way to change the gameplay or unlock new kinds of challenge. A perusal of the game’s Facebook page suggests that this is a relatively recent development – players on the discussion board mention creating their own designs and tattooing their friends, which sounds much more involved than the current sparse gameplay.

Tattoo City appears to be a game more genuinely in beta than many that claim the title, and the underlying concept is interesting. While we’re not inclined to give any game that’s accepting real cash for in-game items much of a break because they’re “in beta,” we are willing to keep an eye on this one for a while and see how things shake out. It’s not a game we’d recommend you rush out and play right now, but we’ll keep you posted if that changes!