Tabletop Game Review: Tattoo Stories

Tattoo Stories

Bicycle Games

4-6 Players

15-30 Minutes

Parties and tattoos can be a dangerous combination. Luckily, Bicycle Games has brought us Tattoo Stories, a family-friendly game about drawing tattoos and knowing the customer you are making ink for.

Tattoo Stories is a rather simple party game for four to six players. It’s a drawing game where everyone is given a dry erase board and marker to work with. One player will be the customer and need to draw ten cards that each contain a tattoo element. The customer will then choose five that they like and share them with the rest of the players. The rest of the players will act as tattoo artists and will need to draw a tattoo design in just three minutes. The tattoo will need to contain all five elements, forcing quite a bit of creativity.

When everyone is finished, the tattoos will be presented and the customer will hand out the element cards to the player who best represented each one. Then the next player will be the customer. After everyone has been the customer once, the game will end and the player who has won the most element cards wins the game.

The game is incredibly simple and can be learned in just a few minutes. Trying to craft the perfect tattoo for the customer comes with a lot of thought, making Tattoo Stories a social and even intimate affair. Players are encouraged to ask the customer questions while they draw to get to know the customer and make a more personal tattoo. For example, one element might say “Food,” which could result in the players asking the customer about foods they like.

While Tattoo Stories is a drawing game, success is found through selling your art to the customer, not through the quality of the art. Players who aren’t artistic will be just fine, making Tattoo Stories easy to play and accessible to all skill levels. Still, fans of art and drawing games will find the most enjoyment here. A sense of humor certainly helps too. Our sessions were full of laughs as we drew hilariously bad but creative works of art.

Games typically take less than thirty minutes to complete, making this is an easy game to pick up and play. As mentioned before, the game is family-friendly despite being a party game. Tattoo Stories is as appropriate or inappropriate as the players want it to be. The game is highly dependent on the personalities of the players and the chemistry of the group. There are certainly plenty of groups that simply won’t get anything out of Tattoo Stories.

One of the best design choices of Tattoo Stories is the scoring system. Giving the customer five points to award to the other players is an excellent design choice. The funniest or best artist usually won’t get all of the points, giving everyone some points throughout the game. It’s a system that lets everyone feel engaged and good about the experience. Tattoo Stories doesn’t feel too competitive, making it a fine casual game.

The presentation is pretty barebones, but the components are at least of good quality. The whiteboard is neat and spacious, allowing for players to work with as much or little as they desire. The element cards literally just have words on them, so there is nothing remarkable there. It would have been nice for the game to come with an hourglass or timer, but this is a small gripe.

Tattoo Stories is simple, but it’s an enjoyable party game that can be played fairly quickly. It won’t ever be the centerpiece of a party or night of gaming, but it can be a nice addition to the table. It won’t make anyone suddenly love party games, but fans of the style will find plenty to like.