Designer: Gerardo Whiu

Artist: Deni Rizkito

Publisher: Gaming Hole

Genre/Mechanisms: card drafting, deck building, economic, hand management, memory, pattern building, take that, trading

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Tattoo Brawl is already fully-funded.  Pledges currently total more than the initial funding goal with about 36 hours left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: high

What It’s About:  A tattoo-themed card management game where players obtain and mix ink, tattoo clients, and can even steal clients from other tattoo parlors.

How It Works: The length of the game depends on the number of players; in a 2/3/4 player game, the first player to complete 6/5/4 tattoos triggers end-game, at which point the other players will take one final turn. Over the course of turns throughout the game, players take up to 4 actions from among the following categories: Clients, Ink, Tattoos, Start a Tattoo, and Collect Work. Client actions included a) taking a new Client from the market (either of the 2 face-up cards or from the face-up draw deck), b) re-slot a Client from the Tattoo Chair to the Waiting Room if you have not yet begun a tattoo, c) Reject a Client from either the Tattoo Chair or the Waiting Room and pay the associated cost, and d) Steal a Client from another player’s Waiting Room and place them in your Tattoo Chair. Ink-related actions include a) Take an Ink Token and place it in the Ink Store of your player board, b) Mix two primary-colored Ink Tokens to create a secondary-colored Ink Token, and c) Buy another player’s Ink Token from their Ink Store for $50. Tattoo-related actions include: a) Draw a new Tattoo Card from the center, from the open cards or a closed one from the deck, or from the Donated Cards, b) pay $100 to Recycle a Tattoo Card from your reserve, c) Donate a Card for free from your reserve, but only if there is no other card in the Donation Zone, d) look at closed cards in yours or another player’s reserve, and e) Exchange a card from your reserve with a card from another player’s reserve, as long as they’re either both open or both closed. Starting a Tattoo requires a client in the chair; the player uses a Tattoo Card from their reserve to their Tattoo Station, and requires the correct Ink Tokens and Containers. And finally, Collecting Work occurs after a pre-determined number of turns creating the tattoo for the Client in the chair, and involves several clean-up steps as well as collecting the associated money from the bank for completing the tattoo.

During end-game, players score additional points for every $50 remaining, as well as bonus points if they’ve inked the most tattoos in a certain style. Players also deduct points for the unfinished/unused tattoos in their reserve. The player with the most points wins, with the tie-breaker going to the player with the least number of unfinished tattoos (those in their reserve).

Comparisons:  Tattoo Brawl is essentially a game of resource management, hand management, and engine-building with some deck building and memory, albeit with a rare & unique theme not often seen yet in board gaming. I’m having trouble coming up with a direct correlative, but let’s say that Tattoo Brawl lies half-way between Arkham Horror LCG and The Quacks of Quedlinburg. And the closest, similarly-themed games you’ll find may be painting games Kanagawa and Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game.

What Should I Pledge?:
$29 Artist – Retail Edition: the base game with all unlocked Retail edition stretch goals.
$50 Artist -Deluxe Edition: the Deluxe edition of the base game with all unlocked Deluxe edition stretch goals, plus 5 exclusive temporary tattoos and a copy of Tattoo Brawl magazine. The Deluxe version also comes with a plastic insert (versus the retail versions cardboard insert), the metal coins, and action marker miniatures.

Add-Ons:
$10 Standees + Scratcher Character Cards
$15 Metal Coins
$7 Sleeves Pack (60 Card Sleeves)
$10 Print Magazine and Temporary Tattoos Pack
$70 Customized Client Card
$90 Customized Character Card

KS Exclusives:
The plastic insert that comes with the Deluxe Edition is a Kickstarter Exclusive. But there aren’t going to me many exclusive or even stretch goals with this game, as they’re just going to cross the funding finish line before the campaign ends. And as this is their second go-round, I don’t expect them to cancel and run a third campaign, but rather to be glad they were able to fund this time around. People will be able to obtain their game, but there won’t be a lot of extras on this one. But even the retail version comes with some very nice double-layered player boards.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $50 for the Deluxe Edition, $10 for the Standees + Scratcher Character Cards (which allows for starting the game at a harder level), and $9 in shipping for a total of $69.

Tattoo Brawl completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, August 15th and tentatively ships in March 2020.