Back in the days before Instagram, when Facebook still wasn’t so popular, and when we were using MySpace — which, in my experience, was more advanced than all today’s social networks — about a month before our summer vacation I added the game Tattoo Artist 2 to the Gandalf Tattoo website. From today’s perspective, it’s an ancient, simple Flash game. Flash was a Macromedia's program used to create games, animations, and websites. The purpose of the game was pure fun and a way to kill time during hot summer days.
Tattoo Artist 2 is a game where you take on the role of a tattoo artist and have to tattoo a design on a client — similar to a real tattoo studio, but in a fun and sarcastic way. It’s a great Flash game where each level brings a new challenge. In this game, nothing goes quite the way you imagined — much like in real life — at the same time frustrating and laugh-inducing.
We are back from vacation. The phone rings in the tattoo studio. I answer. A voice on the other side says:
– Good afternoon, you know that game on your website? I completed it on all levels.
– Congratulations! You were truly persistent.
– So… did I get the job?!
It was a very confusing and unexpected question. The man had understood the game as a skills test for a real-world tattoo artist position. I explained to him that the game was purely for entertainment and nothing more. I hope he never played Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto.
If you’re interested in the game Tattoo Artist 2, click on that link, or you can click on the game image. When it opens in a new tab or window, if the game doesn’t start, press (Ctrl + F5) for a hard refresh on Linux and Windows, or on Mac (Cmd + Shift + R) for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or (Cmd + Option + R) for Safari, and the game should start.
Tip: play in fullscreen mode (press F11).
The game can be launched on smartphones and tablets, but it isn’t playable on touch screens. It comes from a time before smartphones, so you’ll need a desktop or laptop computer to play it properly.
Enjoy the game — and just to be clear, Tattoo Artist 2 is not a skills test for becoming a tattoo artist, just like you can’t become a tattoo master over a single weekend, no matter how much you pay.