Sally Face

Sally Face is a game that blends paranormal thriller and mystery fiction. It’s essentially a point-and-click adventure game that sees you go from room to room, downstairs and upstairs, and downstairs again, and talk to people, find out information and solve simple puzzles, as you inch closer and closer to unraveling the greater story beneath. The adventure game genre isn’t for everyone, and Sally Face isn’t likely to lure in any detractors. It has some occasional mini-games and other elements that sometimes deviate from the formula, but, for the most part, it abides the genre’s conventions pretty strictly.

Personally though, I don’t mind it from time to time.

The videogame was developed by Steve Gabry or Portable Moose, and is about a young boy named Sal Fisher, otherwise referred to as Sally Face. Sally Face is easily identified by his blue-hair, done up in pigtails, and a prosthetic mask. The story sees Sal and his father move to the Addison Apartments, where a grisly series of murders occur, sending the small town in a spiral. Sal and his friends soon band together to investigate the dark secrets of the town, and find the killer.

The vibes in the Sally Face game are similar to a young-adult mystery drama. In fact, if it wasn’t for some of the gruesomeness that also happens in the game, it would, in fact, be categorized as one, no question.

It reminds me of watching a Full Moon Feature in the 1990s, where the acting and storytelling feels like a movie based off an R.L. Stine novel, but, then, suddenly, there is blood everywhere and a woman is topless. Perhaps more fitting of a comparison would be to something like Five Nights at Freddy’s. The Five Nights series is popular with children. I remember sitting in the theater for the second film and there was a nine-year-old boy screaming his head off the whole last act in excitement. Five Nights at Freddy’s isn’t a natural fit for the younger crowds, given its dark subject-matter involving children’s corpses being stuffed into animatronics, and yet, here we are.

That series, however, made it work because it never showed how the sausage was made, so to speak. It never showed much violence, and, when it did, it was depicted in a simplified, minimalist way. Sally Face does no such thing, showing people being sliced and diced every which way. Other than that, Sally Face drops a few cuss words, here and there, but, otherwise, pulls mostly from the young-adult playbook. I’m not saying the subject-matter isn’t dark, but, more so, it’s how the dialogue, its characters, and the way things unfold, almost in a high school coming-of-age kind-of way, all play out. It isn’t a criticism, but, an observation. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I like watching things like Full Moon Features – there’s a charm to it.

It does create a harmonic dissonance, where it can at times feel like an edgy indie horror you’d have recommended on YouTube after watching Salad Fingers, or it can feel like Goosebumps, but, again, I think there is something to be said about the charm that brings with it also.

Overall, I didn’t come away loving Sally Face, but I did ultimately enjoy the time I spent with it and I am glad that I played it (I will also check out the sequel when it comes out soon). When you take a step back, it feels like the story is a little all over the place and convoluted, and like its ambition may have extended a little past the reach of what the story was capable of narratively. The gameplay, too, simply doesn’t have a whole lot of meat on its bone, as often comes with this genre of game, and I don’t believe the puzzles were enough to satiate that. Still though, the music’s cool, the art style was cool, and I liked how they took some big swings with its subject-matter.

I look forward to what they cook up for the sequel.