Review: Sally's Spa
by Simone Luker
June 27, 2009
Overview:
Sally's Spa is a fun, fast-paced, addictive game that provides a great time waster. Sally's Spa is every girl's iPhone dream. It allows users to run their own day spa with the touch of their finger. Users move Sally around the spa in order to complete her duties. The first level begins in Laguna Beach, California where you place customers into a series of spa facilities, such as a sauna, facial mask chair and massage chair.
The aim of the game is to keep all customers happy and relaxed so they will tip you more. Each customer has a series of hearts that display how happy they are, if you leave them too long or give them the wrong facial, you lose a heart. If you give them everything they need in a timely manner, they will leave glowing (literally).
The app has 5 stages within each city. When the 5 stages are complete and the spa is establish, you then move onto your next city, New York or Banff. From there the cities expand to Asia, Europe and Iceland. This app is going to provide you with a fun game with enough levels to keep you set on establishing your next spa.
Features:
Within each level, there are five steps toward establishing the spa. As the levels continue, there a lot of them by the way, customers increase in numbers and so do the facilities provided. As customer's come in they can purchase goods such as shampoo, conditioner and body scrub from Nelly, a young sales associate. Sally's Spa expands to include bathing spas and manicure/pedicure chairs.
Game Play - The actual playing of the game is simple and effective, with everything on one screen Sally can scoot around the spa and perform her activities with one single touch of the patient. Other than this, Sally must scroll through the different facials, eye brows or bath bombs to choose which makes the customer happy. It's fast paced, because your trying to please everyone in a timely manner, but its simple, which makes it a great mix. What's also great about this game is that you can go back and complete levels in order to make more money.
Characters - The characters in the game are introduced to you as the levels begin, for example you have a mother who is tired and needs to relax, but provides only a mediocre tip, but is very patient. You then have the business man who is impatient, but provides a bigger tip. You also have an old couple who must always be moved together. They are also patient, but not very good tippers. Generally the idea is to take care of those who give the biggest tips first.
Shopping Time - The shopping feature of Sally's Spa is quite likely the most fun part of the game, depending on what stage of the game you are at and how much money you've made, you can buy anything from a candle that causes customers to give you more tips, to baths that have only the best water. Sally can even call on extra help by having a sauna assistant, massage assistant, bath assistant and tea assistant. As you purchase more, the more likely customers are to gain hearts and not lose them.
Music - The music in Sally's Spa is what you would expect if you walked into the spa yourself. It's calm and tranquil. But, for me who wanted to focus on the game at hand, making money, and not falling asleep, I generally muted it.
Breakdown
Overall, Sally's Spa is a wonderful, simple game to play to pass the minutes. On iTunes of all the reviews, most of them had great things to say anywhere from "the game every girl needs" to "keeps your finger busily dragging and dropping, poking and popping." Of those that were negative, they were generally minor details such as having to restart their phones or having to pay $0.99.
Good:
Sally's Spa does a great job of making a simple game, fast-paced, fun and addictive. With no moving of the screen it's easy to move Sally around the spa and make the most money you can, and the best thing is if you don't 'expert' the level, you can always go back to do it again. It provides an entertainment level by having different elements of running the spa, shopping, keeping people happy with magazines and going global.Bad:
Although there's not many, Sally's Spa has a few bad points. The hearts that show the customer's happiness is at times hard to read on the screen. The music isn't that great and sometimes the repetitiveness of the game gets a little boring. But, really, the good points outweigh the bad.
