Sally Face - Episode One

An unsettling adventure following a boy with a prosthetic face. After a string of mysterious murders, Sal and his three friends discover something truly sinister casting shadows over their small town.

Verdict

Verdict coming soon: the jury is still reading

Buy, Wait, and Skip land in the next pass. Nothing on this card can be bought.

Player sentiment

Player sentiment is from Steam (PC) reviews.

All time

97.3%

29,880 reviews

12 months

97.5%

6,393 reviews

90 days

97.6%

2,985 reviews

30 days

97.1%

750 reviews

Stable-0.5 pts versus the previous 90 days

Review history

Bars are review volume. The line is the positive percentage. Periods under 10 reviews are faded.

What players are saying

Positive

Insanely goated game with a gripping story, exceeded any expectation I had plus the art style gave me such nostalgia of a time when people poured literally everything into an idea they had to craft a story like this, without all the ai bull that I see everywhere nowadays (please take me back to 2016), especially cause the project is all the work of a single person! Eagerly awaiting the sequel
29h 53m played at review · 2 Sept 2026
Sally Face - Episode One, opens a haunting narrative adventure that melds psychological horror with nineties indie-toon aesthetics. You play as Sal Fisher, a boy wearing a prosthetic face who moves into the Addison Apartments with his father following a traumatic past. What begins as an awkward attempt to settle into a strange new living complex quickly unravels into a dark murder mystery involving eccentric neighbors, sinister shadows, and supernatural anomalies. The premiere episode’s primary strength lies in its oppressive atmosphere, striking hand-drawn art, and moody synth-rock soundtrack. Exploring the tight hallways of the apartment complex feels genuinely unsettling, driven by strong environmental storytelling and memorable character designs. Mechanically, it functions as a classic point-and-click adventure, keeping puzzle design straightforward primarily centered on inventory interaction and talking with oddball residents—which allows the narrative hook and surreal tone to take center stage. However, as a standalone piece, Episode One is undeniably brief and serves mostly as a prologue. The overall runtime clocks in under two hours, leaving the overarching mystery almost entirely setup with very few answers or mechanical depth provided in this initial chapter. Some of the backtracking between apartment floors can also feel a bit repetitive, even within its short scope. While it operates strictly as a teaser for the larger overarching saga, Sally Face - Episode One succeeds in laying a compelling, atmospheric foundation that will easily hook fans of narrative horror and retro adventure games. Score: 7/10
2h 55m played at review · 30 Sept 2026
One of the best psychological horror games. We want episode 2. Waiting for that.
11h 27m played at review · 13 Sept 2026
BEST GAME EVER! As a kid I watch Gloom play Sally Face for the first time and I was hypnotised by the characters, art style and storyline. I've always been into the paranormal, so I knew this game was going to be up my alley. Finally being able to play after years of not having the time or money has been absolutely breathtaking. From watching someone else play to being able to play the game myself has been a 180 and knowing the second game is around the corner created and even more nostalgic moment for me! I highly recommend for anyone who had been on the fence about the game to play it, as it tells a story of friendship, heartbreak and thrill!
14h 29m played at review · 18 Sept 2026

Negative

The full game is the DLC + this. This is only the first hour of the game.
1h 2m played at review · 19 Sept 2026
I don't hate every aspect of the game and there are even parts I genuinely enjoyed. But as an adult, I wouldn't recommend this 18+ game to the adult audience it's supposedly aimed at. There are a few reasons for that. One of the biggest issues is that while the game tries to be psychological horror, but it also tells this story through a cheap chuunibyou (eighth grade syndrome) lens. Not because we're seeing everything through the eyes of these young characters. Instead of feeling like something from horror novels such as IT, I often felt like I was playing some weird creepypasta written by an emo teenager in the 2010s. The story often feels raw and underdeveloped, and a lot of things feel like they're being forced into it just for love of the game. Gameplay was also one of the things that frustrated me the most, especially in Chapter 2. This game is (at the kindest way) basically a walking simulator. In general and especially in Chapter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2 that I hate, there isn't much to do besides walking around the same map from door to door. And if you're so determined to make it a walking simulator, then at least give me a running mechanic, right??? Some of the puzzles are terrible, and they made me feel like the person responsible for the game design either wasn't very good at communicating what they had in mind to the player or simply didn't let anyone playtest these chapters before releasing them. First three chapters don't really offer much gameplay beyond point-and-click (?) elements and a side scroller. Chapters 4 and 5 try to introduce new mechanics of course, but I don't think they were executed particularly well. Don't get me wrong, Sally's guitar section and the final boss fight in Chapter 4 were fun, but that's about it. Chapter 5 starts becoming lame again. Speaking of lame, in Chapter 5 the developer seems to have tried to be quirky by adding a bunch of different art styles, but they mostly just look ugly and don't really seem to serve much of a purpose. To be honest it just looks ridiculous. I wish the effort that went into creating all those new assets had instead been spent on the cutscenes. As for the ending, [spoiler] I would have to go back about six years to when I first played the chapter 5 together with a friend on her almost potato computer. I hated the ending. It was completely unsatisfying, with everything being taken to an extreme and eventually becoming meaningless. Like, why does everything suddenly turn into a post-apocalyptic world after fighting some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cult hiding underneath a tiny apartment building? (half joking in this sentence but man I really didn't like the ending). It's the chuunibyou syndrome. [/spoiler] I honestly think this game was made more for YouTubers and streamers than for actual gamers, just like 90% of indie horror games from the 2010s. “Chat, what is this??? Chat, I don't understand. What am I supposed to do here?” “Guys, I had to cut out this small section where I was stuck for a few hours lol. Please don't spoil it in the comments, guys!!!” You know the type of YouTubers I'm talking about. The exact kind of people who helped make modern indie horror games as lame as they are right now. But I still think there are some interesting aspects to the story. Even if at the end of the day, I just don't think this game was made for anyone other than youtubers and edgy 14 year olds who have barely played a video game in their lives. Of course, I'm not even going to get into how cliché and bland most of the characters are, how the OST constantly repeats until it starts getting annoying or how half-baked the game's art direction feels. I'm done (still planning to play the second game tho, but don't get the wrong idea)
11h 22m played at review · 2 Sept 2026
An ending so bad it honestly just ruined all build up and intrigue I had for it. I was excited for many things to be answered or at least given an idea about what happened/what is happening, but it ends in the most random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ way I have ever seen in a story. I stood up from my chair screaming THATS IT due to how insanely out of left field it ends. With a game being this story intensive, and having very mediocre mechanics (that I originally could set aside due to the intrigue of the story) ending on that note just killed any care I could have about this game
8h 38m played at review · 7 Sept 2026