Sally’s Spa PC review

No, it’s not a Dash game, I promise! Sally’s Spa is, however, a time management game so it isn’t a million miles away from my beloved Diner Dash franchise. The sequel to Sally’s Salon, Sally’s Spa is set, unsurprisingly, in a spa. Sally opens up new spas across the globe, with five levels at each location. Places include Iceland, Paris, Rome, China, Japan, Fiji and a Cruise Ship.

It starts off with little ol’ Sally on her own, rushing around like a mad thing to keep her customers pampered and happy. To begin, you have a waiting area, saunas, treatment chairs, massage tables and spa baths. Your customers will come in, take a seat and a little bubble above their heads will tell you what they’d like. Most are in a linear sequence, that is, they’ll want a sauna, followed by a facial, a massage and hot stones and a bubble bath! If it sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is!

It starts off fairly easy to get you used to the game mechanic. Things get more difficult as different customer types are introduced. Some are more patient than others and some have more money than others. So it pays, quite literally, for you to keep the more affluent customers at the top of your priority list. Later still, you’ll have pairs of customers who can’t be separated so you’ll have to give them their treatments together – which gets incredibly tricky!

Customers also have the option to buy goods to help them continue their pampering at home. They’ll purchase dependent on the conditions of the day. So, for example, if there’s a high UV Index, sunscreens will sell more. If people are stressed, Stress Relief products will be the pick of the day. You’re given these conditions every day as you stock your shelves so you can maximise sales and therefore your profit.

As well as purchasing goods to sell onto customers, you can upgrade your spa. Make your equipment faster and more comfortable, therefore boosting your customers’ heart ratings, and in turn, your cash flow. You can even hire staff to give you a hand, giving massages, making tea and so on. The upgrades aren’t cheap so you have to work for them and decide which ones you need the most early on in the game, and which ones can wait.

There’s not really much else to say about Sally’s Spa. It is a time management game but with a little more to it than just madly clicking. There is an element of strategy and forward planning involved too. The graphics are nice enough and the sound effects are great – the background music is relaxing and hypnotic, the sort of stuff they play in real life spas.

Despite the fact there are less levels than many time management games, Sally’s Spa took me longer to complete than most – the levels just seemed to last longer and there was enough of a challenge to make me fail a few times. It has just the right balance of difficulty whilst still remaining, essentially, a ‘casual’ game. Overall, recommended to any time management fan.