Sally’s Salon

Genre: Story-driven time-management
Keywords: sitcom, humor, hairdressing, romance
Format: mobile and pc
Developer: GameHouse
App Store
Trailer
About the game:
Business is booming, and Sally and her new side-kick François are making the town a little more beautiful, one treatment at a time. At least, they were – until some breaking news left Sally bursting with excitement.
Her favorite singer and long-time crush Julio will be performing his farewell concert near Snuggford! As one of his biggest fans, Sally couldn’t be more thrilled. But there’s more. What nobody knows is that Julio and Sally had a summer romance 20 years ago. Just when Sally’s convinced they’ll be able to rekindle their romance, disaster strikes! Julio’s plane goes missing on its way to the concert. Determined to find him, Sally and François set off on an incredible search.

What I did:
I developed the story, based on a general idea by the creative director, and was the sole writer of the script for this game, that consists of 120 fully animated scenes.
Next to this, I also designed the gameplay events. In general, the game follows a strict format of time management levels, but within the levels there are also narrative events that are designed like gameplay challenges, sometimes using existing gameplay, sometimes adding a new element. All of these events are directly tied to the storyline and often they are related to an emotional part of the story, either inducing or decreasing the general stress levels of the player. These narrative events are an add-on, and the level can be completed without them, which means story-wise they are always a deepening of the story, not something that propels the main narrative forward.

Reviews and articles:
Full walkthrough on YouTube