Sally Face

Also released on Nintendo Switch in 2021 and later on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2022.

• Title — Sally Face • Developer — Portable Moose • Publisher — Portable Moose • Platforms — Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Android, IOS • Genre — Adventure, mystery, horror • Engine — Unity • Modes — Single-player • Released — * Windows, Mac, Linux • August 16, 2016 • Switch • January 21, 2021 • PS4, Xbox One • April 14, 2022 • Android, iOS • August 16, 2026

Sally Face is a point-and-click adventure game that includes narrative, exploration, and puzzle-solving, combined with the direct control of the player via sidescrolling. Players are encouraged to talk to game characters and explore the environments to uncover hidden parts of the story and can return to environments in later timelines to see how things have changed. Each episode of Sally Face contains optional puzzles that reveal more of the story. The game also includes various minigames that break up the regular gameplay.

Note: This summary is told linearly; in-game, the main plot of the first four episodes are told as flashbacks recounted by an older Sal.

In 1984, young Sal Fisher wakes up in a sterile hospital room, his face wrapped in bandages. As he gets up to explore, the atmosphere quickly turns eerie. The room appears normal at first, but as Sal moves through the hospital corridors, things begin to change. Blood splatters the walls, the lights flicker, and strange whispers echo around him. As he navigates this dreamlike sequence, he encounters a dog, who cryptically tells him that he is not alone. After the eerie dream sequence, a now 15-year-old Sal with a prosthetic face wakes up in reality, revealing that he and his father have moved from New Jersey to the Addison Apartments building in the town of Nockfell. The day before their arrival in 1992, one of the other residents, Mrs. Sanderson, is murdered. Sal explores and meets the other tenants, including Larry Johnson, who reveals he witnessed the murder. Sal helps Larry find evidence that the murderer was Charley Mansfield, one of the other tenants. They present the evidence to the police, and he is arrested. In the present, Sal recounts the story to his psychiatrist, Dr. Enon, as he is awaiting trial for mass murder.

The episode begins in 1993, with Sal experiencing another disturbing dream, hinting at his traumatic past and a growing supernatural presence around him. When he wakes up, Larry tells him that he has been hearing strange noises in the basement of the apartment complex. Believing it could be linked to the murder from the previous episode, the two decide to investigate further. Larry tells Sal that he feels a demon has cursed him in the building. They both uncover hidden areas within the basement, including a room filled with strange symbols, dark rituals, and an ominous presence that suggests the building is haunted by something much worse than just ghosts. As they dig deeper, Sal experiences terrifying visions of a demonic figure, hinting at a greater evil tied to the apartments. Sal promises to help him and goes to Todd Morrison, a tenant their age who creates gadgets. Todd modifies Sal's "Gear Boy" into the “Super Gear Boy” to be able to detect supernatural spots. Together, the three of them explore the building. On the top floor, which is under renovation, Sal enters a secret room, where he encounters the demon. Larry steps in to save Sal and eliminates the demon with a gadget made by Todd. In the present, Sal is taken away while Enon visits the treehouse, where he is scared by the ghost of Larry and is killed after he falls from the tree, breaking his neck.

The episode starts off more than a year later in 1994, with Sal and his friends at school in the cafeteria, where they suspect something is terribly wrong with the cafeteria's bologna. Students have been eating it for years, but no one seems to know where it actually comes from. The strange taste and its suspicious origins lead the group to investigate. After discovering that it is produced by the math teacher Mrs. Packerton, who lives in Addison Apartments, Sal and Larry decide to break into her apartment. There, they find that the bologna is made of human meat and that Mrs. Packerton's husband is possessed by an unknown entity, who they euthanize. Their friend Ashley Campbell discovers a hidden trash chute but falls down it. Sal, Larry, and Todd find that the chute leads to an occult temple underneath the building, where they save Ashley. Mrs. Packerton is killed in a car crash.

Five years later in 1999, a now-adult Sal lives with Todd and Todd's boyfriend, Neil, in a house down the road from Addison Apartments, where they have spent the last few years investigating the cult. Ashley comes to visit, and she and Sal meet at a lake. That night, Sal receives strange messages from Larry and rushes to the apartments, only to find that Larry has committed suicide. Sal and Larry's ghost work their way through the apartment building, where it is shown in the otherworld that all the residents are overgrown with a strange growth. When Sal reaches Terrence Addison, the owner of the building who never leaves his room, he finds that a fleshy green mass has possessed him since he was a child. Sal defeats the mass but an apparition of Terrence tells him he must kill all the infected tenants to end the infestation for good. Reluctantly, Sal obliges and murders all of the residents. In the Lobby, he finds Todd, who has been possessed by the demon. Todd calls Ashley, crying and hysteric, and she calls the authorities. She arrives shortly after the police do, and witnesses a blood-covered Sal, muttering and regretful. Sal is arrested immediately. Two years later in 2001, Sal is put on trial and, due to the cult controlling the jury and Dr. Enon being replaced by a cult lookalike, he is sentenced to death. Although Ashley later finds proof of Sal's story in the form of a picture of Larry's ghost, she arrives too late to save Sal, witnessing his execution by electric chair.

After Sal's death, Ashley continues Todd's investigations of the cult. She places explosives, with the help of Neil and his friend in the army, in the main cult temple. However, she is unable to bring herself to detonate them. Believing Sal is destined to destroy the cult, she initiates a ritual to revive him and slits her wrist to become a physical host for his spirit. This temporarily keeps her alive and gives her special abilities. They go to the temple, where Ashley, Sal's spirit, and the ghost of Larry defeat "The Endless One", the core entity of the cult, saving Todd and others from the cult's possession. Larry's ghost vanishes, leaving the others to grieve him. Even after the group's best efforts to save the world from the cult, it is later revealed in the unlockable epilogue, that though they managed to save the world, 33% of the planet's population had been consumed by the darkness.

Sally Face was developed by Portable Moose, composed of solo developer Steve Gabry who also composed the soundtracks. The game took five years to develop. It was developed using the Unity game engine. While Steve first invented the concept and world of Sally Face around 2006/2007, development on the game did not officially start until 2015. Steve cites 90s cartoons and personal nightmares as his main inspiration. In 2016, an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, netting the game $13,697, allowed Steve Gabry to start working on Sally Face full-time. Sally Face, Episode One: Strange Neighbors was released August 16, 2016, on itch.io and December 14 on Steam. Episode Two: The Wretched was released July 7, 2017. Episode Three: The Bologna Incident was released on February 10, 2018. Episode Four: The Trial was released on November 30, 2018. Episode Five: Memories and Dreams was the final episode and was released on December 13, 2019

On August 16, 2026, the ten year anniversary of the first episode's release, Portable Moose uploaded a teaser for Sally Face 2.

Sally Face is associated with United States.