Sally Face: Episode One, Strange Neighbors

Sally Face: Episode One, Strange Neighbors is the first instalment of Steve Gabry’s five-part horror adventure. Sal Fisher, a boy with blue hair, a prosthetic face and a glass eye, moves into the Addison Apartments in Nockfell with his father, and a murder happens on his floor the same day. This walkthrough covers the main story and all seven of the episode’s achievements.

How the game plays

• Controls: keyboard.
• Menu: the Esc key.
• Inventory: the Q key. Items are used automatically.
• Saving: automatic, into a single slot, SallyFaceGameSave_0.sav. On Windows it lives at C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\LocalLow\Steve Gabry\Sally Face. Two of the achievements below need the same scene played twice, and the game has its share of bugs, so it is worth keeping a folder of copied saves.

The story so far

The Supreme Court is hearing the case of a mass murder of the tenants of the Addison Apartments. Sal Fisher stands accused. He lived in the building with his father, Henry Fisher, who was among the victims. The episode is Sal’s own recollection, told during a session with his court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Enon.

Prologue

Seven things have to be done before the Gear Boy mini-game will let you finish it, and they are spread right across the episode. They are numbered 1 to 7 below so you can keep count. Four of them are digits that make up a door code, and the code has to be entered, because if it is not, the batteries you need later will not be in the shopping bag.

Sal is standing in the half-dark in the middle of a hospital room, his face completely bandaged. A telephone is ringing.

Take a couple of steps right and pick up the receiver. Any of the three replies will do; listen to the caller. Go left and flick the light switch on. The door is locked. Go right, push the bedside cabinet aside and pick up the KEY from the floor.

• Action 1 of 7: note the number 5 stamped on the key.

Unlock the door and leave the room.

The corridor of doors

You come out into a corridor with several doors, each marked with a letter. Going through any of them puts you in another identical corridor of lettered doors. The doors spell a word: take them in the order D, O, G.

• Action 2 of 7: after the first door, walk left to the end of the corridor and note the number 3 on the wall.

You end up outside in the rain. Head right, past the people gathered at a grave.

• Action 3 of 7: note the number 6 written on the tree branch, as part of “007”.

Talk to the dog lying with its head miserably on its paws. Take its advice, go right and climb down into the grave.

• Action 4 of 7: in the corridor below, go right and note the number 4 on the wall.

Zoom in on the keypad, enter 5364 and press the E key.

The door opens whatever you type, or even with nothing typed at all. But if the code is wrong there will be no batteries in the kitchen bag later, and the Gear Boy achievement becomes impossible for this playthrough.

Go into the room and right, and speak to your father, who says you are not his son and vanishes.

• For the “found the feet, the eye and the dark one” achievement (1 of 3): walk along the row of mortuary freezers pressing the action key; there is no highlight on screen. One of the drawers slides open with a corpse’s foot sticking out of it.

Go right and click the trolley carrying the body of Sal’s mother, Diane Fisher.

All of it turns out to be Sal’s account to Dr. Enon.

Strange Neighbors

Sal and his father leave New Jersey for Nockfell and move into apartment 402 of the Addison Apartments with their cat. His father suggests he walk round the building and make a friend.

Goal: look around the building

• Action 5 of 7: go right into Sal’s room, walk to the left side of it, push the television and take the GEAR BOY.

Leave the room and go left into the kitchen.

• Action 6 of 7: take the BATTERIES out of the bags on the kitchen counter. They are only there if you entered 5364 in the prologue.

Go right and out of apartment 402. Head right and talk to the policeman standing outside apartment 403. Something has clearly happened in there, but he will not discuss it.

Take the lift down to the third floor. Go left and talk to Lisa, who is mopping the floors, choosing the line about how anyone finds something to do around here. She suggests you meet her son Larry and gives you a key card for the lift. A new goal appears.

Take the lift to the second floor, go right and knock on apartment 204. Once you are invited in you meet Charley, its tenant. Look over his collection and talk to him about everything.

Leave, take the lift to the ground floor. Go left and knock on apartment 101 for a distinctly unfriendly reception, then go right and knock on apartment 103. Talk to Mr. Addison through the letter slot about everything.

Goal: talk to Larry in the basement

No invitation comes, so go back to the lift and down to the basement. Go into apartment 1B.

• For the “found the feet, the eye and the dark one” achievement (2 of 3): go left into the kitchen and look at the shadow with the burning eyes.

Go right and knock on Larry’s bedroom door. Once he lets you in you meet Larry.

Ask him what happened in 403, then work through the new topics that open up. When the conversation about Mrs. Sanderson’s murder is finished, ask what is wrong with the man in 103 and hear about “Addison’s tea”.

• For the “listened to Sanity’s Fall multiple times” achievement (1 of 2): also pick the line about liking his T-shirt.

Listen to a track by Sanity’s Fall with him. Then look at the radio on the cabinet; Larry works out a plan to get into apartment 403.

Goal: switch the walkie-talkie on in 402

Leave Larry’s room, take the lift to the fourth floor, go into apartment 402 and into your own bedroom. Press the Shift key. Sal calls Larry, who raises a false alarm to draw the police away.

Goal: get into 403

Leave the apartment, go right and slip into apartment 403.

Goal: find evidence in 403

Go right and look at the three figurines on the cabinet. Larry calls and suggests you come down to him, and the two of them make a new plan.

• Achievement: listened to Sanity’s Fall multiple times (2 of 2). Ask Larry to play the Sanity’s Fall track again.

• Achievement: found the feet, the eye and the dark one (3 of 3). Take the lift to the fifth floor and go left. Press the action key at the split in the wall panelling; again there is no highlight. You find a hole with an eye looking out of it.

Achievement: got Lisa to mention Larry’s secret

Go right and open apartment 504. Inside is a strange man sitting on a bed of newspapers, who tells Sal he should not have come in, because odd things happen in this building. There is a knock at the door; Sal looks round, and when he turns back the man has gone.

Leave and go down to the basement. Ask Larry whether there are ghosts in the building and hear about Chug. Go up to the third floor to Larry’s mother Lisa and choose, in order:

• ”Do you need any help?”
• ”I’ll look out for him”
• ”He told me a terrible secret”

Lisa talks about Larry’s curse. Go down to the basement and ask Larry about the curse to earn the achievement.

Goal: get Charley’s toy from 204

There are two ways to do this and each has its own achievement. To get both, quit the game here, copy your save into the folder you set aside, and carry on; you can restore it afterwards and take the other route.

Achievement: used sleep aid with the tea

Leave Larry’s room and go up to the ground floor. Knock on apartment 103 and choose “Addison’s tea, please, thank you”. With the TEA in hand, take the lift to the fourth floor and go into apartment 402. Go left into the bathroom and add the SLEEPING PILLS to the tea. Take the lift to the second floor and go to Charley’s apartment, 204. Talk to him, choose “So-o-o”, listen to the answer and end the conversation.

Charley says he can smell Addison’s tea. He takes it off Sal, drinks it and falls asleep.

Look through the collection and take the TOY.

Achievement: used old laxative with tea

Quit the game, restore the copied save and go back in. Leave Larry’s room, go up to the ground floor and knock on 103, again choosing “Addison’s tea, please, thank you”. With the TEA, take the lift to the third floor, go right and talk to Chug about ghosts.

He is willing to trade the key to the bathroom in apartment 504 for something.

Go up to the fourth floor and into your apartment. Sal’s father is asleep in his room; pick the QUARTER up off the floor. Go down to the third floor and trade the quarter to Chug for the KEY. Take the lift to the fifth floor and go into apartment 504. Unlock the bathroom door with the key and talk to the ghost of a girl. She disappears when she hears the door open.

Pick up the LAXATIVE from the floor to the right of the toilet; it goes into the tea by itself. Go out into the living room and talk to Chug, who has worked up the nerve to come in. He lets Sal keep the key.

Go to Charley’s apartment and talk to him. He drinks the tea and runs for it.

Look through the collection and take the TOY.

Achievement: completed the Gear Boy game

The six actions above must all be done, and you need the key from Chug.

• Action 7 of 7: take the lift to the basement and go right. Pull the CARTRIDGE out of the box marked “Lost + Found” under the shelving.

Go up to the fifth floor and into apartment 504, then into the bathroom. Talk to Megan, leave the bathroom and immediately walk back in. The Gear Boy icon starts flashing in the top left corner. Open the inventory and switch the GEAR BOY on to start the mini-game. It is a small five-room horror game, and every room hides a key.

1. The graveyard

Walk left from your own grave and off the edge of the screen. When the word “Gravestone” appears, press the action key and take the KEY. Then go right and open the gate.

2. The yard

Go left and look at the remains of the bonfire, where you can see pieces of something odd. Go right and break a BRANCH off the tree by the gate. Come back to the bonfire and fish the KEY out with the branch. Go right and unlock the door.

3. The house

Go right and pull the armchair on the left aside. Pick up the KEY. Go right and up the stairs.

4. His study

Go right. Behind one of the books on the shelves is a KEY. Go left and unlock the bookcase with it, take the KEY inside and open the door on the right.

5. Her room

Go left. Press the action key as you draw level with the bedside cabinet. Move out of the dark to the right and into the light. Open the door of 504, go into the bathroom and take the KEY from the body in the bath. Leave the bathroom, go right and through the door. Approach the hanged man.

With the mini-game finished, Sal talks to the ghost of the girl, and the achievement is yours.

Goal: give the evidence to the detective

Leave the bathroom and talk to Chug. Go down to the basement and talk to Larry about the figurine; he suggests taking it to the detective.

Go to the ground floor and right, to the building’s exit. Talk to the detective and tell him you have evidence.

Go left and out into the street. Talk to Charley, sitting in the police car, who swears he is innocent. Go on and look inside the van.

Dr. Enon says that years later evidence turned up proving Charley innocent, and tells Sal their next session will be just before his trial.

• Achievement: finished episode one.

The people of episode one

Sal Fisher is the main character, nicknamed Sally Face at school for the prosthetic on his face. After the death of his mother, Diane Fisher, he and his father Henry move from New Jersey to Nockfell and settle in the Addison Apartments.

Larry Johnson lives in the basement of the same building with his mother. Sal meets him on arrival and the two are friends immediately.

Lisa Garcia is Larry’s mother and the caretaker of the Addison Apartments.

Mrs. Sanderson is Sal’s neighbour on the fourth floor, murdered on the day he arrives.

Charley Mansfield is the tenant of apartment 204, and the man Larry saw kill Mrs. Sanderson.

Megan Holmes lived in apartment 504 with her parents, Luke and Stacy Holmes, long before Sal arrived. In this episode she appears as the ghost in the bathroom of that apartment.

Chug is the boy on the third floor who will trade the key to 504’s bathroom for a quarter.

Mr. Addison is the tenant of 103 and the source of the building’s famous tea.

The detective is the officer to whom Sal hands the evidence in the Sanderson case.