iPad Review: Sally’s Studio HD

Ever fancy working in a studio? Well, you can do so alongside Sally, the titular character of Sally’s Studio HD, where you provide various exercising and aerobic activities for customers who want to keep in shape.

Like Burger Bustle HD that I reviewed previously and Burger Jam here on Ningin, your objective is to keep all your customers happy by serving their various needs. As with all games, it starts out nice and easy so that you can get a feel of the game and what’s to come. You control Sally, who has created her own studio after the studio she normally frequented closed its doors.

But no worries - Sally is as relentless as they come and she goes about creating her own studio. There are warm-up exercises, yoga, weight training, aerobic exercises, dance exercises, amongst others. You have a target amount of how much money to earn before you close up shop but no worry, there’s really no time limit (not that I know of). You want to earn as much money as you possibly for a few reasons:
1) You get to upgrade your items, giving you more money.
2) Buy power-ups to calm your customers and keep them from getting angry (angry customers are just terrible).
3) Hire workers to help you out so you don’t have to run around as much (though I’ll tell you this now: you still have to run around doing quite a bit).

And as usual, this game does require a bit of thinking - which customer came first, which customers will you help first, how much time can you save by grouping as many customers together as possible, when to use your power-ups. If you don’t plan it out carefully, though, (since when did I ever have a plan?), you could find yourself frantically rushing around, swiping and moving Sally around to appease those impatient customers (seems to be what I do all the time).

I still haven’t found the perfect combination yet: I first got a magazine to keep customers busy, then I started upgrading the equipment. I think you should first aim to get a worker to help you out so that way, Sally has a little less work to deal with. Or you could upgrade all your equipment first so you can earn more money. Either way, both options will leave you with not a lot of money. I need to make more money in order to achieve what I want to achieve (why is it that money is the thing that makes the world go round?).

One thing that aggravated me, however, was the yoga exercises. I nearly hit the screen in frustration (I don’t suggest that) because I would have to carefully scroll through to find the right position and sometimes, when I got that perfect position and tried to select it, it would somehow go to a different position and get me in trouble. Not cool. So not cool. Other times, it worked perfectly. It’s supposed to let you scroll with one finger, then that finger would let go to press “choose position” when the correct position was selected. But no - I had to use two fingers at times. So not fun because I didn’t want to let go of my first finger lest I wanted my customer to be unhappy.

Overall, it’s a fun game - simple and relaxing. Not too boring though and definitely keeps your mind alert. There are 50 stages, 5 levels in each world for a total of 10 worlds. There are medals and different achievements to unlock, so what are you waiting for? Go on - get the game while it’s still cheap (relatively speaking). Oh and the graphics and music are pretty good. Didn’t lag and the music didn’t put me to sleep.

Interested in wanting to know more or purchase the game? Check it out here.