Sally's Salon, Spectral Souls, and Encyclopedia Britannica are the Windows Phone Red Stripe Deals of the Week

Earlier this week we reported that N.O.V.A. 3 would come to Xbox Windows Phone 8 on Wednesday, but that information sadly turned out to be incorrect. Check out our Monster Burner story for more details, and let’s not shoot the messenger!

So what are gamers who’ve been left waiting for a rigorous and downright manly 3D sci-fi shooter supposed to play this week? Well, besides the obvious answer of Monster Burner, your next best is the Xbox Red Stripe Deal of the Week. The new sale game is Sally’s Salon Luxury Edition from Game House! It is now on sale for 99 cents, down from $2.99. Definitely an excellent substitute for shooting aliens full of holes.

In all seriousness, if you need a more hardcore gaming experience on the cheap, you’re in luck! Spectral Souls, the console-style strategy RPG is discounted for the first time ever with a whopping seven bucks slashed off its price. The Encyclopedia Britannica app rounds out the Red Stripe Deals of the week.

Sally’s Salon Luxury Edition from Game House

Regular price: $2.99 Sale price: 99 cents Download size: 44 MB Store Link

Sally’s Salon is a time management game in which players help Sally keep her customers happy by shuffling them between the various stations at a salon. Juggling the needs of a multitude of a room full of disparate customers is both challenging and fun – more so than its sequel Sally’s Spa, which ratchets up the difficulty a bit and introduces other problems.

See our full review for more details of Salon life.

Sally’s Salon started out at $4.99 before dropping to $2.99 in August 2012. It was also the Deal of the Week back in January 2012 for $2.99, so this week's price is the lowest Sally's Salon has cost.

QR: Sally's Salon

Spectral Souls from HyperDevBox

Regular price: $12.99 Sale price: 5.99 Download size: 575 MB Store Link (Windows Phone 8 only)

Spectral Souls is the only Japanese-style strategy RPG for Windows Phone 8 (it doesn’t run on Windows Phone 7). The detailed story revolves around a three-sided conflict between the established human army, a new rebel army, and an invading force of demons.

As the tale unfolds, players will be thrust into battles against both humans and monsters alike. The combat takes place on small battlefield maps. Each character has a certain range of movement and a unique assortment of attacks and skills they can draw upon in battle. It feels very much like Final Fantasy Tactics. The intricacies of combat can get pretty complex, but thankfully the game has both a tutorial and an extensive built-in manual.

Check out our original article for a more expansive analysis.

QR: Spectral Souls

Encyclopedia Britannica

Regular price: $4.99 Sale price: 2.49 Download size: 26 MB Store Link

The official app of the Encyclopedia Britannica company was updated for 2013 back in January. It features:

  • 80,000 articles in a fully searchable database
  • Tens of thousands of images, diagrams, and charts
  • Ability to download articles for offline viewing, store your favorites and access your search history
  • Research noteworthy events and birth dates from "This Day” in history
  • An A-Z browse allows users to browse the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica

The app requires an internet connection to use, and is guaranteed for one year. Apparently it comes in both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 versions. Check out Daniel’s review of the 2012 edition if you need help deciding on this one.

QR: Britannica

Thanks to Paras Valecha for the tip!

Paul Acevedo

Paul Acevedo is the Games Editor at Windows Central. A lifelong gamer, he has written about videogames for over 15 years and reviewed over 350 games for our site. Follow him on Twitter @PaulRAcevedo. Don’t hate. Appreciate!