The Skin Stapler
Developer: Tainted Pact
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Platforms: PC (reviewed)
Release Date: Out Now
Dirty, grimy and seedy. There’s no better way to describe this PSX horror from Tainted Pact, the developer that recently impressed us at Indie Horror Gamer with the Resident Evil-inspired Flesh Made Fear.
In The Skin Stapler, we’re transported to Carrion City, a bleak suburban nightmare that’s steadily sliding into hell. “This city is drowning in misery,” notes the main protagonist in the game’s opening, and he’s not wrong. Everything is rotten, everyone is depressed, or weird, or both, and there’s a horrific serial killer on the loose.
That line is grumbled by Dick Slater, a police detective battling the tide of criminality in Carrion City. With a Rorschach voice shaped by a 40-a-day habit, Slater is on the trail of the Skin Stapler, a vicious killer who skins their victims before displaying the remains in a quasi-religious pose. Against his wishes, Slater partners up with newbie ‘tec Robbie Knox. In the spirit of the Nineties serial killer thriller Seven, the pair constantly arrive at murder scenes, piecing together clues about the killer’s identity and whereabouts before a dramatic and bloody showdown at the conclusion of the game.
These investigation scenes form only half of The Skin Stapler, however. For the rest of the game, the player steps into the shoes of the Stapler’s victims, a series of incongruously attractive women, each working the late shift at one of Carrion City’s eateries, or, in a bizarre twist, a blood bank. In almost every case, the assorted strange denizens arrive, demanding a hot dog, movie or donut, briefly blending the horror with a series of service chores. By the time you’re halfway through The Skin Stapler, you’ll realise these never end well, with the subsequent aftermath levels announcing the arrival of Slater and Knox.
Discovering evidence is as uncomplicated as the rest of the game—simply scan the environment for clickable items before rotating them to locate the clues left by the killer. These grisly scenes are dark, sometimes requiring a fair amount of searching, while piecing together the clues usually grants access to a new area or another hint about the person behind these heinous crimes. Each of the victims is modelled after a real-life internet persona, mainly content creators such as Layna Lazar as a blood-sucking entrepreneur and FeFe as an early victim who fails to make it out of her apartment. Most lend their voices too, and the voice acting overall is gloriously over-the-top.
Fans of Flesh Made Fear will find the music familiar in The Skin Stapler, a collection of brilliant synth tunes that perfectly evoke the blood-splattered gameplay. Also apparent is the similarity to Tainted Pact’s earlier game, Massacre At The Mirage, and The Skin Stapler is more evolution rather than revolution in this respect. The victim scenes definitely felt distasteful in places, but it’s a grindhouse horror homage—they’re supposed to feel like that! In fact, there’s an undercurrent of disgust throughout The Skin Stapler, most notably in the various customers you encounter throughout the night, each as peculiar and worrying as the actual villain of the game.
On that note, the white-faced Skin Stapler is a fantastic character, slowly ducking beneath shelves during the Quick Fix segment, while their inevitable appearance marks the start of the horror in each victim scene. Sadistic, dark humour persists throughout, and while it adds up to a slightly uneven affair, the macabre retro tone sits relatively comfortably with the bizarre antics of the game’s minor characters.
With 14 short acts, and no combat or puzzles of any significant challenge, The Skin Stapler hangs on its ability to shock, amuse and terrify. You’ll get a variable amount of each during its running time, and how well it sits together depends on how much you’re invested and appreciate the exploitation-style B-movie events. One thing’s for sure: The Skin Stapler is certainly not a game for the easily offended.
CONCLUSION
Shocking and ghastly in more ways than one, The Skin Stapler is an eye-opener of a game. Yet while its gameplay doesn’t quite live up to the gloriously over-the-top aesthetic, it should still prove both a funny and thrilling, if fleeting, ride for many horror fans.
