The Skin Stapler

About The Skin Stapler

The Skin Stapler is by Tainted Pact, the maker of Flesh Made Fear, Massacre at the Mirage, Suffer the Night and Terror at Oakheart, and was published by Assemble Entertainment on 6 August 2026 for Windows on Steam and GOG. The store calls it an XXL horror feature night inspired by 1980s VHS horror and exploitation films, and the maker built it to be finished in one sitting.

You mostly play Dick Slater, a jaded detective saddled with an eager rookie partner, Robbie Knox, on the trail of a killer who skins his victims and staples their flesh to nearby walls. The story runs over fourteen short chapters. In the victim chapters you play someone in Carrion City going about their job, making hot dogs at a convenience store, filling donuts or rewinding tapes at a video rental store, each a small routine with its own steps and quick time events, while the shift turns sinister and the killer closes in. Then the detective arrives at the same place, now a slaughterhouse, and searches it.

At each crime scene the killer leaves a locked message for Slater. You pick up objects, turn them over and find what is hidden on them, a photo slide or a tarot card, until the message opens, with some light puzzles along the way. None of it is hard, and Bloody Disgusting found the jobs repetitive, but the searching makes you look closely at the killer's work.

Every character is fully voiced, in the cheesy manner of late-night horror films, and the humour is crude and constant: nearly every customer has an innuendo ready. Bloody Disgusting singled out the opening chapter, a woman alone in her apartment, as the tensest, and found the rest leaned more on jokes, jump scares and gore than on dread. It suits players who like slasher films, low-poly retro horror and Tainted Pact's earlier games, and who do not mind horror played for laughs. A free demo is on Steam.

How to play The Skin Stapler

1. Play each victim's chapter by learning their job's routine, such as making a hot dog or filling a donut, and carrying out each customer's order.
2. Press the quick time events when they appear; some steps of each job need them to go on.
3. As Detective Dick Slater, walk the crime scene and pick up the objects around the body.
4. Turn each object over to find the clue hidden on it, until the killer's locked message opens.
5. Follow the trail to the next chapter and the next victim, until you reach the Skin Stapler.

Tips

• At a crime scene, rotate every object you pick up from all sides; the clues are hidden on them, not lying in plain view.
• In the job chapters, pay attention to the order of each step the first time; the same routine comes back with every customer.
• Subtitles can vanish before a line ends, so play with the sound up if you want to catch every joke.
• Try the free demo on Steam first: it shows the tone of the humour, which decides whether you will enjoy the rest.

Questions