
The Skin Stapler is a retro-styled PSX grindhouse horror adventure set in the rotting, crime-soaked sprawl of Carrion City. Players follow jaded detective Dick Slater and his eager rookie partner Robbie Knox as they hunt a mysterious serial killer known only as The Skin Stapler.
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The United States storefront in every case, so this compares stores and not countries.
About
A serial killer stalks the streets, and you’re on their trail. Investigate the murders, descend into the city’s rotten underbelly, and uncover its buried secrets. Will you find the truth before The Skin Stapler finds you?Play as burned-out detective Dick Slater, hunting a serial killer known as the Skin Stapler. Take control of other characters as they are stalked through homes, workplaces, and dark city streets.
Victims are skinned, their flesh stapled to nearby walls. Distorted audio tapes taunt police and point to something darker beneath the city. You will scream. You might die. Maybe even from laugther.
Handmade horror, with no shortcuts and plenty of sharp objects. Built as an XXL horror feature night, The Skin Stapler delivers a night of atmosphere, story, and bloody good fun.
Investigate crime scenes as Detective Dick Slater, solve grisly puzzles, or survive a not-so-ordinary shift. Every character brings a different way to experience Carrion City’s nightmare.
Every character is fully voiced, bringing Carrion City’s killers, victims, and burned-out cops to life.
Inspired by 1980s VHS horror and exploitation films, the game features stylized violence, neon-lit decay, and an unapologetically grim aesthetic that blends horror and humor.
From the creator of Suffer the Night, Terror at Oakheart, Massacre at the Mirage, and Flesh Made Fear, Tainted Pact Games invites you into a grimy, neon-lit nightmare with The Skin Stapler. Experience handcrafted indie horror made with support from some of your favourite content creators.

Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Sums Steam only; GOG publishes no volume signal, so the true total is higher by an unknown amount.
| Store | Price | Audience | Score | Chart | Est. revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SteamYou are here | $14.99 | 529reviews | 91% | — | $203.2K |
| $14.99 | 4ratings | 100% | — | not modelled |
Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 481 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
I was drawn in by the stylish aesthetic but this game is I think meant for teens or something? The writing is just potty humor. There is nothing to it. If you were expecting humor or writing based on actual genre observations or character work you will be greatly disappointed.
Oh, I LOVE this. Finally, a game with some personality. A serial killer. A filthy city. Bodies stapled to walls. Neon lights. VHS horror. Gore everywhere. And somehow... It's funny. That's what I like about The Skin Stapler. Most horror games are terrified of being ridiculous. They spend hours whispering at you in dark hallways, desperately hoping you'll jump. This game looks at a horrifying murder scene and basically says: "Well... that's one way to decorate." I laughed. A lot. You play Detective ♥♥♥♥ Slater, investigating a serial killer called The Skin Stapler, and honestly, that name alone deserves an award. You're crawling through Carrion City, investigating murders, solving disgusting little puzzles and slowly discovering that this city's problems go much deeper than one lunatic with a stapler. And the atmosphere? Perfect. Everything looks dirty. Everything sounds wrong. Everything feels like it was filmed on a VHS tape that somebody found underneath a dead body. Beautiful. The gore is fantastic too. Blood, mutilated bodies, monsters, violence... Finally, a game that understands subtlety is overrated. And I love the contrast between the horror and the comedy. One minute I'm investigating something genuinely disturbing. The next I'm laughing at some completely insane situation thinking: "Who the hell came up with this?" Apparently someone with taste. The fully voiced characters make it even better. ♥♥♥♥ Slater feels like a man who has seen absolutely everything and is now just tired of everyone's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I understand him. You walk through this rotten city long enough and eventually you stop being shocked. You just start judging the interior decorating. But I do have one problem. The game is a little too short. Just when I was really getting into the madness, getting comfortable in all the blood and insanity, suddenly... It's over. Excuse me? I wasn't finished. I wanted more investigations. More disgusting crime scenes. More ridiculous dialogue. More monsters. More blood. More Skin Stapler. That's the only thing stopping this from being even better for me. I'd happily spend several more hours running around Carrion City and seeing just how much worse things can get. Still, I'd rather have a short game this good than a long game filled with pointless filler. The Skin Stapler doesn't try to be some enormous cinematic masterpiece. It doesn't need to. It's a nasty little grindhouse nightmare that knows exactly what it wants to be. Bloody. Weird. Funny. Uncomfortable. And completely insane. I had a great time. A beautifully disgusting little horror game. Just one request for the developers... Make the next one longer. The killer has a stapler. I have a review. And apparently, I need more blood.
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Hours played at review time, across 481 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Not particularly funny or scary, the 'comedy' is just endless penis/sex jokes that just get cringier and cringier. You've seen the entire game play in the first 15 and it just gets more dull from there, the same people making the same jokes and the same conversations while you perform the same tasks. There also appears to be some AI generated content with no mention of its usage, though Im not an expert. A disappointing excess of jokes and not enough horror.
Непродолжительный, но очень насыщенный геймплеем трэшовый триллер. В каждой главе игроку предлагают примерить роль разных персонажей, но основным действующим лицом является детектив по имени Йyх Слейтер. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3780604102 Очень порадовала картинка в игре, знаете, такой грязный PSX-стиль. Музыка очень сочная - громкий дарк-синт. По правде говоря, предыдущая игра от данных разработчиков "Flesh Made Fear" мне понравилась намного больше. Здесь больше про "трэш и угар", пародии на грайндхаусные ужастики и клишированных детектива хрипящего как Роршех за кадром и злодея с голосом Джокера. Так, если разработчики в описании упоминают "грайндхаус", тогда где мои две игры по цене одной?
If you are 12 year old you might find it funny. Zero Horror elements. Its just an interactive Film where you cant fail. Only good Thing are the Graphincs
Straight buns. It's Trying too hard to be funny and random but with some basic horror elements. If it was like 50% off maybe 75% off it would be worth it to play on discord streaming it to some friends. Had some funny moments but for the most part it was just bad and repetitive
I'm a HUGE fan of retro aesthetics and you would think an exaggerated, cheesy, 80s-adult horror mystery would be fun. And it did have quite a strong introduction! But at some point, the sexual humor and innuendos felt SOOOO forced and unnatural. The diminishing returns from laughing to chuckling to sighing to eye-rolling is so real for this game. Great concept that I wish understood the idea of pacing. Props to the voice acting though and the villain design, some genuinely creepy moments with immersive performances. Shame the excessive humor kept getting in the way.
It's an "okay" game for $12, starts off pretty strong but gets very dull after the first couple victims, turning into a very boring walking sim. The weird sexualized way everyone interacts with food was a pretty big negative, it just took away from the atmosphere and wasn't even funny.
really fun game! i really liked that the game swaps you between different characters so that tasks never feel redundant. i wish there was more gameplay of ♥♥♥♥ and Robbie together so that the ending part could have more meaning. it'd be awesome if there were multiple endings. for example, after completing the game and having all the knowledge of the story, you can go back and save all the characters. it would really take the game to another level. i think in the future, it'd be better to not kill off every woman possible in the cast. it creates a weird narrative, especially when it doesn't really contribute to the plot and those characters could have been men as well.
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