Squirrel Stapler

Squirrel Stapler started life as part of The Dread X Collection II — a horror anthology — and has since expanded into a standalone release of under an hour's runtime. It satirizes low-budget edutainment games of the 90s with deeply uncomfortable humor and the kind of absurdist horror that genuinely escalates into panic. The setup is brief, awful, and the entire foundation of the game.

A lonely man lives in a remote cabin. His beloved — a dismembered corpse nailed to the cabin wall — has been made ugly by flies. He wishes she were beautiful, like the squirrels of the wood. So he goes out into the forest to hunt squirrels, intending to staple them to her body to restore her beauty. The sinister presence that lives in the deep woods has one rule about this practice: thou shalt not staple squirrels.

Gameplay is hunting-sim mechanics turned to a different purpose. Move quietly. Hide in bushes. Stay low. Pick the right moment to pull the trigger. A squirrel call lures bigger squirrels into range. Larger creatures and vengeful ghosts move through the same woods you do, and you are not the only alpha predator. A large nonlinear map sits behind it all, littered with parody educational squirrel facts for anyone who wants to read about real squirrels while doing the opposite of what real biologists recommend.

The Steam release adds a more alive forest, an unlockable Giant Squirrels mode, a full quality-of-life pass on balance, UI and tutorials, expanded options, full controller support, achievements and new content in the goodies folder. The whole thing is short, intensely uncomfortable, and aware of exactly what it is — which is the point.