You drop into a weird little hunting sim that’s equal parts dark humor and bizarre horror. Squirrel Stapler makes you hunt squirrels, gather their skins, and use them in a pretty grotesque way. At the same time, it pokes fun at hunting games and slowly unspools a strange, unsettling story.
Squirrel Stapler mainly parodies the hunting genre, but it also delivers uncomfortable, absurd storytelling through a tightly focused gameplay loop.
You’ll pick up on how the game plays, why its loop feels both silly and kind of creepy, and what the odd lore and atmosphere are really getting at—obsession, decay, and maybe something else. If you’re looking for a quick playthrough that leaves you feeling weird, this one definitely does the trick.
The Main Purpose and Gameplay of Squirrel Stapler
The game gives you a single, dark task and a few tools to get it done. You hunt animals, change a corpse’s appearance, and face more and more supernatural threats as the days go by.
Why the Protagonist Staples Squirrels
You play as an unnamed man living alone in a remote cabin, sharing space with a dismembered corpse nailed to the wall. His goal? He staples squirrels to the corpse, trying to make it “beautiful” again. It’s both practical and symbolic.
You collect squirrel bodies in the woods, carry them back to the cabin, and staple them onto the corpse. The motive feels messy—part grief, part denial, maybe some ritual mixed in. The game drops hints through notes, radio snippets, and bits of story, so you’re left piecing together why he’s doing this.
You start to realize the protagonist thinks stapling will restore order or please some higher force. That ties into the warning: “In 5 days God is coming.”
Horror Hunting Simulator Mechanics
You move through short daytime cycles, each one spanning a few days. Every day, you track and shoot squirrels with simple controls, then haul the carcasses back home. Ammo and tools are limited, so you’re always juggling resources, daylight, and a growing sense of threat.
Things get weirder as you go. At first, basic squirrels are easy targets. But later, you run into ghostly squirrels and even a massive “squirrel bear” that blocks your path and ramps up the tension.
The game blends hunting sim basics—tracking, shooting, inventory—with timed objectives and some light survival pressure.
Unique Features and Squirrel Interactions
Squirrels are more than just targets—they’re a running motif. You staple real squirrels to the corpse, but you also run into poisoned or ghost squirrels that change how things play out.
Poisoned squirrels tweak dialogue and might even change the ending. Ghost squirrels will chase you, forcing you to dodge instead of just hunt.
The “squirrel bear” acts as a miniboss, cutting off routes and making you rethink your approach. Items and notes around the environment hint at lore tied to squirrels and a story called “The Lady.” These details let you dig for meaning and interact with the world beyond just shooting things.
If you’re curious about the game’s tone and how it came together, check out this write-up on the Dread X Collection entry for Squirrel Stapler.
Themes, Story, and Absurdist Horror Elements
The game mixes dark comedy, strange folklore, and a simple loop of hunting and ritual. You’ll spot satire of old hunting sims, a small but unsettling story about a grieving man, and surreal threats that turn the woods into something grotesque.
Absurdist and Pitch Black Humor
You’ll run into jokes that are both grim and deadpan. The whole premise—hunting squirrels so you can staple them to a corpse—makes you laugh and cringe at the same time.
The game skips subtlety in favor of blunt, cartoonish violence. It really leans into how ridiculous the main character’s coping mechanisms are.
You’ll notice the tone pokes fun at old edutainment and budget PC hunting games. Dialogue, item descriptions, and task prompts all use dry humor and shock value.
The humor helps break the tension, but then it snaps back, making things feel unstable. That flip from comic banality to real dread keeps you on edge. Encounters with enemies feel both absurd and honestly kind of threatening.
Lore and The Role of God Is Coming
That repeated phrase—“God is coming”—builds dread through sheer repetition. You’ll find newspaper clippings, scribbled notes, and story fragments hinting at past experiments, weird meals, and some kind of contagion in the woods.
The game never spells things out, so you’re left wondering what’s really going on.
The phrase gives things a local legend vibe, almost like a “Goat of the Wood” myth, where some corrupted force is closing in. The ending stays vague: a final creature appears, the screen cuts to black, and you’re left with more questions than answers.
That ambiguity fits the absurdist horror vibe. You never get a neat explanation or tidy moral.
Since it started as part of the Dread X Collection II, the game uses short-form storytelling to plant images and phrases that stick with you. These clues push you to come up with your own meaning—madness, ritual, supernatural invasion—without confirming any of them.
Key Characters and Unique Enemies
You step into the shoes of an unnamed man who desperately tries to fix his wife’s body using squirrel carcasses. His grief and sense of detachment really drive everything he does.
The wife’s corpse isn’t just a plot device—it’s both a motivation and, honestly, a grotesque centerpiece that sets the tone for the game’s dark satire.
You’ll run into all sorts of enemies. There are regular squirrels, ghostly squirrels that creep up on you, and then there’s the massive “squirrel bear”—or, well, a final monstrous head that seems to stand in for “God.”
Ghost squirrels don’t follow a set pattern; they act unpredictably and ramp up the tension as you get deeper into the game. Eventually, the last enemy shows up as this surreal, oversized squirrel head with exposed, brain-like features. It’s pretty unsettling.
David Szymanski, the creator, really leans into caricature with these designs instead of aiming for realism. If you check Steam or any of the original release pages, you’ll notice people call the game absurdist horror with pitch-black humor.
That weird mix of bizarre enemies and bleak characters keeps the gameplay focused and, strangely enough, thematically tight.
