Squirrel Stapler is Absolutely Nuts

this is squirrel stapler it's a recently re-released horror game about hunting squirrels in a forest and it was made by David samansky if that name means anything to you you might just know him as the developer of iron lung also dusk squirrel stapler has actually been around for quite a while originally being released with the dread X collection Volume 2 where it's attracted a lot of attention online already with the streaming and let's play crowd now we have a standalone release for the game complete with some extra little goodies and quality of life improvements added to the base game but you also get the original version of the game if you'd prefer that included in the package because that's what cool developers do squirrel staplers had its nuts buried in my brain for quite a while now despite a runtime of around an hour it manages to to do enough right to make that one hell of an hour in a similar way to how iron lung did it shows off a lot of samansky strengths as a developer and his eye for eliciting certain responses from his audience and that's why we're here now I want to show off to you today that squirrel stapler is more than just a meme game so the premise of the game in case you don't know is that you play as a hunter who lives in a Shack in the woods with his wife this is your wife we came here to get away from it all so that our love might Blossom but our love has not blossomed look at my beloved the flies have made her ugly and rotten I wish you were beautiful like the squirrels of the wood and so I will cover her in the squirrels of the wood oh also God is coming in 5 days that is the premise you might have known all that already but it's worth repeating because well well it's insane but it's the way that the game follows through on the premise that really cements it as being more than just a simple gag so let's go day one time to hunt some squirrels you go out into the wild and we get some little notebook Pages hanging in the air that give us tips on how to actually hunt squirrels basically you're looking to sneak up on the little guys they can see you and they can hear you too if you go sprinting around you'll be the only mammal found in these woods so you have to take things SL slowly carefully walking around and listening to your environment for anything that sounds like a squirrel once you spot one it's time to take up your rifle waiting until the reticule and Rangefinder say you've got it and then squirrel hunted ready to be collected repeat until you've got five squirrels you need for the day if you want things to go faster you can also help yourself to the squirrels who died outside your home in the night I guess those poor Critters can't read too well don't forget you're holding a bolt action rifle and you'll need to eject each spent round after every shot with another click of the mouse button please note every time I forgot to do this in my footage and fail at shooting something then laugh at me that is more or less the core of the game at the end of the day you come back home to your wife and Adorn her right job done time to go to bed wake up to day two back to the old grind squirrel you have to do this every single day but there is more to this for a start from day two you also have to hunt the big squirrel unlike the rest of the squirrels which can be anywhere there is only one big squirrel and you're going to have to lure it out using your squirrel call listen out for its responses to zero in on its location lure it out and then take it out that certainly is a big [Music] squirrel now I'll just take that it mixes up the game play to be a bit more active and to guide the player to explore these Woods navigation is done with a map and while it does track your position and we have a compass up there in the corner too there are also lots of landmarks in the environment to help guide you without them handy to help you remember where to find ammo and health refills which are in the same spots every day most of these areas are normal but you might also find places that aren't what you expected ah some areas as well marked on your map you should try to visit every day there are stories inside told one page at a time through the week and while I won't be covering them in depth in this video they certainly add to the strange uncanny experience of squirrel stapler I think it's hard to emphasize enough just how bizarre it is to play this game it doesn't just feel like a game with a wacky Cork and seat and then something mundane thrown on top of that every part of it is just a little bit off there are more pages to find than just stories squirrel facts are everywhere in the wild with different ones every day and well the information on them might throw you a little bit the way the game looks too not just the low poly Aesthetics but the fact that trees in the distance turn to Billboards which might be done for optimization reasons but when you look up and down it's like the whole Forest is Shifting to meet you it adds to this sense of unease whilst playing like I'm seeing through the wart vision of a guy who would do this your own home is uncomfortable too unfolding Darkness like I'm in Silent Hill or something and all of this is before we even mention the interesting interior decoration but squirrel Staple's biggest strength is its pacing this is a hunting game and the E and flow of a hunt is something this little game really likes tapping into the act of stalking your prey as you listen closely to your surroundings and looking around scanning the screen trying to discern where a squirrel might be slowly creeping forward as not to disturb any Critters to your presence it's an axe that begins to draw you further and further into the world putting you in the shoes of the Hunter and raising using the tension as you begin to close in on your Target by the time you've seen one and they're beginning to make your shot your nerves are wound up so tight that you could play them like a violin you pull out your gun and take your aim and and all that tension is released Hit or Miss relief or frustration and then you go back on the roller coaster the game knows that this is the natural groove of hunting but also knows how vulnerable you the player are when you're in it it knows that if something think were to just brush up against you while you're in the moment well that'd just be downright cruel all of this put together makes squirrel stapler not just a creepy game but actually also kind of a funny game which feels rare horror comedy is a genre not uncommon in film but in games well sometimes they just struggle with comedy our premise here is macabra but also quite silly there's a mundanity in performing the same tasks every single day but these are the tasks asks your performing there are times you'll feel revulsion and other times it'll make you laugh maybe a good laugh or just a nervous one as you're confronted by something strange again I won't pretend that squirrel stapler is the only game that's managed to pull off this balance hell just look at all the other titles from the dread X collection even beyond the most popular ones but it hits its Mark with such extravagance there's new additions to the version of squirrel stapler that make it worth buying even if you played it beforehand there's a new power up in the form of an energy drink that can make a navigation a little speedia there's collectible geocaches on each level that will unlock giant squirrel mode if you find them all in one playthrough you can also find rare double squirrels which are worth double squirrel oh and there's also a Shack in the woods which will let you earn extra points by committing [Music] sins there we are extra points simple as that and that is basically squirrel stapler but just as in the iron lung video there's much more to talk about in this game David samansky is a man who knows how to manipulate a player's feelings and transforms something they've done before into something unfamiliar and I think that's worth exploring but this will be me going through the entire game so spoilers I highly recommend if you've never touched squirrel stapler that you do pick it up and play play it the game is only an hour or so long but it's also just less than £7 to buy some of you might bulk at that price to playtime ratio but I'm a man of quality not quantity and don't let these simple polygons fool you this is a game of quality but ultimately you know what you're comfortable with paying I'm also going to talk about spoilers for iron lung too just to be aware remember that game's cheap as chicken ah I couldn't resist bringing it back [Music] either way it's going to be all spoilers from here on out so you want to skip to the conclusions go to here so we've already covered day one wake up shoot squirrels staple squirrels sleep day two introduces the big squirrel mixing things up a bit but it also introduces something else that I didn't mention before something you might hear before you see what is that ah there's always weird noises coming from these Woods I'll just keep hunting oh god there are vengeful ghost squirrels now roaming these Woods who will take a piece of you if they are alerted to your presence you can kill them with a well-placed shot but they're not going to make it easy on you this is why you need those Health pickups they don't do much damage though it' take a lot of them to take you out so you'll probably be fine and make it through the second day to see your wife again I'm sure she's just hungry day three maybe it's Wednesday I like Wednesdays something was scratching on the Windows last [Music] night I see a a stupid ghost squirrel over there wonder if I can just sneak by God damn it what was that oh no oh no oh well that's left me without a paddle the squirrel bear when this Beast sees you it will immediately charge you with all the might of a bear and attack with the horrifyingly powerful explosion of a squirrel and it will take not one shot not two but three shots before it will finally go down which is more than half your maximum capacity if you hear a squirrel bear you have to think about whether or not it's safe to engage it if you have distance you could manage to get by you might also be able able to S step its charges if you're careful get some more shots off but those blasts can still sting if you're too close so sneaking by instead and not engaging might be best with a squirrel bear then right they don't add to your squirrel count so might as well creep past or avoid them entirely if we can right well a problem comes up by the fact you're hunting with a gun squirrel bears are attracted to loud noises so if there's one even remotely in the area when you're hunting they're going to come investigate oh and don't forget the ghost squirrels are you going to tank that Health hit or risk taking the shot working out ways to deal with the squirrel bear is a must if you die you restart the whole day over luckily the game's health and ammo pickups are infinite so if you just remember a good location where they are you can keep yourself stocked and healthy fairly easily I ended up using this radio building as a little rest stop when I I play you can see the Tower of it over the trees so it's easy to get to and there is both health and ammo here plus it's where I need to go to see another page of the story regardless so with all safety precautions taken I get to return home from A Hard Day's work with my head held high oh felt like getting dinner huh all right I'll just staple you while you're here day four you've now basically seen all the big tricks that the game has to offer you and now you need to work out how to deal with all of them in terms of your day job you're now a qualified squirrel Hunter though there's still some smaller things we'll see as we go obviously there's still stories to hunt down so plenty of map to navigate no end of squirrel facts to see too squirrels are always watching all right that's what oh hello wife what are you doing here um I'm going to go back to work now please don't follow [Music] me another day of trouble but maybe less trouble for you than yesterday time to go home day five at long last God is coming today the daily tip outside simply reads good luck well I certainly had good luck starting but even if you don't get that maybe you'll think you don't need luck it's day five by now you'll be approaching this job with confidence maybe you'll end up running fast around and carefree because you know how the squirrel Tango goes you can nav a critter and avoid the Bears like the best of them some things may still give you pause but eventually you'll have the final squirrel oh uh like now um okay then right I guess I'll go home yeah home home seems like a good place to be no no okay then I guess I'll just find somewhere else to go radio tower radio tower I need a safe [Music] place there it is [Music] [Music] there [Music] okay I'm reloaded I'm ready and ready I'm [Music] [Music] ready and that was squirrel stapler what a game now that's an even more sudden ending than iron lungs but it's exactly the ending that the game needed I feel big scare and cut to Black I know some people are zealously opposed to jump scares and I don't think I'll convince anyone otherwise but here's why I like this you might already know this but a jump scare is not simply a half-second scary image with a loud noise at least when done properly it's the anticipation beforehand as well simply skipping to the climax without winding up your audience first makes a scare fall flat or maybe simply startles in a way that feels cheap putting the leg work in to absorb people place them inside the world first makes it hit harder and more effectively first by having a sense of calm and normaly to establish a sort of Baseline where nothing feels like it can go wrong but then building up a creeping atmosphere of unease turning the crank of the Jack in the Box even if you build up this tension in an obvious way that signals something big is coming that can not only still be effective but sometimes more so arms gripped to the chair body tensing just praying for some kind of release to free you from all this Rising energy and then it happens everything explodes into a dramatic Peak and all the streamers freak out on their webcam mission accomplished well now what all that tension is gone in one small moment do you start the whole process over again you'll be doing so for diminishing effects and if you keep doing it it'll end up being exhausting or even frustrating to sit through but if you end on the heights of your your horror then you don't run into this problem the story is over climax has been achieved I'm not saying any of this is particularly unique to squirrel stapler or iron lung it's the basis for the best campfire ghost stories I've actually been reading Juno's uzamaki recently and he does the exact same thing for a lot of tales in there there are times where you want the story to go on but it doesn't it cuts right at the most excruciating moment and it leaves you with a strange sense of wanting the horror is still scary as well because it remains unresolved and unknown and both of these games manage all of this terrifically it's actually interesting to compare them a squirrel stapler which originally released in 2020 feels like an evolutionary step to create iron lung the fact we go through our business performing a disquieting job one that grows in creeping Intrigue as we progress through a huge ratchet intention towards the end that swells and grows until we reach our grand finale I have to say I think out of personal preference I like iron lung's approach a bit more it being a continuous unbroken experience helps make things feel a bit more structured and its tricks are a little bit more built up there's also the fact that while squirrel stapler is winking at the player sometimes which has a charm of its own Iron lungs oppressive atmosphere is presented completely seriously which helps it feel like a horrible nightmare glad something like that could never happen uh so how about that movie squirrel stapler is a Nutty Gem of a game smart enough in its execution to live up to its bizarre premise and I hope I've managed to argue that it should be played that it should be remembered pick it up for yourself on steam or for a friend who's never played it before and see with your own eyes that this srly little title is more than just some dumb meme game for streamers what where am I oh no no no no no no no no no thanks for watching this video I didn't cover much of the story here and there is some to be seen because I'm already up to my eyeballs in narrative analysis right now but I hope I managed to bring my point across regardless consider it an incentive for you to try squirrel stapler Yourself by the way make sure you go into the goodies folder of your squirrel stapler install there's some fun things in there including a little Prototype game made by samansky you should play it trust me thanks again and thank you to my patrons patrons get to ask questions in Q&A segments at the end of videos which we'll get into right now thoughts on squirrels memes aside squirrels are cool but you know what gets me down I've never seen a red squirrel I've lived in basic basically rural areas my entire life and only seen the American gray squirrels apparently the Red's population decline is getting under control in the UK so maybe in the future I hope so do you enjoy horror movies as much as horror games I do though I definitely find horror movies more approachable with a few exceptions I don't scare too easily in horror movies so I can turn one on without much thought games can get under my skin a lot easier since I'm the one in control in danger and that can set off my anxiety and make me hesitate to play more honestly but if I'm enjoying myself I do tend to keep playing them even if I get the Jitters is God here yet no I think I slept in does Boris like watching squirrels yeah he likes watching anything that's out the window and squirrels are a rare treat but who likes squirrels more is his sister pickle She's much more highly strong than Boris and is a vicious killer who hunts to torment and consume her catches one time though she saw a squirrel in the garden and began stalking it and it was really something to see a cat in 100% Predator mode chase this little guy who is absolutely clowning her jumping over her climbing up and down trees hopping between them she was exhausted she did not stand a chance that said Boris is fond of his squirrel toys is

Channel: Power Pak

Views: 792,084

Keywords: Squirrel Stapler, Squirrel Stapler Game, Squirrel Stapler Game Review, Squirrel Game, Squirrel Hunting Game, Squirrel Game Review, David Szymanski, David Szymanski Squirrel Stapler, Squirrel Stapler Gameplay, Squirrel Stapler PC, Squirrel Stapler PC Gameplay, Iron Lung, Iron Lung Squirrel Stapler, Squirrel Stapler Horror, Squirrel Stapler Horror Game, Squirrel Stapler Lets Play, Squirrel Stapler Playthrough, Power Pak, Power Pak Review

Id: YCWMhTd0c6w

Length: 24min 57sec (1497 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 30 2023