Video Game / Skinfreak

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Skinfreak is a horror/puzzle game developed by Black Eyed Priest and published by Torture Star Video. It was released onto Steam on October 16th, 2025.

The game's titular Big Bad is a psychopathic Serial Killer who gets a sick, sexual pleasure from skinning innocent people alive and wearing his ill-gotten gains. And unfortunately for her, Belle Buchanan becomes his next target as she heads into work to install important software at the dead of night.

Like all other games Black Eyed Priest has created since 2021, Skinfreak is a Retraux Game with PS1-styled graphics and a narrative inspired by a sub-genre of horror. More specifically, this entry is advertised to be a "story oriented B-Movie experience inspired by classic slasher films of the 1980s with a bit of giallo inspired influences sprinkled in".

The game's Steam page can be found here.

Skinfreak contains examples of the following tropes:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: Near the end of the game, Belle can find the creepy delivery guy's corpse in a security office. Just as she's about to leave, the body springs to life to give her a handgun before collapsing and dying. She can use this to fend off the Skinfreak during the final boss fight/chase.
• Abusive Parents: Belle's father. He used to beat her when she would come home from school late and force her to skin dead animals regularly. The abuse has since continued into her adulthood, with him still stalking her up until his eventual murder by the hands of the Skinfreak.
• The Alcoholic:
  • The simply named "Drunk Man" is Max's first customer of the shift. He asks to piss on the backseat and collapses onto the ground after being dropped off at his destination.
  • Mr. Baun has an entire liquor cabinet in his office, and Belle even comments on his love for whiskey.
• Antagonist Title: The game is named after the Skinfreak, a crazed serial killer with a fetish for human skin.
• Ax-Crazy: The Skinfreak is a dangerous psychopath who skins his victims alive.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Belle's father haunts Belle's dreams and is the sole reason she's even in the city at all as she left home to get away from him only for him to stalk her and try to force her to come back after failing to convince her too. However, the moment Belle meets him in person, he's already badly cut up because the Skinfreak got to him first, and Belle can barely acknowledge him at all... or even finish the job herself to make sure he doesn't survive.
• Chainsaw Good: Both the poster and finale at the top of the Baun Plaza see the Skinfreak wielding a chainsaw for some good ol' fashioned building/human carving.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: The poster and prologue see the Skinfreak wearing a black trench coat, most likely in a nod to the common attire of killers in Giallo films.
• Creator Cross-References: Throughout the game, you can find a variety of posters, VHS tapes, and flavor text that call back to Jordan King's previous titles, such as Bloodwash, Night at the Gates of Hell, The Booty Cheek Creek Freak, Ski Freak, and even a name-drop for the killer in his next game, Killview.
• Creepy Gas-Station Attendant: Belle encounters the mentally unstable Joe of "Joe & Son's", the gas station across the street from the Baun Plaza.​
• Decoy Protagonist: We start the game playing as Max, an unlucky taxi cab driver and former prostitute who the Skinfreak kills at the end of the prologue.
• Disney Villain Death: Zig-zagged. Steve is shoved off the top of the Baun Plaza, is declared dead, and gets buried. Yet a year later, his body is mysteriously dug-up and goes missing. So, did Steve really die from the fall, or just temporarily?
• Ending with a Scream: Belle screams at her hallucination of the Skinfreak in a doctor’s outfit and hand-held saw before the game cuts to the credits.
• The End... Or Is It?: The ending narration reveals that Steve's dead body was dug up and stolen a year after the game's events. Whether this crime was done by a fanatic of the Skinfreak or if it was done by Steve himself coming back from the dead is left unclear.
• Eye Scream:
  • The Delivery Guy is missing an eye when Belle finds his barely sentient body, and he lost the other after handing her the gun and collapsing onto the floor.
  • Belle rips Steve's eye out with her exposed hand bone during the climax.
• Foreboding Carcass:
  • A cow's decapitated and stuffed head can jump-scare Belle if she goes into the back of Joe & Son's.
  • Joe's computer has a file named "bessie", which contains a photo of a strung-up cow corpse.
• ​Genuine Human Hide: The Skinfreak wears the skin of his victims after properly removing it from their bodies.
• Improvised Weapon: Belle uses the exposed bone poking out of her sawed-off hand to rip-out Steve's eye, causing him to seemingly fall to his death.
• Interactive Start Up: When booting up the game, you are placed in a dimly lit elevator with three interactive buttons. The top is for "New Game", middle for "Load Game", and the bottom for "Quit Game". Once pressed, you will be brought to a floor in which you must walk into a dark hallway to initiate what you want.
• Larger-Than-Life Promo: The cover image shows the titular Big Bad as a giant, cutting up a building with a chainsaw.
• ​Neat Freak: Sir Charles, the Baun Plaza's own sentient janitor robot, fits this to a tee.
• No Name Given: All of Max's customers except for Belle follow this protocol: Drunk Man, "Business" Man, and Old Lady.
• Ominous Television: In the basement, there's a mysterious television playing static behind a boarded-up side room. Strangely, it turns off once Belle flips the lever on the fuse box.
• Predatory Pimp: Played for Laughs. Despite running a taxi fare business, Jerry also appears to be a pimp on the side, given his threats of sending Max back into prostitution if he's late for work again.
  Jerry: You keep this up... and I'll have you back to selling that second-rate stankhole of yours behind the liquor store again. Giving out those... two-for-one spit n' stick deals, feel me?
  Max: Yeah, sure, Jerry. Won't happen again.
  Jerry: Good. Now go out there and get me my money, ho.
• Red Herring:
  • Belle's father is the most obvious being the one who trashed her apartment and sent her threatening messages before the game even started, not to mention Belle having a nightmare about him butchering meat and preferring the skin. Ironically, it's only because of the Skinfreak that he isn't a threat.
  • When Belle is talking to the Building's computer system Ms. APPL it makes a mention of someone sneaking into the building when Steve was absent implying the Skinfreak got past him. Only it turns out to be Lucy, a fellow coworker who simply snuck in to find a safe place away from her boyfriend.
  • The delivery guy creeps Belle out when he arrives, only to end up a victim of the Skinfreak who gives Belle his gun before he croaks.
  • The old man at Joe and Son's seems like he might stalk and attack Belle, until his son intervenes, tells Belle he's not well and takes him away to never be seen again.
  • At the start of the game, Steve tells Belle that the police are having a manhunt for Harold after identifying him as the Skinfreak, which is obviously revealed to be a lie by the time Steve shows his true colors in the finale.