Why You Should Play NO-SKIN

NO-SKIN is a rogue-lite horror game that gives you no introduction and throws you right into a battle when you open the game. You can play the demo right now on Steam and Itch. It’s one of those turn-based RPG games that don’t seem like much at first glance, but before you know it, you’ve lost 2 hours into the game and you’re scratching you're trying to figure out how to get past the second area of the game! Straight away, the eerie music, pixelated visuals, and dark colors set the tone for what to expect. NoEye-Soft opts for a show, don’t tell approach with NO-SKIN and I think that was a great choice. Let me explain.

When you start playing NO-SKIN, you are put against a Pathetic Dummy and you have the option to use your Knife, your Gun, Pray to the Goddess, Ammo in your Bag, and the option to Escape. The gameplay is quite simple. Your knife does 1 damage and your gun does 2, but it has limited ammo. Praying makes whatever attack that comes next do only 1 damage. Your accuracy and how much ammo you have are always right below your options. When you face the enemy, it’s your HP, your HUD, and the enemy and their HP. You can pick your next line of action with the arrow keys, confirm it with Z, or cancel with X.

NO-SKIN gives you all the info you need. You are even told when your enemy is about to do a devastating attack, so you can Pray and sort of nullify it. If you make a wrong decision and you are about to die from the next attack, you are still given the choice to offer your currency to be spared, beg for mercy or try to escape.

So, against this Pathetic Dummy, which can attack and can definitely kill you, you can sort of figure all this stuff out on your own and defeat it. Once you do, you are shown a cutscene. Everyone’s faceless, but they have unique hair and clothes. It’s still the same eerily dark home and you are seemingly in the perspective of Noire who is in some sort of gathering, perhaps a party, among some friends.

It is clear that these people were sort of on edge and they’d already had one too many drinks. You complain about your 14-hour shift, a friend suggests drinking the sorrow away, and a friend asks you to bring another bottle of booze as they are running low. You agree and leave the room.

You stand in a hallway and say to yourself that you’ve taken a few too many drinks, you feel dizzy and you even feel like there is a person standing across from you in a hallway. Only you are right, and a skinless man approaches from the darkness and demands that you find him his skin and then curses you. Here, the game begins.

When you start, you have the opportunity to pick from 3 different locations to go to next. The probabilities of what may happen when you do are clearly stated and once you eventually pick a room, you realize that the ones you are fighting are the very friends you were hanging out with before.

Why is this happening? Why are you fighting your friends? Where did these monsters come from and why do your friends look bloodied up and want to kill you? There is no time to think about these questions. Your only option is to fight and keep moving forward.

Since NO-SKIN is a horror game, this show, don’t tell approach was excellent because I was creeped out by how little context I was given at the start. The game is perfectly set up to be played as a rogue-lite. I just kept wanting to move forward to try to learn more about what messed up world I was thrown into. The mystery is both terrifying and inviting, somehow.

When you defeat your friends or certain monsters, you gain specific rewards. It’s sort of up to you to remember who drops what, but don’t worry, there aren’t too many things to remember.

After each encounter, a bar goes up that lets you know how close you are to finding the Skin of the NO SKIN MAN. When you reach a certain threshold, you are faced with the boss of that area and if you beat it, you can move on to the next. You are given more actions as you move to the next area, for example, you can Talk after you reach the second, and I highly suggest you do this every time because you may be given some crucial information that could help you plan your next run.

There are 7 memories and a lot of secret encounters in NO-SKIN. You accumulate currency and you have the chance to spend them when you choose the right room. You unlock more rooms as you press forward, your and your enemies’ max HP increase incrementally as well. You are informed of this every time. There are certain rooms that have the chance of you encountering an enemy, but also a smaller chance that you come across some nice-ish people who offer you buffs. Sometimes, they offer it in exchange for some HP, a random item from your bag or it may even poison you for it. It’s up to you to weigh the risk vs. rewards at almost every step of the way.

However, every room has the chance for an unexpected encounter to occur. I won’t spoil anything, but I would be prepared to be jumpscared at any moment. The probability of it happening is 1% and it ends up occurring when you’re least expecting it, so good luck.

I loved the sort of ideas that were put into NO-SKIN. Everything about this game is random and everything needs to be a calculated risk. As you go deeper into the game, the enemies get more and more bloody and disgusting, but it’s hard to look away because they’re all so well-crafted in their PS1-like pixelated glory.

When you die, you can spend the Lunar Fragments to get some permanent stuff that change some things about the next run. Usually, it adds a new room or unlocks a new item for you to buy. Later down the line, you can even unlock a new playable character who specializes in her gun.

The randomness of NO-SKIN really helps in keeping things interesting. You literally don’t know what could in the next room. I’ve been jebaited so many times by the 1% encounters at this point and they still surprised me. I love especially how you are given all the information you need when it comes to the combat, but the context of the world is given out in crumbs.

For only a demo, NO-SKIN an excellent rogue-lite horror RPG game with pixel-perfect eerie visuals and a gameplay loop that sucks you in. I recommend this to the brave folk who can handle a decent bit of horror. You should support this developer on itch or on Steam right now! You can get NO-SKIN’s demo for free, but you also have the option to support them if you like. I can’t wait to see how the full release is going to look, considering how good the demo is already.