The Binding of Isaac

[Korax]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/113200/

It's cheap ($5), and is temporarily cheaper (10% off). It's by Ed McMillen (Team Meat) and Florian Himsl (a pre-Team-Meat collaborator), with music from db Soundworks (Super Meat Boy soundtrack). Giant Bomb's quick look gives a pretty good idea of how it plays.

In case anyone doesn't know:

Smash-TV-like gameplay

Zelda-like dungeon layout

Rogue-like random generation of pretty much everything else.

I've played for 8 hours, been killed 37 times, and just now finally finished the full game for the first time. I love this game so much. It's weird and gross, and I still have yet to encounter half of the items in it.

One very minor complaint, though: no controller support. The keyboard controls are simple and easy enough to map using Joy2Key or similar, but it would have been nice.

[Orv]

Does it run like dross on anyone elses system? When I get enough entities (mobs/projectiles) it slows to a crawl.

Otherwise, quite good.

[Korax]

It definitely starts to slow down when there's a lot of stuff in the room. I had a game going where I had a triple-shot and three "familiars," two of which also fired when I did. Things got really choppy when fighting some of the later bosses.

[Roderick]

I love this game's style. I'm sure it really difficult, but do you have to start over every time, or can you collect stuff and slowly work your way to the end with enough diligence?

[Twig]

When you die you start over, every time. It is a roguelike FOR REALLL.

I quite like this game, but god do I hate Flash. I fucking love Super Meat Boy, a lot, a lot, and coming from that to this is kind of painful, just in terms of... fidelity, I guess, is a word that applies?

I wonder how much XBLA quality control requirements factored in to SMB being as good as it was (even though it launched on PC with a few bugs).

BUT. Technical issues aside, this game is pretty much perfect. The only thing I'd like to see is more content, which is something I almost always say about roguelikes. Props, Mr. McMillen.

[Korax]

So I beat it 10 times, and unlocked a final alternate character. Beating the game with this one's gonna be hard:

He has the same stats as Isaac, but his health consists entirely of the grey soul hearts. Any items that normally increase the number of heart containers will add another soul heart, but it is impossible to heal with normal hearts.

[Tanukitsune]

I don't know much about roguelike games, but it seems like it depends almost more on luck than skill? Will this pill make my stats so up or down? Will I get a decent power up? An yet... I still try to beat the game even with "bad" items.

The lemon accident seems useless, but it felt good to beat a boss with it!

I know some items decrease stats, but does any item cancel out another's effect?

What happens if I pick a second companion? Does the laser cancel the chocolate milk? That's the kind of stuff I need to know!

Also, does the game end in the level with the skull on it or does go deeper? Can start from this alleged second area if you reach it?

[Irishjohn]

Really surprised at myself with this game. I had completely ignored it when it came out and was intimidated by the supposed difficulty. Got it as part of the Humble Bundle.

Haven't come close to beating the game yet but I keep throwing it on for a quick play. I'm racking up the hours already. Just this morning I died with 54 coins.

54 coins. I had gathered them all without a one-armed bandit or anything.

[Tanukitsune]

I think I died with 53 coins once, but I got lucky and got the dollar which gives you 99 cents.

Although I'm kinda giving up on 100% this game, everything is so random, there are items and bosses I haven't even fought yet, apparently there is Meat Boy boss cameo which I've yet to see.

And yet I've gotten the "I AM ERROR" room TWICE!

[Twig]

What happens if I pick a second companion? Does the laser cancel the chocolate milk? That's the kind of stuff I need to know!

Also, does the game end in the level with the skull on it or does go deeper? Can start from this alleged second area if you reach it?

That's the kind of stuff you discover by playing the game. It's half the fun in a roguelike. But, to answer your questions in order, even though you might've already figured it out...

1) You get a second companion. 2) I think it allows you to charge the laser. 3) The first time you "beat" the game, you unlock The Womb, which also unlocks two more floors and Mom's Heart boss. The tenth time time you BEAT the game, you unlock Sheol, which also unlocks one more floor and The Devil boss. 4) No. You have to start from the beginning every time.

I love this game. Aside from it being coded in Flash, there's nothing bad I can say about it. It's exactly what I look for in a roguelike/other-genre mashup.

23 Mom Kills, 55 deaths. Just over a 1:2 ratio. X:

There is a lot of luck in roguelikes. I like this game because there's also a lot of skill. I've beaten the game despite some really shitty luck more than once.

[Tanukitsune]

You bet it's about luck, I have no idea which power ups I used, but I once became so powerful I decimated everything!

And yeah, it's still fun to try even when you have "bad luck", sometimes a bad item becomes useful combined with another powerup!

In one playthrough I got the Mr. Mega bombs, HOMING bombs and... LOTS OF BOMBS!

[Noyb]

Here's something interesting. The Binding of Isaac is the only game in Germany to have its %3Ddetail%26news[id]%3D5030"]age rating increased due to blasphemy.

[Nachimir]

That's odd. I can't find any other ratings for it anywhere else, other than a PEGI one which was already 16.

[Chris]

That's odd. I can't find any other ratings for it anywhere else, other than a PEGI one which was already 16.

Does Germany require ratings, legally? Because I imagine Edmund McMillen just didn't care about having his game rated. (I sure wouldn't.) He has no reason to do so.

[castorp]

Does Germany require ratings, legally? Because I imagine Edmund McMillen just didn't care about having his game rated. (I sure wouldn't.) He has no reason to do so.

As far as I understood, if you want to sell a game in a German store the game has to have been rated by the USK (the responsible organisation in Germany). Online-only games are a different matter, they don't have to be rated yet, but I think politicians are already thinking about that big grey area. The Binding of Isaac seems to have found a publisher here who wanted to sell it in shops and thus the game got rated (and said publisher paid the bill).

[elmuerte]

Overview of now PEGI is used in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEGI#Where_PEGI_is_used

In most countries its used, in some it's absolutely required, some only require it when sold in brick and mortar stores.

Germany is the major exception, it requires their own USK rating. But if you get a PEGI 12 or lower the USK rating is almost rubberstamped.

[SometingStupid]

Well this thread, combined with Giant Bomb's first look, tempted me to buy the game as it seemed super fun. I played it some and lo' and behold, I was right!

It's odd to me that just a couple videos of this game made me give in and buy it, there's many games that I've wanted but have restrained myself from buying, I even went the extra mile and bought the soundtrack, which is even more obscene to me keeping in mind that I've never bought music in my life. Maybe it was just the low price that made me succumb, either way, I'm happy that I did.

This post comes after just two games, both of which I got to Mom, only on the second run (as Cain) did I beat her. I'm probably going to go off and play some more now.

[Security_Tubbs]

Bit of a thread resurrection here, but definitely worth it. The Wrath of the Lamb DLC was just released today. It was a Day One Perch for me, and I bought it within hours of it coming out. It adds all the things you'd want more: items, monsters, levels and bosses. There's a new item slot, called the trinket and a new character. The trinkets work passively and their function remains largely a mystery to me.

The DLC costs 3€ on Steam right now, and the original is only 2€ due to a special promotion. If you loved the original, this DLC is a must. If you haven't yet played the game, but have been intrigued, now is a great time to buy.

I'm still at the discovery phase of the new stuff, so I haven't consulted the wiki. I've only talked to other people about their experiences and it seems there's quite a few powerful combos. That is of course the beauty of the game: getting the right items will allow you to absolutely devastate the game. Problem is that with more and more items, the number of those combos increases and thus the difficulty of acquiring them decreases.

A new upgrade, Blood Lust, which the new character starts with, can lead to pretty hilarious damage output. When an enemy is killed (doesn't matter by whom) your damage increases until you leave the room. The total amount it can increase is apparently limited, but if you start with an already high damage you can get to ridiculous levels. It is especially good against bosses who summon lots of mobs. I killed

Death

in just a few hits after entering the room with maxed out damage and killing the

scythes

he summons.

Here's business as usual:

[AteBit]

Loved Isaac. Thanks for the reminder. Going to pick this up this weekend.

[Chris]

Thanks for the heads up! Purchased.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Did they ever get around to adding controller support?

[berniesbc]

Did they ever get around to adding controller support?

No. I loaded this up for the first time last night and in the options it just says, "Use Joy2Key (Google it!)"

Would it be worth getting the DLC if I'm just jumping into this for the first time? I'm not sure an additional hundred items is all that desirable, since I have no idea what the other hundred or so do.

[AteBit]

No. I loaded this up for the first time last night and in the options it just says, "Use Joy2Key (Google it!)"

Would it be worth getting the DLC if I'm just jumping into this for the first time? I'm not sure an additional hundred items is all that desirable, since I have no idea what the other hundred or so do.

Just play it for a bit before buying the DLC. As you pointed out, there is lots of collect and see in vanilla Isaac already.

Isaac is a love it or hate it game for me and my friends. So it should be clear soon enough what you should do.

Obvious advice is obvious.

[Lu]

Perched! I know he was working on it, but I had no idea it was coming out today.

[AteBit]

While going through some old episodes, I recently listened to the Binding of Isaac episode of Roguelike Radio which featured Edmund McMillen. Very cool episode for any fan of Isaac.

http://www.archive.org/download/RoguelikeRadio_Episode11-TheBindingofIsaac/episode11thebindingofisaac.mp3

LINK