The Binding of Isaac series. GOT A QUESTION? USE THE WIKI: http://bindingofisaacrebirth.gamepedia.co - Games

[img]http://i.imgur.com/oG81Kya.png[/img] [B]The Story[/B] When Isaac's mother starts hearing the voice of God demanding a sacrifice be made to prove her faith, Isaac escapes into the basement facing droves of deranged enemies, lost brothers and sisters, his fears, and eventually his mother. [b]The Gameplay[/b] The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like elements. Following Isaac on his journey players will find bizarre treasures that change Isaac's form giving him super human abilities and enabling him to fight off droves of mysterious creatures, discover secrets and fight his way to safety. [b]The Games[/b] The first version of this game was a flash based game with cartoony graphics and, with it's expansion Wrath Of the Lamb, over 250 items. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDFnMfJnI7s&list=UUH45ALvKEgzZO6MTTHNgXwg[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIs2IQx7jV0&list=UUH45ALvKEgzZO6MTTHNgXwg[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eXUMfVsfTU&list=UUH45ALvKEgzZO6MTTHNgXwg[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSRKzAzaQI&list=UUH45ALvKEgzZO6MTTHNgXwg[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkslB_fvUTE&list=UUH45ALvKEgzZO6MTTHNgXwg[/media] [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/113200]The Binding of Isaac on Steam[/url] ($5, September 2011) [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/113204/]Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb on Steam[/url] ($3, May 2012) [url=http://bindingofisaac.wikia.com]The Binding of Isaac Wiki[/url] [url=http://edmundm.com/]Edmund McMillen's website[/url] This has now been followed with REBIRTH! A full remake of the game, no longer in flash, and with twice as many items as before. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p22Sj-Zllwk[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS6gMCE_TJQ[/media] [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/250900]The Binding of Isaac REBIRTH on Steam[/url] ($15, $10 for owners of the original games, November 2014)

Ah, that new thread smell

Saucy, new thread. Starting to feel like Mom's Heart is the easiest fight in the game. I entered it with only one heart and somehow survived.

I had a rather good run the other day, but I made a deadly mistake at the end; I was all Soul Hearts, and bought Brimstone for 2 Red Hearts, so naturally I lost all those Soul Hearts I had gathered, and died in the next room. *facedesk* Not my finest moment as a young spelunker with bullet tears.

Gee now I feel much better about taking that sodding Brimstone. *sigh*

[QUOTE=Winner;39787167]Brimstone really isn't that great unless you get it early on anyway[/QUOTE] Unless you get Polyphemus with it. gg

[QUOTE=_Kilburn;39795730]Unless you get Polyphemus with it. gg[/QUOTE] You'd be better off with Polyphemus and Technology.

[QUOTE=MrBond;39796059]You'd be better off with Polyphemus and Technology.[/QUOTE] I once had Polyphemus, Tech 2 and Mulligan in the same playthrough. It ended quickly. :v:

[QUOTE=MrBond;39796059]You'd be better off with Polyphemus and Technology.[/QUOTE] That combo is like the holy grail, you can pretty much oneshot bosses with it. Polyphemus and quad shot is pretty awesome too.

Hooray, just got my 8th kill, that Dr. Fetus ability is hella good. Also shit, this thread is very dead.

[QUOTE=kapin_krunch;39867146]Hooray, just got my 8th kill, that Dr. Fetus ability is hella good. Also shit, this thread is very dead.[/QUOTE] wait til you get the upgrade of that item

Epic Fetus is a pretty meaty attack modifier; I mean you fire ROCKETS with it! Couple it with Blue Candle and you have a pretty good attack combo.

[QUOTE=ironman17;39867925]Epic Fetus is a pretty meaty attack modifier; I mean you [b]fire ROCKETS[/b] with it! Couple it with Blue Candle and you have a pretty good attack combo.[/QUOTE] I'm sorry, what? Holy shit I hope I get that sometime.

[QUOTE=Winner;39868098]You know the doctor's remote, the spacebar item you start with in the doctor's revenge challenge? Yeah, those are your tears[/QUOTE] Dear lord that is magnificent. And after a bit of research I found out it's unlocked by completing a challenge. Guess what my next run is going to be.

I finished The Purist and, having The Polaroid, I made it to The Chest. It was my first time, and it went pretty damn good. I had Ankh, so I tought "Well, I'm just gonna die now, respawn, and do it with ???, since I think Isaac is easier. So I died, go to the boss room and, since I had The Whore of Babylon, it went even better than Isaac. Blue baby's dead, I unlock Dad's Key and... Eve's Bird Foot (Beat The Chest with Eve). I also got an achievement: Samson's Lock (Beat The Chest with Samson). wtf

Been reconnecting myself with the game after a long hiatus. Man do I remember how much I hate that the Polaroid is a requirement to having a chance at beating the Chest. I know it drops automatically when you beat Mom, but why not just having it be an unlock prerequisite and have that be the end of the Polaroid requirement? I know almost everyone would be livid (or at the very least sorely disappointed) if you needed to get 50 cents every time you wanted to play as Cain, if you needed to do the Fetus Challenge every time you wanted to have a chance of finding Epic Fetus in your next run, or meet any other unlock prerequisite for anything at all in the game. Accessing the Chest with the Polaroid every time sticks out like a sore thumb in this game; literally everything else in the entire game ranging from items, to characters, to trinkets, to levels, to bosses is unlocked and stays accessible after that.

I really dislike how a lot of things were handled, actually. Samson being the most disappointing of those things. Edmund himself referred to him as the "Berserker" character on his formspring prior to WotL's release, yet he's horrible at playing like a berserker until he's already cleared the room of all of the enemies. Blood Lust is supposed to snowball, but it takes too damn long to take effect before it has to reset in the next room. He sure as hell can beat the tar out of [i]Duke of Flies[/i], it just takes 10 seconds to get going, whereas Judas can just lay down the hurt from the get-go. Guppy's Hairball is a snowballing item, both metaphorically and literally, so it's no excuse for them not thinking of him to have such a mechanic. If it were up to me, Blood Lust would only reset on a new floor, the damage would boost based on how much health the slain enemy had when at full, and of course, the damage boost would be scaled down to accommodate having much more enemies contributing to the damage bonus. On Formspring, Edmund once stated that Blood Lust would reset upon taking damage; this would be implemented as either word-for-word resetting, or simply reverting some of the built-up boost, as a punishment for being reckless. This allows Samson players to take risks in order to maximize their damage output before confronting the bosses, but it makes them wary of taking damage themselves, especially self-inflicted damage such as from Blood Rights, Curse Rooms, Blood Donation Machines, and the like. Samson's Lock can function identically to how it does now. That way there'd actually be a purpose to picking up the trinket as Samson while making it distinct enough from Blood Lust to justify a different character to pick it up.

Been doing a little research on the remake and I have to say that I disagree with Edmund on a few points he's made: [B]*In general there will be a greater incentive to spend less time on floors.[/B] I'm iffy on this one. Especially if it's a negative incentive to get the hell off the floor instead of a positive incentive to speed up. Something like Spelunky's ghost would make some Isaac playthroughs almost impossible to work out, and would undermine a lot of players who tend to gut out every room in order to maximize their item drops. If it were higher odds of finding a Devil room or something, that'd be better implementation, as it doesn't punish, but rewards for taking the risk of plowing to the boss. *[B]There will be plenty of new challenge runs, but no custom run option ("definitely will not happen"). Ed says he wants the challenges to actually have some reward (an unlock) and that custom runs (a la the cheat engine) are essentially about hacking the game to start with items. He feels that if this was included in vanilla Isaac it would "break the game". [/B] Fuck that. Have it as an endgame reward for people who 100% everything. There's no benefit to breaking the game if it's been beaten back and forth all the way to hell and back. He already broke Super Meat Boy in half by having Steven be the endgame reward, but made it so times don't contribute to leaderboards, custom runs can easily just not affect stats -- be entirely for shits and giggles and thus separate from the game. [B]*he was an concept for a playable character called Mystery Man, a charater with a questionmark for a face that starts out with two random items. Everytime you would beat moms heart (with any character) you would get a token, which in turn would allow you to play with the Mystery Man. Killing the final bosses (Mom's heart, Satan etc) unlocks new special items for him.[/B] Goes with what I said earlier, don't have a persistent prerequisite like the Polaroid/Chest relationship. Unlock the fucker and let that be it. Granted, most seasoned players will beat Mom's heart anyway, but still, if someone can take the time to meet the requirement, just let them have the reward for their labors. If he wants people to meet the requirement multiple times before having a permanent unlock, then do that. No one had a problem with unlocking ??? that way, this wildcard character should be no different.

Ed is an odd guy, he likes to add just random things that don't really improve my experience, like too many little irksome things that make the game not as good as it should be. I'm talking about things like how you can't disable the DLC content, which changes the game radically from what it was, too many useless items that are purely situational at best, the difficulty upgrades that actually kinda ruin the game if you ever want a friend to try the game. - Enemies that take way more damage than they should - Buggy placement of enemies, like exploding guys, who instantly make you take damage upon entering a room. Also, things like Greed appearing and ruining your shopping experience, ESPECIALLY ON THE FLOOR BEFORE THE WOMB. Ugh, it's just not great at times.

I'll find some time to do a full writeup of everything in BoI that was poorly implemented in analytical-rant style. I'm gonna tear the game a new neck and I don't plan to be too nice about it. I've invested too much time in the game to have not noticed them.

Please do, there are so many issues.

So now is a bad time to get into it?

Nah I'd say it's still a good time to get into it; sure the Flash version doesn't seem to be supported anymore, but I think that's a technical limitation rather than Ed just forgetting about it. I believe he said something about the flash file getting so large that another update would probably break it entirely.

They can't even export the game without it becoming corrupted or crashing entirely. The flash version is effectively discontinued from support simply because it's impossible to support without rewriting it entirely.

Yep; it's why continuously patching a game in Flash isn't as good an idea as one would think. I forget what engine Super Meat Boy is on (custom?), but SMB didn't really have this problem since it transferred from it's Flashy roots to whatever engine Ed used. Then again Super Meat Boy didn't have a massive expansion or masses of new content added, though technically Teh Internets fills that niche by sharing custom maps made by players. Still, considering that's what happens if you go overboard with a Flash game, it makes a lot of sense to re-do the game on a less limited engine in order to continue support. Don't get me wrong, Flash can be a good tool, but it has it's limitations; then again everything else has limitations to a degree.

[quote]Roasting of Isaac It is here that I will take time to analyse, bring attention to, and otherwise scold Edmund and Florian regarding poorly-designed nuances and concepts in the Binding of Isaac, Wrath of the Lamb extention and Rebirth included. Things that go unlisted are generally considered to be absolutely fine, it's the flaws that I want to bring attention to and hopefully coerce Edmund to rectify in the remake. Characters: Samson; or as Edmund called him, the "berserker". His item is intended for him to be able to roll through rooms with ease once he gets the killstreak going...but that only lasts for a single room. He's great at dealing with Duke of Flies, Gurdy, Chub, challenge rooms, and other mook spawners, but that's about all. Samson stands out from the rest of the 7 because his item is intended to allow him to snowball, but it does a terrible job at it. By the time that the damage bonus takes effect, the room is almost clear or is completely cleared, only to reset once he enters the next room. Prior to Wrath of the Lamb, Edmund spoke on his Formspring about an item that would snowball the damage bonus until the player takes damage at which point the bonus would be lost or reduced. What happened to this? Was it so powerful that the character had to be reduced to being worse than Blue Baby? Even after he was buffed post-release, the character's flaws were still not gone, simply modifying his firing rate, shot speed, and giving him a soul heart on-spawn doesn't cover up the core problems. His item doesn't compliment his stats or his intended playstyle because it is not taking into account how quickly it is reset to 0 after plateuing. Guppy's Hairball is a proper snowballing item, Blood Lust should follow suit. Levels: Wrath of the Lamb floors are disproportionally difficult compared to their counterparts. Being more difficult or offering variety is fine, but when rooms throw tanky or high-damaging enemies at the player on the first floor before they can reach an item room just makes for an unpleasant series of damage that the player avatar simply is ill-equipped to handle until later in the game. The Chest. Boy howdy is this one a bad decision. Every time for it to be accessed--EVERY SINGLE TIME--a condition must be met. If this condition were straightforward, such as defeating the boss preceding it, no one would bat an eye at it. However, it has a different additonal condition, a condition that is met by having a specific item held in the trinket slot. Pre-"nerf", this made making it to the chest in itself a complete crapshoot. I personally had runs where I spent over 200 cents at fortune teller machines just to get a bunch of non-Polaroids. This luck-based mission was sneakily averted by having the item spawn guaranteed after the Mom boss fight. However, this still does not fix the issue with the restriction. It flat out requires an item every time, no player is allowed to mix and match trinkets in order to form their most-powerful boss-stomping build, no, they must use the Polaroid. Even if they acquire Mom's Purse, they must have the Polaroid in one of those slots instead of getting a potent combination of 2 trinkets that would be better suited to taking out the endgame bosses. The reason that this stands out so sorely is because it is literally alone in the game. No other item, level, boss, trinket, or character requires players to meet a prerequisite every single time that they are desired. Generally once things are unlocked, they stay unlocked for good. No jumping through hoops other than beating the bosses as per expectations. It doesn't matter if the Polaroid is spawned to you automatically, that specific hoop should not exist in the first place aside from being a one-time unlock thing just like everything else. New character: According to an interview with Edmund, a wildcard character is slated for Rebirth. He is planned to spawn with random items and stats and will be generally unpredictable when you spawn as him. The issue with him is that Edmund stated that you need to beat Mom's Heart in order to get tokens in order to play as him, and you have as many plays as him as you have tokens. My question is this: Why? Once he's unlocked, let him stay unlocked. If you tried that shit with any of the other characters, the playerbase would be livid; no one would want to have to get 50 coins each time that they want to play at the game as Cain. I know this character does not yet exist, but this needs to be caught before it becomes officialized. Use the same justification against having persistent prerequisites as I noted against the ones regarding the Polaroid and the Chest. Trinkets: Polaroid/Chest requirement gripes aside, most of the trinkets are solid aside from a few. Umbillical cord: it's effect only lasts for the room it was triggered in. Should be persistent like Whore of Babylon. Tick: fuck the tick. Most notably when a bunch of trinkets are spawning directly on top of one another out of a Fortune Teller. The inability to remove the damn thing has ruined the chances of many-a-run from ever reaching the Chest, solely because it only becomes useful if you have Mom's Purse to allow you to dual-weild trinkets. Samson's Lock: get rid of the chance aspect, make it a guaranteed snowball that lasts only for the room. Would pair nicely with Bloody Lust if it is buffed to actually be an actual snowballing item like requested above. Isaac's Fork: the odds are too low for it to be substantially useful, as it only heals half a heart. Cursed Skull: This fucking thing. I've not met a single person who thinks it's useful. And it's a hindrance if you accidentially pick it up as ??? since you can't drop the thing on the ground and leave it. Bosses: Mask of Infamy: Fuck this guy. I'd rather not have to spend 5 minutes fighting this asshole because I don't have piercing shots or a surplus of bombs. His AI simply makes it too difficult to hit him in the back, plus he's fucking fast. Mom: She doesn't broadcast her arm grab attack at all, it happens so quickly that it's impossible to dodge the only option is to avoid the doors at all costs, which isn't very fun. Also for some reason she explodes on-death which results in some cheap 1-heart damage almost every time she dies. Bloat: Fuck this guy too. He doesn't broadcast any of his eye-based attacks that happen very quickly. And generally you're right in his line of fire when you enter the room unless you can in the top, making for a very cheap hit. Scolex: This guy's a fucking joke, please buff the shit out of him. Pin of all bosses is more threatening than him. Conquest/Isaac/???: The randomly-spawning beams is bullshit. There's zero broadcast as to where they'll land, so you just have to pray that they don't hit you. It's not skillful to dodge that. Isaac/???: Who's the genius who thought it'd be smart to make the boss retaliate every time he's shot? I'd like to slap them upside the head with the back of my hand. Not only does this make certain builds almost impossible to face-off with (ie Technology 2, tons of familairs, any other high rate-of-fire build), but it also fires in a completely random pattern, regardless of how quickly you're hitting him, you need to dodge a string of tears that has no pattern whatsoever. Satan was a well-designed endboss. He has a defined pattern that can be learned and exploited, the player doesn't feel cheated when they lose to Satan because they know it's entirely their own fault for not dodging the broadcasted attacks correctly. Isaac and ??? are just like shooting fish in a barrel unless you have a halo of orbitals or Blue Candle to absorb the incoming shots. Take some inspiration from SHMUPS and bullet hell games, they all have patterns that are possible to weave through with patience and practice, not randomly stepping back and forth in hopes that nothing comes your way. Monsters: Mullibooms: These guys spawn way too early in the game, are placed in locations that are too close to room entrances, and they move rather quick to be promptly dealt with by players who have few or no items available to them. Spiders/Trites: Quick and erratic. They're not hard to deal with, but jesus fuck they move too fast for spawning so early in the game. Greed Head: Fuck these guys have too much health for what they can do to you and your wallet. Gurgle: Extremely hearty for enemies that can do 1 full heart of damage so early in the game, and usually are found in groups too. Most later enemies are considered fine because at that point, the player has acquired upgrades to actually handle such threats. The main issues with monsters are due to them spawning disproportionally early compared to the underequipped player character. It's like highschool students playing in a little league game, it's just not fair to show up to pick on the munchkins. It doesn't help that a lot of rooms in the Caves/Catacombs are designed in such a way that there's no escape from getting hit unless the player can fly or has high enough damage output so early in the game. Special rooms: Sacrifice Rooms cost 1 full heart in order for a chance at something to spawn. They're rarely, if ever, worth it unless you are on a lucky streak when it comes to opening golden chests. Those hearts are usually better used elsewhere unless you're desperate for drops or just have spare red hearts lying around with nothing better to do. Arcades are great timesinks if you need resources or want to try your luck getting the blood bag, IV bag, or skatole. The slot machine is usually worthless unless you're desperate for drops and the shell game guy already gave you skatole or your decided to blow him up. 9 times out of 10, players would rather have a fortune teller, as there are high odds of getting soul hearts, tarot cards, playing cards, or trinkets. The best items you can get from a slot machine are pretty fly, pills (which can be good or bad, unless you've Lucky Foot), or the Dollar itself. However, if you're exploiting the arcade for drops, odds are you already have enough money to not care about getting the dollar. At most, it'd allow you to go on a shopping spree or continue pressing your luck with the shellgame and the blood donation machine. Secret rooms and super secret rooms are the same way when they spawn with a slot machine inside of them, generally it's just a waste of a bomb unless the player is deseprate for drops. Items: Anarchist Cookbook: Generally too risky and unpredictable to be worthy of the active slot. Bean: Bad Gas every room. Having it recharge like Blue Candle would do wonders for it. Bible: With how common flying items are, this item is rather worthless, especially since it's counterproductive against the endgame bosses. Also it takes too long to charge. Book of Sin: Takes too long to recharge for how meager its benefits are. Hourglass: Generally not useful enough of a slowdown to debunk the more-potent items. Kamikaze: For how costly it is, it's not useful enough. It's actually more wise to take a hit from a weak enemy in order to take half a heart and then spam away at the spacebar. Lemon Mishap: Way too small of an effect, usually means that the player will take damage in the process. Either give it a trail like many enemies leave, or make it recharge like Blue Candle does. Monster Manual: Way too long to charge up. We Need to Go Deeper: Generally worthless since you're passing up valuable item upgrades along the way. I guess it's useful for novice players. Crack the Sky: Same as anarchist cookbook, but with less self-risk. Dad's Key: Can't do anything that a bomb can't solve. The ability to exit/enter boss rooms is unique to it, but is generally not worth keeping for lategame when that ability would be useful. Notched Axe: Break 1 rock, so worthless a vast majority of the time. Buff it to be like the Nail where it allows the user to break all rocks in the room after activation, but make it take a bit longer to charge than 1 room. Portable Slot: Slot machines are already worthless unless you're desperate, now you can take it with you on the go with 0% chance of getting the Dollar. Telepathy for Dummies: Not worth keeping around unless you have no other option Tons of flight items: Adjust the spawn rate of these things, it's absolutely insane. Spirit of the Night shows up in almost every run, whereas Transcendance shows up maybe once every 30 runs. Wiggle Worm: oh god this thing is awful. It makes so many shots miss and removes the ability to "fling" tears by giving them momentum when you fire. I'd rather have both eyes fire at once forming a double-helix with half the fire-rate than use wiggle worm as it is. Bloody Lust: see Samson gripes in first section. Holy Water: Just as bad as Lemon mishap, except now you HAVE to take damage. it doesn't help that the bottle turns your other familiars into Brother Bobby until it breaks. Great bug. Mechanics: Homing shots will go towards invulnerable targets (Eternal flies, Grimaces, Masks), as well as home in on enemies that are not actually there (Mom's foot when not stomped, Mom's Heart when not down). AI-controlled familiars will attack invulnerable targets and off-screen targets as listed above. These familiars include Meat Boy, Pinking Shears, Dead Bird, Demon Baby, blue attack flies, and Daddy Long Legs. Flight allows you to enter Cursed rooms without taking damage. Daddy Long Legs stomps on Isaac/??? one time and then doesn't stomp again until the boss dies.[/quote] First draft. Anything that I missed that stands out or needs revision?

I don't think I can agree hard enough with the sentiments towards Mask of Infamy. Christ what an awful boss.

Aye; lot of those complaints are valid, especially Mask of Infamy. That boss was SO aptly named it's not even funny; you can't even see the bastard's health bar! Also if Kamikaze only took half a heart it probably wouldn't be so bad.

you missed greed, and how he's basically just bullshit

He's not that bad of a boss, he just spawns all the fucking time. I missed the minibosses, sue me. I said it was a first draft.