Best Bible Game Ever! Let's Sorta Play the Binding of Isaac

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Oh my, InsaneGenius, you run two LPs at once?

I don't.

I just recorded me playing Binding of Isaac and talked while I did it because I wanted to get some practice actually speaking English. But I would have played it anyway.

This isn't a real LP anyway, I just wanted to show off the game because I think it's really awesome and you should give it a try. There's also an expansion in the works. Sadly, though, the first video I recorded, where I explained a bunch of things, got corrupted. I still have the commentary, but that without the video would be pointless. Instead I'll explain some things here.

Story:
This is the story!!!


The first ending you'll get is the closest to a wrap up this game has so far, but if you're willing to interpret things it might get interesting for you. I know it did for me.

Some stuff I explained in the first video and more:
Swap tagged because it's a lot, and also because you might not wanna read this if you like to find stuff out yourself. If that's the case you won't want to watch my videos either.

Some (a lot of) basic stuff.Binding of Isaac is a... well. It's a not-quite-roguelike with twin-stick shooter mechanics in which you shoot tears at enemies to kill them. Yes, you are literally crying people to death. The game is randomly generated every time you play, all the items and rooms, even bosses are randomized. So it's definitely possible to win the game just by being a lucky bastard. But nonono, this game isn't all about luck. You still need to have a good amount of Skill, because the game is not easy. Your chances of success will also improve if you just know certain things. Because knowledge is power. Average runs have ups and downs. There are exceptions, of course. I've both lost in runs that seemed to go a little too well, and I won runs that went really shitty all the way. So, the number one rule of playing Isaac? Never surrender!

You can't save or resume your game if you quit, so you have to finish it in one sitting. To modern gamers this might be something akin to the worst fashion faux pas you can imagine, but modern gamers are a bunch of wimps I'll tell ya that. You aren't expected to beat the game on your first several tries. Instead you get the "Oh, just one more time" effect. Much like Super Meat Boy. Oh, by the way, Binding of Isaac is made by Ed McMillen, the creator of Super Meat Boy. That dude knows how to design a game with a rewarding difficulty curve.

When you first play the game, it has three levels with two floors each. You have to fight a boss on every floor, the boss will give you an item. There is a treasure room on every floor, in that room you'll find an item. There's a store on every floor. In that store you might find several items. You might suspect where this is going. Yep. Get as many items as possible. They will improve your chances of success. Several kinds of items. The ones you'll get from treasure rooms and boss fights. Will either be passive items, that grant you an advantage just by possessing them. You can carry as many of them as you like. There also are usable items, activated with the space bar. You can only carry one of them. Then there are also pills, they'll usually have a permanent effect, but it can be good or bad. They are consumed by hitting Q. There are nine different colored pills, and what they do is also randomized with each play through. Tarot Cards function the same, but they don't have random effects and their effect only lasts for one room. They don't have strictly negative effects. But caution is advised if you don't know what a card does.

If you complete certain challenges you'll unlock new items you can collect, if you beat the game the first time, you'll unlock a new level with two floors, several new bosses and a true final boss. As you succeed more often the game will also get harder on earlier floors. Enemies from later and yet more new bosses will appear and eventually you'll unlock a real true final boss. And... well spoiler. A definitely final boss. Oh, there are also six different characters, I forgot to mention that. Let me tell you some about those...

The CharactersIsaac: He's the only character you'll have when you first start. He's fairly balanced. Health, speed and firepower are decent and he starts with a bomb. Under certain conditions you can unlock a starting item for him, though. The D6, it allows him to re-roll any items in the room. So, found a shitty item you don't want? Re-roll! This might make him the best character in the game.

Magdalene: She's unlocked by adding up to a total of 7 solid hearts in one playthrough. She's kinda the tank character. A little slower than Isaac, but she starts with one more health and also has the Yum Heart. It's a usable item that restores one heart worth of health whenever it's used. If you like to play it safe go for her.

Cain: Cain's probably the best character. In my opinion at least. He's unlocked by holding 55 pennies at any moment in the game. You can spend them after you've accumulated them. Cain starts with only two hearts, but is faster and has more firepower that Isaac and Maggie. But what really makes him good is his starting item. The Luck Foot. Let's just say it forces the RNG on our side, and in a game that is randomly generated this is definitely a good thing to have. We get better drops in general, and pills can't have permanent bad effects on us.

Judas: He starts out with the highest firepower. Strong character, but only has one heart of health. I like playing as him, if you got used to playing and know how to avoid taking damage, this is a character for you. He also starts with a usable item, the Book of Belial, it further powers up his attacks.

Eve: She's unlocked by making two deals with the devil in one playthrough, possibly the same room. Eve is the odd character here. She rewards the player for taking damage. She starts with only two hearts, has the lowest firepower, but starts with two passive items. The Dead Bird, which will summon a bird that attacks enemies if she gets hit once. And the Whore of Babylon which will activate once she's down to half a heart worth of health. It will make her faster and stronger, but one hit can kill her. There are certain strategies, though, but I didn't talk about how health works yet, didn't I? Oh, I'll have to for the next and final character.

???: Yeah, that's his name. He starts with -1 health. That means he has zero solid hearts. Yeah, you heard me say solid hearts for at least the second time now, so let me explain how health works. In Isaac there are two kinds of health. Solid, red hearts. Those can be replenished with heart pickups. And blue, spirit or faith hearts. If you take damage they are gone forever. ??? Starts with only three of those. You can collect blue hearts but they are much rarer than red ones. ??? Also starts with in item called The Poop. It spawns a pile of poop behind ??? and is largely useless. I will be playing as this character in my videos. This will be something like hard mode.

Commentary isn't exactly one of my strong points, but really wanted to show the game off, because I love it and want to get people to try it. It's, like... dunno. five or ten bucks on steam maybe. I'm sorry for the audio levels (especially in the beginning of the second attempt), the volume setting on my mic was way too high and it sounds like I'm yelling a lot (I'm not) and the sound of me breathing in through my mouth sometimes can be ridiculous. It's not that loud in real life, I swear. I also don't have my mic right in front of my mouth, it's at least 60 cm in front of me. So yeah, should I do any more video LPs I'll use my other microphone, which is better. Now, without further walls of text, my second and third attempts with ???.





In the very unlikely event that there is a demand for more videos I'll pretend I haven't explained anything at all yet.