The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike video game designed by independent developers Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. It was released in 2011 for Microsoft Windows, then ported to OS X, and Linux. The game's title and plot are inspired by the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac. In the game, Isaac's mother receives a message from God demanding the life of her son as proof of her faith, and Isaac, fearing for his life, flees into the monster-filled basement of their home where he must fight to survive. Players control Isaac or one of the 33 other unlockable characters through a procedurally generated dungeon in a roguelike manner, fashioned after those of The Legend of Zelda, defeating monsters in real-time combat while collecting items and power-ups to defeat bosses and eventually Isaac's mother.
The game was the result of a week-long game jam between McMillen and Himsl to develop a The Legend of Zelda-inspired roguelike that allowed McMillen to showcase his feelings about both positive and negative aspects of religion that he had come to discover from conflicts between his Catholic and born again Christian family members while growing up. McMillen had considered the title a risk but one he could take after the financial success of Super Meat Boy, and released it without much fanfare to Steam in September 2011, not expecting many sales. The game soon gained popularity partially as a result of various Let's Play videos showcasing the title. McMillen and Himsl released an expansion "Wrath of the Lamb" in May 2012, but were limited from further expansion due to limitations with the Flash platform. They had started working with Nintendo in 2012 to release a 3DS version, but Nintendo later backed out of the deal, citing controversy over the game's religious themes.
Developer Nicalis worked with McMillen in 2014 to complete a remake of the game, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, bringing additional features that McMillen had planned that exceeded Flash's limitation, as well as to improve the game's graphics and enable ports for other systems beyond personal computers, including PlayStation 4 and Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and the Nintendo Switch. This remake has commonly been cited as one of the best roguelike games of all time.
McMillen later worked with James Id to develop The Legend of Bum-bo, which serves as a prequel to The Binding of Isaac.
The Binding of Isaac has been well-received, with critics praising the game's roguelike nature to encourage repeated playthroughs. By July 2014, McMillen reported over 3 million copies had been sold. The game has been said to contribute to renewed interest in the roguelike genre from both players and developers.
Gameplay
The Binding of Isaac is a top-down dungeon crawler game, presented using two-dimensional sprites, in which the player controls Isaac or other unlockable characters as they explore the dungeons located in Isaac's basement. The characters differ in speed, amount of health, amount of damage they deal, and other attributes. The game's mechanics and presentation is similar to the dungeons of The Legend of Zelda, while incorporating random, procedurally-generated levels in the manner of a roguelike game. On each floor of the basement dungeon, the player must fight monsters in a room before continuing onto the next room. This is most commonly done by the character's tears as bullets in the style of a twin-stick shooter, but the player can also use a limited supply of bombs to damage enemies and clear out parts of the room. Other methods of defeating enemies become possible as the character gains power-ups, items that are automatically worn by the player-character when picked up that can alter the character's core attributes, such as increasing health or the strength of each tear, or cause additional side effects, such as for allowing charged tear shots to be fired after holding down a controller button for a short while, or a means to fire tears behind the character. Power-ups include passive items that improve the character's attributes automatically, active power-ups that can be used once before they are recharged by completing additional rooms in the dungeon, and single-use power-ups such as pills or Tarot cards that confer a one-time benefit when used, such as regaining full health, or increasing or decreasing all attributes of the character. The effect of power-ups stack, so that the player may come into highly-beneficial power-up combinations.