Binding of Isaac: Adorably Dark

I'm exhausted. I had a bunch of midterm projects due last week, and frankly, all I want to do is sleep.

But I can't.

"The Binding of Isaac" won't let me.

A little background on the title first. I love video games, but I REALLY love learning about the creative process behind the video games. The game was programmed by Florian Himsl, the music was by Danny Baranowsky (who did the music for Super Meat Boy) and the art/design was by Edmund Mcmillen, the art half of Team Meat. The game was completed in approximately four months, and Ed has said in interviews that the game is a modern retelling of the old biblical story of the same name.

The story is that your character is a little boy named Isaac, whose mother watches a lot of Christian programming. Like, A LOT, a lot. One day, the mother (believes she) hears the voice of God, who commands her to take her child to the basement and kill him to prove her love and devotion to Him. Isaac, reacting quickly, locks his door and with nowhere else to run, hops down into the basement.

The game is a single-player roguelike with level design similar to the original Zelda. A roguelike is a game that has randomly generated content and permanent death. The player goes from randomly generated room to randomly generated room. Once a player has entered a room, the doors become locked, random enemies spawn, and the player must defeat all of them only using his tears as projectiles. Once the enemies are all dead, the doors open, and Isaac is free to move onto a new room.

Each floor also contains a treasure room where the player can find either a random power-up (like a unicorn horn that functions much like the star from the Mario series) or a random upgrade to his tears (like instead of crying, he spits chocolate milk at his enemies). Each floor also contains a boss room with a random boss battle. If Isaac defeats the monster, he wins a some sort of upgrade, and he goes down a level, until he faces the final boss.

There's a lot more to this game, but I think I've given you enough information without spoiling anything important.

The problem, as I mentioned at the start, is that I can't stop playing. I haven't finished it! The game is very challenging. I write "challenging", because, though the game is difficult, I never felt that I died from a cheap shot. For every death, there was a mistake I made.

The game also requires you to be very good at creating strategies, because every playthrough is different: maybe on one playthrough, you have a lot of health and speed upgrades and weapon range upgrades, but then in the next playthrough, you have a lot of damage upgrades and bombs. You're forced to tackle situations differently, especially since each enemies change in each playthrough.

The reason why I keep playing it is partially because of the gameplay, but I keep playing it primarily because I want to find out about the story. It's quite a dark game. You're not a clothed little boy defeating monsters with a sword. You're a little boy who is naked and vulnerable, and your only weapon is your tears. Your goddamn salty tears! Isaac is frequently looking at the player, and with a few exceptions, he's always terrified.

The darkest thing about the game is that all the enemy monsters in the game have skin tone colors. And two eyes. And sometimes they have arms and legs.
My current theory is that all these monsters are your siblings, whom your mother also tried to kill. Living down here for years, they slowly mutated and became the disfigured monsters you slaughter. They are not only your family. They're also your potential futures.

If you’re looking for a challenging, adorably dark indie game, look no further. “The Binding of Isaac” is available on Steam for both Windows and Mac for only $5.