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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Developer(s)Nicalis
Publisher(s)Nicalis
Designer(s)Edmund McMillen
Artist(s)Edmund McMillen
Composer(s)Matthias Bossi
Jon Evans
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, New Nintendo 3DS, Xbox One, iOS
Release
November 4, 2014
  • Windows, OS X', Linux'PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
    • NA: November 4, 2014
    • EU: November 5, 2014
    Xbox One
    • NA: July 23, 2015
    Wii U, New Nintendo 3DS
    • NA: July 23, 2015
    • EU: October 29, 2015
    • JP: October 28, 2015
Genre(s)Roguelike, dungeon crawler, shooter, action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is an independent roguelike video game and a remake of The Binding of Isaac, designed by Edmund McMillen, and developed and published by Nicalis. It was co-developed by McMillen and Florian Himsl and originally released in 2012 as an Adobe Flash application; Rebirth was developed with a more advanced game engine that enabled them to surpass the limitations of Flash, while also adding in more content McMillen had wanted in the original game and new gameplay features. Rebirth was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita in November 2014, and for Xbox One, New Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U in July 2015. After having Apple reject the Rebirth game due to content, Nicalis has gotten Apple's pre-approval to release an iOS version alongside the release of the game's second expansion.

As with the original game, Rebirth's story is based on the Biblical tale of the Binding of Isaac, and is inspired by McMillen's own childhood growing up in a religious family.[1] The player controls a young boy named Isaac whose mother, convinced she is doing the work of God, strips him of all his clothes and possessions and locks him in his room. With his mother about to sacrifice him, Isaac escapes to the basement and fights through randomized dungeons created in a roguelike fashion. The player defeats monsters using Isaac's tears as projectiles, and collects items that improve Isaac's attributes and abilities. Eventually the player must face Isaac's mother, and later even more demonic creatures. One expansion to Rebirth, expanding the number of items and playable characters, was released in 2015, and a second expansion that will include support for user-created content is due in 2016.

Gameplay

Main article: Gameplay in The Binding of Isaac

Similar to the original, Rebirth is a top-down 2D dungeon crawler game where the player controls the character Isaac (or 10 unlockable characters) as he adventures throughout his mother's basement, fighting off monsters and collecting power-ups. Ultimately, the player aims to first defeat Isaac's mother while she tries to crush him underfoot, then moves to inside her, upon while the player must defeat Isaac's mom's own heart. Rebirth is considered a roguelike-like game; the dungeon levels are procedurally generated into a number of rooms including at least one boss battle, and the game has permadeath: once the chosen character dies from taking too much damage, the game is over and the player will have to restart. Rebirth allows the player to save the state of the game, allowing them to quit the game during a run, and then come back later to finish that run, though this save state is deleted upon restarting the game.

The player moves their chosen character around each screen while they are able to shoot the tears that they cry in another direction. These tears act as bullets to defeat enemies that try to harm the player-character. The player-character's health is tracked by a number of hearts: the character can find items that can replenish hearts while others grant the character additional hearts, extending their health. Throughout the dungeons the player-character will find bombs, which can be used to both damage foes and blow up obstacles, keys to open certain doors and treasure chests, coins to buy items at various stores, and a large number of items that impact the character's attributes, such as speed and the damage and range of their tears, and other gameplay effects, such as gaining a character that floats behind the player-character and aids in combat. Some of these items are passive, others are active and reusable, requiring the player to wait a number of rooms before they can reuse it, while others are single use items that disappear after use. The player can typically collect any number of passive items, their effects stacking on previous ones, potentially creating powerful combinations for the player. Otherwise, the player can only carry one reusable item and one single-use item, replacing it for another if they pick such up. Among other rooms within the dungeons include special challenge rooms and mini-boss fights.

In addition to expanding greatly on the number of items, monsters, and room types (including those that span multiple screens) from the original game, Rebirth allows for a second local player to join in on a drop in/drop out mechanic. While active, the second player controls a follower of the first player-character that has all of the same attributes and abilities of that character, though will cost the first player-character one heart to use which is given to the follower character.

Plot

Main article: The Binding of Isaac (video game) § Plot

The plot in Rebirth remains the same as the original game, following along the biblical tale of the same name. The young boy Isaac had been living happily with his mom. One day, spurred on by watching too many religious programs on the television, his mom believed she received instruction that Isaac had become corrupted and she must try to save him. First, she removed all his possessions, including his toys and clothes, believing these were corrupting him. Later, she locked him in his room and never be let out as to protect him from the evil that existed outside. When she hears further instruction that to show her devotion to her faith that she must kill Isaac, Isaac finds a means to escape his room into the basement, from which he then tries to escape, leading to the events within the game.

Development

File:The Binding of Isaac - Rebirth gameplay.gif
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth gameplay, showing the player using the Cain character, as he is attacking some Round Worms.
See also: Development of The Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac was originally developed by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl in 2012 from an internal game jam following the completion of McMillen's previous game, Super Meat Boy. With Super Meat Boy being successful, McMillen had not concerned himself with making a popular game, and instead wanted to craft a game that melded the top-down dungeon approach of The Legend of Zelda with the roguelike genre, wrapping that in a religious allegory based on his own childhood experiences.[2][3] They used Adobe Flash as it enabled them to craft the game quickly. McMillen quietly released the game to Steam for personal computers, where it proved to be very popular.[2] Looking to expand the game, McMillen and Himsl discovers limits on Flash that made expansion difficult.[2] Though they were able incorporate more content through the "Wrath of Lamb" expansion, McMillen had to forego a second planned expansion due to the Flash limits.[2]

After the release of the original game, McMillen was approached by Tyrone Rodriguez of Nicalis, a development and publishing studio that had helped to bring personal computer games Cave Story and VVVVVV to consoles.[4] Rodriguez offered Nicalis' services to help port The Binding of Isaac to consoles. McMillen was interested but required that they needed to recreate the game outside of Flash to incorporate the additional material he had to forego previously, and to fix some additional bugs found since release.[2] McMillen also asked to be left out of the business side of the game's release following his negative experiences in dealing in business matters with Super Meat Boy, which Rodriguez agreed to.[2][4] Rebirth was officially announced in November 2012 as a console version of The Binding of Isaac, with plans to improve the graphics to 16-bit colors and incorporate the content planned for the second expansion as well as new material.[4] Local co-operative play was also to be added to the game, though McMillen stated they could not add online co-operative play as that would drastically lengthen the development time.[5]

McMillen wanted to overhaul the entire game, particularly its graphics as he felt they were an "eyesore".[6] After polling players to determine which art style to use for the remake,[7] McMillen and Nicalis brought in artists to improve the original assets for the new style and then began working on the new content.[8] McMillen also commissioned a new soundtrack for the remake from Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans.[6]

Release

Initially, McMillen and Rodriguez felt that they would develop Rebirth for the Nintendo 3DS, as a tribute to its roots in Nintendo's Zelda series.[3][9] In 2012, Nintendo refused to allow the game to be released for the 3DS, as, at the time, the original The Binding of Isaac has received game classifications placing it as a mature game with potentially objectionable content, and Nintendo did not publish such titles for its systems.[9] Though they had spent some time on creating the 3DS version before the refusal, McMillen and Rodriguez decided to focus on personal computer and releases for the PlayStation platforms instead. These platforms gave them more capabilities to work with, allowing to increase the capabilities of the game.[9] In addition to the PlayStation 3 and Vita consoles, Nicalis was in discussions with Microsoft for a release on the Xbox system; McMillen had also considered a possible iOS release in the future.[5] McMillen and Nicalis opted to move development from the PlayStation 3 to the newly announced PlayStation 4 in August 2013, announcing its release at Sony's Gamescom presentation.[10] The PlayStation 4 and Vita version were released alongside the versions for personal computers on November 4, 2014.[11]

During development, three senior employees within Nintendo—Steve Singer, the vice president of licensing; Mark Griffin, a senior manager in licensing, and Dan Adelman, the head of indie development—all championed the game within Nintendo.[9] The three continued to work within Nintendo, and in 2014, were able to secure approval to allow Rebirth to be released for the 3DS and the Wii U.[9] McMillen and Nicalis, having spent time on the game tailored to run on more powerful systems, working to try to keep the game intact while porting it to the 3DS. They spend about a year on this conversion, and while they had gotten the game to work on the original 3DS model, the performance was sub-optimal for the game. With help from Nintendo, they were one of the first developers to secure a development kit for the New Nintendo 3DS, which had more powerful hardware and memory to support running the game at the desired speed to match the other platform releases.[9] The announcement of the New 3DS and Wii U versions was made alongside plans for an Xbox One version.[12] The release of the game for all three systems was on July 23, 2015.[13]

In January 2016, Nicalis had reported they were working on an iOS port of the game, but in the following month, the company reported that Apple had rejected the application from their App Store citing that the game depicts "violence towards children" and is against their content policies.[14]

Afterbirth expansion

In February 2015, McMillen announced the first expansion for Rebirth, titled Afterbirth. Afterbirth added items, enemies, alternate floors and bosses, and endings. In Afterbirth, Greed Mode is added, which is a completely different game mode than the main game, said to be much harder than the main game.[15] It was released on October 30, 2015 for Windows, OS X, and Linux computers.[16] The expansion was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions on May 10, 2016.[17] The expansion is unlikely to be released on any other platforms due to limitations of these platforms' hardware capabilities and the more complex mechanics required by Afterbirth.[18]

In programming the original The Binding of Isaac, McMillen had placed a number of hidden secrets within the game, which fans had started to discover and discuss on a Reddit subforum. With the dedication to finding these secrets by fans, McMillen took added steps to further hide these within patches and updates.[19] With Rebirth, McMillian knew players would be seeking out any hidden secrets, and had taken steps to make the existence of a new playable character, the Lost, completely hidden. Unlocking it required a number of highly specific steps including having the player-character die over and over in specific circumstances, and hints for what needed to be done were scattered about the game's assets. As such, McMillen and his team anticipated it would take a long time before players would discover the Lost.[19] However, on release of Rebirth, players on the Reddit subforum took to the game's executable files to search for clues about secrets within the game, discovering the existence of the Lost and the means to unlock it within about 109 hours of the game's release.[19] At the time, McMillen said he was disappointed with the community, feeling that his team took effort to hide these types of secrets to be found by the community through gameplay and clues within the game itself and not by looking to the program's executable; while he was still planning to release Afterbirth, McMillen said that he was not going to hurry its release knowing that players would do a similar investigation on its release.[20]

With the Afterbirth expansion, McMillen wanted again to hide another character, this being the Keeper, as well as elements related to Isaac's father which the game already hints at, but knew that players would data-mine the program files to find it. Instead, he planned an alternate reality game (ARG) that would require players to work in the real world as well to discover clues.[19] At the same time, McMillen was expecting the birth of his daughter at the end of September 2015, but with the expansion planned for an October release, so he had to arrange the ARG to continue in lieu of his presence.[19] When Afterbirth was released, players found what they thought were bugs in the game, such as lacking a number of new items that had been promised by the game's store page, and some players accused McMillen of deceiving them.[19] Though some of these omissions were planned as part of the ARG, McMillen discovered that the released game had accidentally lacked some of these new items using a different build than as planned, and his team raced to patch the game, as well as trying to provide support and hints about the Keeper's existence using the number 109 which had become a part of the mythos in the players' culture. McMillen later commented that he found that the missing items that should have been in the released game had distracted players from the secrets he had purposely hidden.[19]

With the release of this patch, players began to discover in-game hints towards the Keeper, engaging in McMillen's ARG as planned. Some of the clues included calling to a special phone number, and identifying real world locations around the Santa Cruz area, where McMillen is located, that were tied to the game.[19][21] Following additional clues, including locating a buried figure of one of the game's mini-bosses, the community was able to unlock the Keeper in the game and additional in-game items to collect.[22] Though McMillen thought in the end the ARG worked out, he believes he would not engage the community in a similar manner to avoid making himself look like an ego-driven person.[19]

Afterbirth † expansion

In December 2015, Nicalis announced a second expansion was in development, tentatively titled Afterbirth †. In addition to adding monsters, bosses, and items to the game, the expansion will include a bestiary that will track how many of each type of creature and boss the player has cumulatively defeated, and modding support to allow players to craft room types, import their own graphics, and script out events using the Lua language.[23][24] McMillen stated that they will include some of the best mods into the game as part of official updates and patches.[25] The expansion is expected to release first for Windows platforms in late 2016 or early 2017 and will be added shortly thereafter for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners. Nicalis has worked with Apple to gain pre-approval and will release a universal iOS version of Rebirth including the Afterbirth † expansion with additional improvements for that platform, including the use of iCloud for ease-of-play across multiple devices. While they are looking to add this onto the Vita's port, Nicalis stated it was a very low priority for them due to the limited processing ability of the device to handle many weapon combos.[26]

Reception

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth received highly positive reviews. The game's Metacritic score is 86/100 based on 10 critic reviews for personal computers, and 88/100 based on 15 critics for the PlayStation 4.[27][28]

Dan Stapleton of IGN praised Rebirth for the seemingly endless variation in gameplay that each run-through creates, giving him "plenty of motivation" to continue to play the game, and only criticized the title for its lack of in-game information on the various power-ups one can collect.[29] GameSpot's Brent Todd felt that while the game may initially be disturbing to players with its story and imagery, Rebirth has "speedy, varied gameplay and seemingly neverending new features" that would keep the player entertained for a long time.[32] Simon Parkin for Eurogamer that Rebirth, at times, "feels like the product of the psychotherapeutic process", but is "the most accessible Rogue-like yet made" due to its easy control scheme and randomization through each run.[30] Nic Rowen for Destructoid said that Rebirth was a vast improvement on the original Binding of Isaac, and that it is "an incredible experience that can't be missed".[31]

As of July 2015, both The Binding of Isaac and Rebirth have seen combined sales of over 5 million copies; this includes the sales of the original game which had reached 3 million copies sold by July 2014.[33][34]

References

  1. ^ Chang, Vickie (October 3, 2015). "Head Games: How The Binding of Isaac Creator Edmund McMillen Works Through the Bad to Produce the Good". Upvoted. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f McMillen, Edmund (November 28, 2012). "Postmortem: McMillen and Himsl's The Binding of Isaac". Gamasutra. Retrieved December 20, 2015.
  3. ^ a b Podgorski, Daniel (October 14, 2015). "Bound and Determined: The Binding of Isaac as a Worthy Successor to the Original Legend of Zelda". The Gemsbok. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  4. ^ a b c Hillier, Brenna (November 28, 2012). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth headed to consoles". VG247. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  5. ^ a b Matulef, Jeffrey (November 29, 2016). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth already in development for PS3 and Vita". Eurogamer. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  6. ^ a b Teti, John (February 25, 2014). "Binding Of Isaac creator releases new images and music from upcoming remake". A.V. Club. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  7. ^ Hillier, Brenna (December 3, 2012). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth seeks your approval for pixel makeover". VG247. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  8. ^ Hillier, Brenna (February 11, 2013). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth team nearly ready for new content". VG247. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Crecente, Brian (April 3, 2015). "How a love of Nintendo opened the door for The Binding of Isaac and why it's only coming to New 3DS". Polygon. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  10. ^ Shahid Ahmad (August 20, 2013). "Gamescom Indie Avalanche: N++, Volume, Hotline Miami 2". PlayStation Blog. Retrieved August 20, 2013.
  11. ^ Hillier, Brenna (November 4, 2014). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth out now on Steam, PSN". VG247. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  12. ^ McMillen, Edmund (April 1, 2015). "Rebirth Coming to 3ds WiiU and Xbox1!!". Retrieved April 1, 2015.
  13. ^ Machkovech, Sam (July 23, 2015). "Sacrilegious Binding of Isaac: Rebirth finally launches on Nintendo systems". Ars Technica. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  14. ^ Good, Owen S. (February 7, 2016). "Apple rejects The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth because of 'violence towards children'". Polygon. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  15. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (February 13, 2015). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth's upcoming Afterbirth DLC detailed". Eurogamer. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
  16. ^ Phillips, Tom (September 8, 2015). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth's meaty Afterbirth expansion pushes out a release date". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved September 8, 2015.
  17. ^ Craddock, David (April 20, 2016). "The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth DLC headed to PS4, Xbox One in May". Shacknews. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  18. ^ Davis, Ben (November 20, 2015). "The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth coming to PS4, but other platforms unlikely". Destructoid. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i Klepek, Patrick (February 3, 2016). "The Binding of Isaac's Biggest Secret Nearly Broke The Guy Who Made it". Kotaku. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
  20. ^ Klepek, Patrick (November 3, 2015). "The Binding of Isaac's New Secrets Sound Completely Nuts". Kotaku. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  21. ^ Marks, Tom (November 13, 2015). "An insane ARG is happening in the Binding of Isaac community right now". PC Gamer. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  22. ^ Smith, Adam (November 16, 2015). "Burials And Bubblewrap: The Binding Of Isaac ARG". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved November 16, 2015.
  23. ^ Davis, Ben (December 8, 2015). "An expansion for The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth is already in the works". Destructoid. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  24. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (December 8, 2015). "The Binding of Isaac to receive mod tools DLC". Eurogamer. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  25. ^ O'Conner, Alice (November 15, 2016). "Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ to officially add some mods". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  26. ^ Hussain, Tamoor (October 26, 2016). "Binding of Isaac Afterbirth† Coming to iOS "Soon," Vita Version is "Low Priority"". GameSpot. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  27. ^ a b "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
  28. ^ a b "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth for PS4 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
  29. ^ a b Stapleton, Dan (November 26, 2014). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Review". IGN. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
  30. ^ a b Parkin, Simon (November 12, 2014). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Review". Eurogamer. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
  31. ^ a b Rowen, Nic (November 11, 2014). "Review: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth". Destructoid. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
  32. ^ a b Todd, Brent (November 24, 2014). "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Review". GameSpot. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
  33. ^ Mahardy, Mike (July 4, 2014). "Roguelikes: The Rebirth of the Counterculter". IGN. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  34. ^ Working, Sam (July 22, 2015). "The Binding of Edmund McMillen". Good Times. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
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