Indie Game Review: The Binding Of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac is an independently developed action-RPG with roguelike elements that was developed by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. McMillen is perhaps more well known for being the brains behind Super Meat Boy, whilst Himsl has worked with McMillen on several of his other lesser-known projects such as Triachnid and Coil. As you would expect from the creator of Super Meat Boy, this is a twisted and dark game with a similar art direction, and plenty of style. Does it deliver in the gameplay department, though? Read on to find out. 

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Isaac is a child born into a world full of evils, and nobody knows this more than his devoutly religious mother. One day, while watching television, Isaac's mother hears the voice of God who tells her that her son has been corrupted by sin, and commands her to take away his possessions, lest he fall victim to undesired thoughts and influences. Being an unquestioning servant of God, she agrees. Soon after, she hears the voice of God again, this time demanding that he be locked away in his room for further protection against outside evils. Again, she obeys. She then hears the voice a third time, instructing her to prove her devotion to her God by taking Isaac's life. Without hesitation, she arms herself with a large kitchen knife and makes her way to his room. Seeing this, Isaac escapes through a hidden trapdoor in his room to the basement - a place brimming with horrific nightmares and abominations. It is within this dark world, set inside Isaac's basement and his mind, that he must battle legions of horrible creatures in order to find his salvation... or his doom.

The Binding of Isaac is played from an angled top-down perspective very similar to the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, one of my favourite games on the Super Nintendo. Indeed, the two games share many similarities in both design and art direction. Where the Binding of Isaac differs mainly, however, is that rather than being set in a large world with carefully designed dungeons, the whole game takes place in a dungeon that is randomly generated each time you play. This means that rather than placing a design emphasis on carefully arranged traps, labyrinths, and progressive dungeon design, the game has a focus on combat and character development.

A spoon-whipped Isaac drowns a swarm of flies with his tears. Just everyday stuff.

Combat in the Binding of Isaac is realized via a directional shooter engine. Isaac can fire in all four compass directions, and he can do so independently of his movement. This means, for example, that you can move right while shooting upward, and so on. You can also influence the trajectory of your attacks slightly by moving in the direction you'd like to arc them. Isaac's tears are his only weapon to begin with. An unconventional weapon for sure, but everything about this game is artistically inclined and they fit the theme of an infant battling horrors inside his own head. Indeed, most attacks in this game, be they yours or your enemies', come in the form of some bodily liquid. There's blood, there's tears, there's even urine. The Binding of Isaac is an unapologetically offensive game, but do not be fooled into thinking that it is merely a foray into immaturity. There is enough substance in this game to justify the choices made for its design. Everything comes together to paint a uniquely horrifying portrait of an undeveloped mind's struggle against a hostile world, in a manner that can only be called extraordinarily artistic.

Enemies are vast in number and design, and most are nightmarish or horrific considering the cartoonish art direction. You never know quite what enemy you're about to see next due to the random dungeon generation, but they range from flies and disgusting mutants, to horrible blood-squirting parasitic entities and tragic, exploding flesh-men that cough up flies and look and sound as if they live in constant torment. There's even enemies that look like walking torsos with vaginal openings that they hold open to spray you with toxic blood. Everything is nightmarish, disgusting, horrific, and twisted. They are exactly the sort of horrors that you would expect a tormented child to imagine, especially a child like Isaac. If you haven't realized by now, though, the Binding of Isaac is not a game for children. Even the loading screens, while mostly light-hearted, are depictions of Isaac being tormented and humiliated by his peers, giving further insight into why his perceptions of reality are so twisted and ground in nightmares.

Not all treasures are obtainable, depending on your build and luck with items. Here, I could get to the chest by using bombs to blow up the surrounding rocks, but I have no keys to unlock it with. Damn!

Each room in the dungeon has a unique layout and set of enemies that get progressively harder as you go. Some are full of rocks or pits in various shapes that act as obstacles, others contain items for you to find, while others are special room types like shops, challenge rooms, and casinos. In every level of the dungeon you'll also find one boss room and most of the time there will also be a mini-boss room too. The bosses and mini-bosses that you'll face in the Binding of Isaac are randomly decided, and due to how many bosses are in the game you'll never see them all in one play through. This keeps the game fresh, as not only do you constantly battle through room layouts and enemy combinations you've never seen before, but you never know which boss to expect at the end of it all. Since the bosses are all uniquely horrifying and all have unique attack patterns, I shall not spoil any of them in this review.

The list of items you can find in the game is absolutely huge, and all have a unique impact on your abilities or stats. There are some universal items, such as bombs that can be used to destroy rocks and enemies, keys that unlock special rooms, and tarot cards which all have different effects when used. More importantly, you can also get character-altering items that change your appearance, and sometimes drastically change the way you play. Among the many upgrades your character can receive are wings to help you fly over pits and floor-based hazards, spectral tears that go through obstacles, speed and damage boosts, rapid fire attacks, the ability to split your attacks into multiple projectiles, charge-up beams, orbiting shields, and "pets" that follow you and shoot whenever you do. This is only the surface of the ridiculous amount of power-ups and abilities available to you, and then you have different combinations of these upgrades which serve to change or enhance them even further.

A badly timed screenshot, as Isaac is flashing after taking damage and currently invisible. Still, floating heads!

The upgrades, along with the random dungeon generation, are what really serves to make this game different every time you play, and serve to give this game a real roguelike flavour. Some builds are next to impossible to finish the game with depending on which adversaries you end up facing, while other combinations of upgrades allow you to blitz through the entire game with ease. Most of the joy of this game is in discovery, in finding a new item that you've never seen before and finding out how it affects you only through trial and error. The game is unapologetically unhelpful - even in the collection screen where you can see every item you've ever picked up, there is no description of what each item does. Sometimes you will have an entire playthrough without knowing exactly what one of your items did to help you, such is the mystery of this game and the subtlety of their effect. Your memory (or perhaps the wiki, but I do not recommend spoiling any of the surprises of this game) is the only ally you will have in narrowing down which types of items are helpful to your playstyle or against specific types of enemies, and every decision you make could be a risk to your current build, as there are 'bad' items too. If you collect a 'bad' item, you might escape with just a stat reduction... or it could be much worse. Also, like all good roguelikes, death in this game is permanent, and you'll have to start again from the very beginning when it happens, allowing you to have yet another completely different playthrough with entirely new items. In my opinion, this makes every choice in every playthrough more meaningful and every reward more satisfying.

You're going to want to beat the game at least ten times, and if you do you still won't see all there is to see. Each time you beat the game you unlock a new ending (the first one is my personal favourite), but perhaps more importantly you also unlock more content. It starts out small, but in the end you unlock more bosses, minibosses, enemy variants, room types, items, and even entire levels, helping to ensure that each and every playthrough has new surprises and challenges. There are also playable characters to unlock, all with different strengths and weaknesses, although these are not all unlocked merely by beating the game. Be warned though, the more times you've completed the game, the more potential difficulty you face. This game almost punishes you for succeeding by demanding more from you each time, but there is no question that it rewards you with buckets of content in the process.

Certain powerups transform you into huge demons... or just uglier versions of yourself.

Lastly, but definitely not least, the music in the Binding of Isaac was composed by Danny Baranowsky of Super Meat Boy and Canabault fame, and is absolutely brilliant. A mixture of metal and electronica with some creepy lullaby thrown in for good measure, I can imagine no other way to compliment Isaac's journey into depravity and torment. The sound effects are also impressive and very suited to their material, ranging from tormented groans to disgusting squelches and splattering noises. The Binding of Isaac is an extremely well-realized artistic vision that assaults your senses and your sensibilities, and is not afraid to raise some moral eyebrows along the way. In my opinion, the game is all the better for it.

Indie Game Review: FTL

The result of one of the most successful indie Kickstarter campaigns I've ever seen, FTL (Faster Than Light) had me hooked the moment I saw the details for it and I immediately became a backer. This was back in March. It is now September and the game is finally out... but does the title created by two guys at Subset Games live up to my expectations? You bet it does! Read on to find out why.

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Imagine it's the future. You're the captain of a starship, flying through a brilliant galaxy peppered with glimmering stars, deadly asteroids, and mighty planets. You yearn to explore its many mysteries, but the local Rebels are hot on your tail, desperate to stop the sensitive data you've acquired from reaching the hands of the Federation. Your ship, and indeed, the life of your crew, rely on your decisions for survival... and decisions don't come cheap.

Hurtling through space, a Rebel vessel suddenly de-cloaks with weapons powered. It strikes your engines with a direct laser blast, causing them to burst into flame and your engineer to suffer moderate wounds. Somehow in the heat of the moment, you maintain your clarity. Ordering your wounded grease monkey out of the engine room and into the medbay, you seal off the back section of the ship and open your airlocks, flushing the engine room of oxygen and extinguishing the raging fire. Another blast hits your ship, this time directly in your oxygen system. Left unattended, your crew will die from asphyxiation! You order your two best repairmen into your oxygen system room, and engage the Rebel ship with your own weapons, ordering a missile strike to their shields and setting your lasers to target their weapons system. It works - the missile sails through their shields and causes a direct hit, disabling their defense and allowing your laser beams to sail unhindered, straight into their targeting mechanism. Unable to return fire and completely exposed, the Rebel ship attempts to power up its engines and escape the situation... but you were ready for that. You activate your crew teleporter and beam your men into their pilot room, slaughtering the few remaining enemies. The ship is yours... and you use the scrap metal salvaged from it to upgrade your own.

Choose your destiny!

The situation above sounds complex and hectic, but it's what can really happen in FTL and all in a matter of seconds. As the commander of a ship and its crew, you make life-or-death decisions regarding what weapons to fire, what part of an enemy ship to fire at, when and what to repair, which systems to power from your reactor, and more. Shields are down? Re-route your power to engines so you can dodge enemy fire more effectively until they're repaired. Enemies boarding your ship? Flush the beseiged rooms of oxygen to repel the boarders or tackle them with your own crew. Take out an enemy ship's oxygen supply to choke their crew to death. Build your ship up into a death-dealing laser machine, or focus on your defensive ability and pump up your shields and engines, or buy a cloaking system. Every decision could be the one that saves your life, or the one that dooms you...

...such as jumping too close to a sun.

FTL has been described as a spaceship simulation roguelike-like, which is pretty spot on. It's not strictly a roguelike, however the similarities are there to see, the most notable being that the game is quite difficult, the random generation of maps, loot, and events, and the bold and beautiful idea of permadeath. That's right... when your ship blows up or your entire crew dies in FTL, it's game over. No continues. You must start a new ship with a new crew and learn from your mistakes to produce a better result. Lose just one crewmember and they're gone forever. In most games, permanent death would be a ridiculous punishment. In FTL, it's fun. It's just part of that particular ship's story, and when you're done grieving for its crew and recounting its glorious battles, a new one is frothing and ready to go, ready to potentially be your most successful story yet.

Ion storms inside a nebula will halve the power output of your reactor. You will learn to fear them.

The Amazon and its noble crew consider using scrap metal to upgrade.

 Where FTL differs is its presentation and how it handles its exploration. Most of the game is played with a cut-section view of your ship with a small pop-out window that keeps track of any ships you're engaging. From there, you can see your crew perform their duties (or order them to do so) and you also have an overview of the status of each system in your ship. Systems include engines, shields, weapons, oxygen, drones, and the like, and depending on how you've outfitted your ship, you need to prioritize them in order of importance when it comes to repairing them when damaged, powering them, or deactivating them to power something else. This would be a pretty complex procedure if it weren't for the wonderful UI that the guys at Subset Games have devised. It's as simple as clicking on the things you want to power, and right clicking on the things you'd like to draw power from. Crew orders are given with a very RTS-like unit selection system. Weapons are targeted by selecting them and choosing a target. On top of everything, you can pause and unpause the game with the space bar in order to assess the situation fully and issue your commands without being overwhelmed. It's very intuitive and before long becomes second nature.

Encounters are seperated into jumps - each time you jump to an unvisited node on your sector map, you are presented with a randomly generated encounter or scenario based on the system you're currently in. For example, if you're in the Mantis Homeworlds, then you have a pretty good chance of coming up against Mantis ships more than any other race. Sometimes these encounters are ship-to-ship battles, sometimes they're of the "choose your own adventure" variety with a multiple choice question leading to different outcomes, sometimes it's a trader or random reward, sometimes it's nothing, and other times it's a deadly asteroid field or too close to a sun and the encounter becomes more difficult or needs a different tactical focus as a result.

There's something cool about screaming, "The Amazon is on fire!"

Your crewmen are the lifeblood of your ship, and all decisions you make should be in an attempt to preserve them or at the very least lose the smallest number of them you can while escaping a situation. Lose them all, and you lose the game. Lose even just one and your ship's performance will suffer to some degree. Crewmembers can be any one of the many races available in FTL. From the "common and uninteresting" Humans, the war-like Mantis, the sturdy Rockmen, or the mechanically adept Engi (and more), each race has its own strengths and weaknesses that you need to consider before you give them a role. Engi, for example, are great at repairing systems, but do less damage in combat. This means that in a boarding situation, you should think twice before sending them to engage. The Mantis race is the exact opposite of the Engi, doing more combat damage but repairing slower than any other race.

An under-upgraded Amazon faces off against a deadly Auto-Assault class ship inside an asteroid field.

Each race also has its own instantly recognizable unique look and feel to the ships they command, which you come to understand and appreciate a lot more when you begin to unlock their ships for your own use. Going from the "normal" weapon-based Kestrel cruiser to the disable-heavy Ion cannons and battle drones of the Engi ship is like choosing between a warrior or a mage in a roguelike, but perhaps even more varied in playstyle. Since the Engi ship is the one you're most likely to unlock first, I'll refrain from spoiling the play style of any others as sometimes there's a fair amount of effort needed to unlock them. Rest assured that the developers have worked hard to ensure that there's enough variety to please all and a ship for every style.

Each playthrough of FTL generates a galaxy map that allows you to plot your course sector-by-sector, choosing which types you expose yourself to along the way, and culminating in the final sector in which you face off against an impressive boss, which once again I will refrain from spoiling. As it stands, a full playthrough can take anywhere between 45 minutes to 2 hours or more, depending on the struggles you deal with in your encounters. At the end of it all, you get a nice stat screen and some detailed information about your ship and its crew, although I will say I'd like to see the developers expand upon the amount of information given. When it's all over, you sit back in satisfaction, think about how much you loved that ship, and then begin life anew. It's a cycle that I've been caught in for almost two weeks now, and I just don't want to break free. Few games have been as rewarding for me as FTL.

You never really get used to your beloved ship being destroyed horribly. Curse you, rebel scum!

Have you ever fantasized about commanding every aspect of your own spaceship? Have you ever watched the captain in Star Trek draw power from the engines to boost his shields and wanted to do the same? Do you think you could grow to love the concept of "losing is fun"? Do you enjoy roguelikes? Have you played a hundred spaceship games and thought that none of them came close to how you envision running your own ship should be? If you answered yes to a single one of those questions, then you owe it to yourself to buy this game and try it for yourself. You can thank me later... I've got a galaxy to explore.

Indie Game Review: Spelunky

Spelunky is an independently developed freeware action adventure game presented by Derek Yu, also known for his work on Diabolika, Eternal Daughter, Aquaria, and various other high quality indie titles. It's 100% free to play (the download link is at the end of this review) and a heavily revamped version is also available to purchase on XBLA. It's been out for a while, but I only just recently discovered it. Let me tell you why I felt the need to ensure you do the same.

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In Spelunky, you fill the shoes of an intrepid cave explorer, delving through increasingly dangerous and difficult caverns filled with deadly traps, dastardly creatures, and glorious treasures. Death is a part of life in Spelunky. The game is not easy, but a careful Spelunker will discover that almost every death is preventable as long as you are cautious and resourceful enough to utilize and understand your surroundings.

No two games of Spelunky are alike. That is to say, each level is randomly generated using a procedural formula that ensures you never see the same cave layouts, enemy or treasure placement, and exit locations twice. This is a key feature of the game, as being able to memorize levels would break the charm of the on-the-fly decision making required for your survival.

There's a fucking spider behind me, isn't there?

 Your overall objective is to proceed to the end of each level while gathering as much treasure as you can along the way, all the while avoiding a variety of interesting and deadly traps and enemies. To help you with this, your Spelunker comes equipped with a selection of ropes, bombs, and his trusty whip. Ropes can be used to scale large walls or safely descend into otherwise fatal drops, bombs can be used to blast through any wall or obstacle in the game or to dispatch more powerful enemies, and your whip is a close-range attack that can help you take care of most regular enemies with good timing and positioning.

While your bombs and ropes are certainly helpful, they are in limited supply and you must always consider whether they are worth using in any given situation, which often forces you to choose more dangerous (and interesting) routes. The beauty of the game is the way the environment interacts with itself and the way it can be utilized to your advantage. Found a rock on the ground? You can pick it up and throw it to hit out-of-reach enemies, or drop it in front of an arrow trap to set it off, thereby making it safe for you to pass. The same can be said for the skulls of more unfortunate adventurers, the arrows fired from traps, ancient pots scattered across the landscape, and even the corpses of defeated enemies. All can be picked up and used to your advantage in a variety of ways. Alternatively you could lure enemies in front of traps to set them off, or find creative ways to avoid them entirely, such as bombing through a nearby wall to create a tunnel under it. The environment is not without its own hazards, though... fall too far down a mineshaft and you'll injure or kill yourself. Get stuck in a spiderweb and you'll find it much harder to avoid enemies. Even the treasures can present hazards - the golden idol, for example, will cause a giant boulder to fall down and try to crush you when you pick it up (in true Indiana Jones fashion).

Snakes... why does it always have to be snakes?

Enemies range from snakes, cavemen, spiders, giant spiders, monkeys that steal your items, skeletons, zombies, man-eating plants, and more. Take too long to finish a level and you might be unlucky enough to see the horrible, invincible ghost which can move through walls and always moves directly toward you. There is enough variety to ensure ongoing enjoyment and they all have unique behavioural and attack patterns, making each one a unique obstacle, especially when combined with the unique challenges set by the various types of environmental hazards.

The game isn't only filled with things that kill you, though! Aside from the various treasures such as gold, gems, and magnificent idols, you can also find Damsels to rescue to receive a kiss (more health), or shops that sell a variety of items that help you such as climbing gloves, parachutes, jetpacks, sticky bomb paste, and more. You can even steal from a shop or try to kill the shopkeeper - but beware, they have shotguns and are VERY quick with their trigger finger. If you do manage to kill a shopkeeper, you'll incur the wrath of any more you find until you die and start over. You can even find sacrificial altars, where you can place any stunned character or even corpses to sacrifice them to Kali, netting you her favour which in turn can give you strange and wonderful rewards. If you're really devious, you can sacrifice the Damsels in distress instead of saving them. Accidentally destroy an altar with a bomb or rolling boulder trap, though, and you will incur Kali's wrath! This could be as simple as spawning spiders to kill you, or permanently attaching a ball-and-chain to your character, slowing your movement and dangling you from cliffs when you try to climb down them.

Gold can also be found in veins inside the cave walls... if you have bombs to spare.

If the random generation of levels and the sheer diversity of hazards due to the way they all interact isn't enough, you occasionally get "level feelings" which change the way a standard level will work. For example, some caves are dark, and you must use the crate of flares helpfully placed near the entrance to navigate through its treacherous depths. Others have their bottom levels completely flooded and filled with piranha, or contain long pit drops filled with snakes. One of my favourites is the Restless Dead level feeling, where the skeletal and zombified remains of previous adventurers rise from the dirt to kill you. Your protagonist will make a comment as you begin a level whenever a level feeling is in effect to indicate which one it is.

The game is split up into a variety of areas that all have their own unique graphical style and range of enemies, traps, and other hazards. The first area, for example, is your standard cave style with bats, arrow traps, spiders, webs, and rocks. If you make it to the second area, it seems more like a jungle with vines you can climb, long grass, a wider variety of deadly fauna (and flora!) and bodies of water that can be swam through (assuming you're willing to brave the piranhas).

Holy Spelunky monkey, Batman!

The best way to understand how the game works and fits together is to play it. Just keep in mind that you WILL die, and you will die OFTEN. This game wasn't inspired by Roguelike mechanics for nothing. The only way to know how not to die in this game is to die - to make mistakes and learn why they were mistakes, and learn how not to make them next time. This formula might sound punishing to some, but it is half the appeal of the game, as the highly possible chance of death around every corner makes every decision matter and every success more rewarding.

Spelunky is a brilliant game filled with old-school charm and incredibly rewarding gameplay, even when you lose. Considering that it is 100% free to play, there is no reason why you shouldn't give it a go.