Let’s Play: The Binding of Issac

For your viewing pleasure, I have brought you a snippet of my gameplay from The Binding of Issac.

Inspired by the Biblical story of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son in the name of God, The Binding of Issac is a macabre action-adventure dungeon crawl.

You control the naked Issac as he uses his tears to fight off hordes of mutilated monsters, while he tries to escape from his evil Mother through the basement.

The art design is a marriage between ridiculously cute and ridiculously twisted. You’ll fight zombies, demons, possessed children, and all other assortments of demented creatures through the 4 levels.

The game is a simple, top-down, 2-D shooter. You make your way through each dungeon and its various rooms, collecting items and fighting the mutilated enemies. You use your tears as ammunition, and avoid contact or blood from bad guys. Some levels might have min-bosses (such as Lust, or Envy) hidden behind doors, but to progress down the basement, you must face one of several bosses.

Each dungeon is randomly generated and enemies will vary, so every replay will be a unique adventure, which is a good thing because you will find yourself dying a lot.

Don’t let the cutesy art design fool you, this game is tough. Although fighting with tears while butt naked is not recommended, you will find power ups throughout each level to prolong your survival. 

Unfortunately, each time you restart, the game will be reset and all the bombs, keys, and coins you have collected will be lost. While it does add to the challenge, you will get frustrated restarting at square 1 every time. But like I said before, since the levels are random, you won’t ever be replaying level 1 the same way.

The controls are pretty smooth and natural, which is good, as Issac will need to dance frantically around the screen if he wants to avoid enemies.

It’s a pretty simple game, with a twisted premise, but definitely a ton of fun. For only $4.99 on Steam, it is a definite buy. 

Be sure to give my video a view if you are not convinced or want to get a better feel for the game! If you want to give the game a try before you buy, a Demo is available on Newgrounds.