I swear to my mom: why you (not) need to play The Binding of Isaac. Review of The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth Afterbirth items

Dice-ROOM

Changes character artifacts to random ones

Changes items in the room (including chests and keychains).

Changes items located on a given floor (including chests and keychains).

Changes artifacts located on this floor. Does not affect the Black Market and Angel/Devil rooms.

Changes the entire floor (acts like a “Forget Me” pill (the activated artifact is preserved)).

Changes the character's artifacts to random ones, as well as objects and artifacts on a given floor.

Special items

These are items that the developers consider stronger than others, and their chance of appearing decreases after location (it doesn’t matter whether you took it or not) at least one of them (0 - 100%, 1 - 50%, 2 - 90%, 3 - 98%, 4 or more - 99%). These include:

in Rebirth:
Brimstone, D100, The D6, Dr. Fetus, Epic Fetus, Godhead, Lil' Brimstone, The Ludovico Technique, Mom's Knife, Mutant Spider, Polyphemus, Pyromaniac, Sacred Heart, Soy Milk, Stop Watch.

in DLC Afterbirth:
Brimstone, D100, The D6, Dr. Fetus, Epic Fetus, Godhead, The Ludovico Technique, Mom's Knife, Mutant Spider, Polyphemus, Pyromaniac, Sacred Heart.

Does not include: The D6 from Isaac, items obtained with D4, D100, 1 and 6 Dice-Rooms.

Room of Sacrifice

This is a room with spikes in the middle. By stepping on these spikes and spending 1 heart, you can (after one of the latest patches) receive certain bonuses.

Victim No.

33% chance of getting 1 coin.

66% chance of receiving the buff - “You feel blessed!”, which will increase the chance of an Angel room appearing.

50% chance to receive a random chest.

33% chance of getting 3 coins.
66% chance of getting the buff - "You feel blessed!" The chance of an Angel room appearing is even greater.

33% chance to teleport to the Angel/Devil room. But if you have already been to the Devil's room, then it will always be the Angel's room.
66% chance of receiving a random chest.

33% chance to receive a random artifact from the Angel's room.
66% chance of getting a soul heart.

100% 6 Troll Bombs will appear.

100% mini-boss angel Uriel will appear.

50% chance of spawning 7 soul hearts.
50% chance to get 30 coins.

100% mini-boss angel Gabriel will appear

50% chance to teleport to the Dark Room level.

Devil's Room

This room appears on the Basement II - Womb II floors, all others can be reached using the Joker card, red chest or teleporting item.
The chance of a room appearing can be increased in one or more ways:
1. Goat Head artifact - 100% appearance of the Devil's room, it can be found in gold and red chests, and in the Trials room.
2. Without losing a single half of a red heart on the entire floor - a very big chance.
(Damage received with the help of a demonic beggar, Blood Donation Machine or with the help of artifacts IV Bag, Blood Rights, Razor Blade does not count.)
3. Without losing a single half of a red heart in the Boss room.
4. If you have artifacts - Book of Belial (without DLC +2500%), Book of Revelations, Pentagram, Black Candle.
5. If you kill a common beggar.
6. If you kill the shopkeeper in the Store.

The chance decreases if:
1. You found the Devil/Angel room on the last floor (-75%).
2. You found the Devil/Angel room 2 floors back (-50%).

Angel Room

The room can appear if 2 conditions are met:
1. On the previous floors you found the Devil's room
2. You have not made any transactions in the Devil's room or on the Black Market.
After this, there will be a 50% chance that the Devil's room will be replaced by the Angel's room. The chance can be increased.
Weak bonuses to chance will be given by:
1. If you kill the Demonic Beggar, Key Beggar or Thimble Beggar in the Arcade. In DLC: killing a key/bomb beggar or a thimble holder in the Arcade does not count. The bonus from kills does not stack.
2. In DLC: if you receive an artifact from a normal or demonic beggar.
3. If you have the artifact Key Piece #1 or Key Piece #2 (they can be obtained by blowing up the angel statue in the Angel's room).
Strong bonuses:
1. If you have a Rosary Bead keychain.
2. If you donate 10 coins to the machine in the Store. Only for the current floor.
In the DLC: If you made a deal with the Devil, then you can get into the Angel's room with a small chance only through the Sacrifices room.

The computer game The Binding of Isaac literally blew up the gaming world with its release - suddenly, among the gigantic projects on which millions of dollars are spent, in which the graphics are close to realistic, and the computer requirements are sky-high, a small game appears, not even written on a full-fledged engine, own or someone else's. It's made on flash and it's beautiful. An extensive “rogue-like” (games in which the world is constantly generated randomly, and the death of your character is final, and you have to start all over again), which has a fascinating plot, beautiful art, and incredible depth. Simply put, this project has captivated gamers all over the world.

Naturally, it didn’t end there, everyone wanted to see the continuation of Isaac’s adventures - and the developer gave gamers The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, the second part of the project, which turned out to be even larger and more exciting. But even with this, the creators did not exhaust themselves - and released a large-scale addition to the game, which was called The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth. Items, features, levels, plot twists, characters - all this appeared in large quantities in the new part of the game. Therefore, you should definitely purchase and install the add-on if you have the original part. After all, if in the original there were 342 items with which you could ensure a safe journey to the final boss, then in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth the items have significantly increased in number - there are 95 more of them. This article will talk about only a few of the most interesting of them.

Diplopia

In The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, items can affect many aspects of the game, not just your combat abilities. For example, you can take this item - it is best used where there are a lot of useful things or artifacts. After all, when you use it, all items in the current room double in quantity. Thus, you can act smartly and go to the merchant, apply this item, due to which his goods will double, and you can take the duplicates for yourself absolutely free. In The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, items like this can have a huge impact on your progress.

Placebo

You can imagine this article as something similar to The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, Wiki - the items here will be described in a little more detail than in any Wikipedia, but here, naturally, you will not find descriptions of all 95 things that were added with the new addition. The emphasis will be on the most useful or the most interesting and unusual items, such as this one. Even in the first part of the game, everyone was familiar with pills - their effect could be positive or negative, and to varying degrees, and it was not always known what exactly such a pill would do. But in any case, it was a pity to waste it, and this item, which looks like the same pill, allows you to get the effect of the one that is in your inventory, but without using it. This means that if the effect is negative, then you can simply throw it away with peace of mind, and if it is positive, reuse it. Please note that this article does not provide descriptions of item IDs in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth (this is necessary for cheating). Here you will find only a description of things and how to use them.

Wooden Nickel

In The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Afterbirth), items are not always so simple and transparent to use. For example, this coin is given to the Guardian character from the very beginning of the game after you donated at least thirty-three coins to a special machine during the previous playthrough. What does this item give? It can only be used once, and once used it has a fifty-five percent chance of giving you a random coin. That is, you can get either nothing, or one coin, or five, or even ten - not bad for a start. As you may have already noticed, on the information resources for the game The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth (Wiki), items are described briefly - here you will find the most complete information.

Toxic Shock

Items in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth may vary in power, but among them you can also find incredibly strong examples. For example, this passive improvement is very serious, as it has many effects that will come in handy for you. So, when you receive this improvement, it begins to act passively. The moment you enter the next room, all enemies already there take damage equal to twice the strength of your tears, after which they become infected and continue to receive double damage for a few more seconds. This way, you can have little fear of rooms with a large number of opponents, which were previously difficult to deal with. Now you just need to go into the room and wait a couple of seconds - most of the enemies will die, and you can easily finish off the rest. But you should pay attention to the fact that the effect of this item does not apply to those monsters that appear in the room later - as a result of opening a chest, the death of a specific enemy, and so on. As you can see, with a game like The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, item descriptions need to be detailed so that you don't miss any very important details.

Mega Bean

It's no secret that this game deals with various unpleasant topics, such as nausea or gas. The use of this item leads to gases. Your character releases a poison gas that deals five damage, followed by your standard tear damage over the course of a few seconds to all enemies within range. Note that this is a burst effect, meaning you can give them access to the secret room if you run out of bombs.

Glass Cannon

This item must be handled with the utmost care - it is better to use it only on the most terrible bosses or if you know that you can instantly replenish your health. So, if you activate this item, your health will reset to half a heart, no matter how many hearts you had before - and even shadow ones are affected. In return, you get one shot of spectral tear, which passes through enemies and deals 45 points of damage to each of them - enough to destroy any living creature in the game.

Bomber Boy

This is a rather interesting improvement that acts passively. When you activate this item, you receive five bombs - this is a one-time effect. But now each of your bombs will explode a little differently. The explosion is now much larger, which will help you deal more damage to enemies. Moreover, this applies not only to ordinary bombs, but also to troll bombs. It's also worth noting that the effect stacks with any other abilities that affect bombs - be it the ability to push them in a certain direction or make bombs with gifts out of them.

Crack Jacks

This item gives you a permanent increase in health by one heart, and you are given not just an empty container, but a full heart. However, this is not all that such a thing allows you to do. The fact is that when it is activated, a keychain appears on the floor of the room you are in - also an object, but only of a slightly different kind. You can only have one, and it gives you some kind of permanent improvement - for example, every ten seconds all the secrets in the room are highlighted, or you can reduce the damage to yourself by having all troll bombs turn into regular ones before exploding . So this will also bring you a lot of benefits.

Hello everyone here. My name is Artem, and I am struggling with addiction to . I've been fighting for quite a long time, and so far everything seems to be going well. My acquaintance with this abomination began in 2011. The game just came out and hasn't become very popular yet. I liked Edmund McMillen's last project, a hardcore platformer, so I decided to give The Binding of Isaac a chance.

“What a good and sweet game,” I thought. “It’s complex and incomprehensible, but there’s something in it.” From that day on everything went downhill. I started playing The Binding of Isaac regularly. For the first time I killed Mom - I almost shit myself with joy. I thought this was the end, but after that two additional levels opened up. Then the game constantly fed me something new, teased me with new items, bosses, characters... In short, I was thoroughly hooked.

Sometimes he spent up to eight hours a day looking after her. Intellectually he understood that this was not the case and that it was time to call it quits, but every time before leaving Isaac asked: “Do you really want me to die?” I clicked “No” and told myself: “I’ll run for the last time - that’s all.” Nonsense. Ran 200 hours, completed all achievements, unlocked all items. This Golden God picture appeared in the main menu - a reward for the effort spent on it.

It would seem that after this one could calm down - there was nowhere else to strive. The hell with it: I couldn’t stop. I recommended The Binding of Isaac to all my friends and, with bulging eyes, argued that it was something fantastic. In most cases I was met with bewilderment. Well, okay.

In 2012, the Wrath of the Lamb expansion came out, and my addiction blossomed with renewed vigor. I rushed to master it like a man possessed. After a hundred hours, a new trophy appeared in the main menu - Platinum God - for completing all the challenges. I decided it was time to stop. Lasted two days.

When Mom's kill count exceeded 200, The Binding of Isaac greeted me with this picture. Then I realized that I needed help.

I've been clean for almost two years now. I'm playing other games again, seeing people, everything is fine. I am grateful to this community for all the support in overcoming this disease. Thank you, thank you very much. If not... What? Is there a remake out, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth? Oh my God.

Even if we put this dramatization aside (honestly - I'm not that hopeless), the fact remains that The Binding of Isaac took me a catastrophic amount of time. In my memory, there were only four cases when I tried to spend absolutely all my free (and not so free) minutes playing a video game. This is DOTA (both in the form of a map for WarCraft 3 and from Valve), and, in fact, The Binding of Isaac. The last one is a bit out of the ordinary, don’t you think? One of the greatest MOBA games of our time, the king of paid MMORPGs, a masterpiece from From Software and a flash roguelike about a child crying in the basement. Let go of your prejudices. The Binding of Isaac is a great game. And here are just a few reasons why.

This is a game where the random generation mechanic works correctly. There are many projects whose list of main features says something like: “A huge number of combinations - every time you will play a new game!” In most cases, it turns out that the random number generator does not affect the gameplay as much as the developers present it. Yes, there is no point in memorizing the map, you always come across different enemies, but in general they are the same eggs, only in profile. The Binding of Isaac takes a slightly different approach: it combines certain constants with randomness that can radically change the gameplay.

Levels are assembled from hundreds of hand-made blank rooms. Each stage (Basement, Depths, Womb, Cathedral, and so on) has a specific set of bosses and enemies attached to it - the further you go, the more difficult the opponents are and the more difficult the game becomes. All of this forms the basis for which The Binding of Isaac does not collapse under the pressure of thousands of variables: special items, cards, secrets, curses, charms, tablets and much more. Trophies can give flight, bloody vomit, giant but slow tears, endless bombs - all this changes each specific passage of The Binding of Isaac in its own way. In total, there are more than 450 items in the Rebirth version - just imagine the number of all possible combinations of, say, ten of them.

And other numbers

In The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Over 50 bosses

10 playable characters

20 challenges

17 endings

178 secrets/achievements

This is a game that teaches you to adapt and squeeze every last drop out of the current situation. The Binding of Isaac is a fairly complex game. Isaac is very vulnerable, there are always a lot of monsters, basic resources - bombs, keys, coins - are constantly in short supply. To advance, sometimes you have to take risks - say, pouring almost all your health into the donor machine in the hope of getting free healing and an upgrade. Sometimes it’s the other way around: an unknown pill can not only give a bonus to the rate of fire, but also cripple a child, and some artifacts can ruin a successful passage.

In such conditions, you have to constantly think and build cunning combinations in order to get the most out of each level. Even after opening the passage to the next stage, you can spend a lot of time on the current floor. Give the little devil almost all your health, get a pass to the test room, fight two bosses at once, earn a powerful artifact, win a few extra keys and bombs in a slot machine, accidentally blow up a machine, get 99 coins, shop in a store, thereby making your fate easier for the future - here is just a sample list of things to do. You may well not give a damn about all this and rush to the next stage at the first opportunity - only you will already be without money, an artifact, bombs and keys. The Binding of Isaac has its own laws of survival that you will have to learn and use to your advantage.

This is a monstrously addictive game. Successful completion of The Binding of Isaac takes on average 40 – 60 minutes. This is sheer deceit: due to the relatively short duration, you do not notice the passage of time. The more time you spend with The Binding of Isaac, the more content it unlocks. Considering that each playthrough is radically different from the other, you never get tired of the game and end up in a vicious circle. “One more time and that’s it.” Yeah of course.

Difficult childhood

Edmund McMillen doesn't exactly advertise this fact, but The Binding of Isaac is based on memories of his own childhood. His parents drank a lot and used drugs, while being ardent Christians. It's easy to imagine how this affected McMillen's early years. “My parents constantly shouted that I would go to hell for my passion for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering,” Edmund admitted in an interview. He was treated cruelly, beaten and frightened with particularly bloody scenes from the Bible. All this is reflected in The Binding of Isaac.

To be honest, I started writing this column for one reason: to have a legitimate excuse to play The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth at work - supposedly, to gain impressions for the article. If this fact and over six thousand recommendations on Steam don't convince you to at least try it, then I wash my hands of it. I'll go spend another three hundred hours in the basement.

This article will talk about the characters in the remake of The Binding of Issac - The Binding of Issac: Rebirth.

There are eleven characters in the game. Five of them (Isaac, Magdalena, Cain, Judas and ???/Blue Kid) are from the original game. Eve and Samson were added in subsequent updates. In Rebirth, four more were added to these seven Persians (Azazel, Lazarus, Eden and Lost). Each character at the beginning of the game has different stat values ​​and artifacts.

They are all actually Isaac in different forms. Magdalena, Cain, Judas, Eve, Samson, Lazarus and Eden are just Isaac in disguise, Azazel is his demonic image, ???/Blue Kid is the dead Isaac, and Lost is his soul.

All references to the Bible in the names of the characters are quite obvious, so I will not focus on them.

Isaac (Isaac)

Isaac is the main (and only, in fact) character of the game. You will have to play for him initially. At the beginning of the game, he doesn’t stand out as anything special, but after completing the ???/Blue Kid Cathedral, Isaac appears with a starting artifact D6, which allows you to change the artifact lying on the pedestal in the room.

Unlockable Items

Magdalene (Magdalena)

Magdalena can be unlocked by collecting 7 red hearts in one run. It's just Isaac in a blonde wig. Unlike Isaac, Magdalena has more health and luck, and there is an artifact that gives a red heart when used, which gives a better chance of completing the race. True, she is not significantly slower than Isaac, but this is easily corrected during the race with a number of artifacts and speed-up pills.

Unlockable Items

Cain

Cain is unlocked by collecting 55 coins in one run. Isaac, but with a patch over his left eye. Isaac is stronger and faster, however, he has less health and flight range of tears. A good character for fast players who don't care about high health. In addition, initially he has an artifact that increases luck and the chance of winning in slot machines.

Unlockable Items

Judas (Judas)

Opens with the killing of Satan. Isaac, but in a fez. Even stronger than Cain, but very little health only one red heart. The rest of the characteristics are the same as Isaac. It has as an artifact the Book of Belial, which increases damage even more for one room, and three coins.

Unlockable Items

If any character dies while having the Judas" Shadow artifact, he is reborn as Dark Judas, who has almost the same characteristics as Judas, but damage increases to 2 and speed to 1.1

???/Blue Kid

Can be opened by killing Mom's Heart ten times. Dead Isaac. It is unique in that it cannot receive red hearts, only gray or black ones, which is a strong drawback, since they are less common. The characteristics are slightly better than Isaac. As an artifact of The Poop, allowing you to, well, take a shit.

Unlockable Items

Eve

Eve opens by completing two floors without picking up hearts. Isaac in a different wig and with a dead bird on his head. Health and damage are less than Isaac, but at the same time Eve has two artifacts, one of which increases damage and speed when health drops to one heart, and the other, after receiving damage, summons a bird that attacks enemies.

Unlockable Items

Samson (Samson)

Samson is unlocked by completing two floors without taking damage. Isaac in a wig and bandana. It is interesting in that thanks to the initial artifact Blood Lust, its damage increases as damage is received. It can be beneficial to run into spikes with them a couple of times if the heart falls out and the character has full health. However, the gain lasts only one floor.

Unlockable Items

Azazel (Azazel)

Three deals with the devil in one go and Azazel is open. He is the demonic image of Isaac. Starts with three black hearts, but, unlike???, can also get red ones through artifacts. Instead of tears, it shoots with a certain ray from its mouth, very strong, but effective at a short distance. It is practically impossible to increase it and the corresponding artifacts and pills give Azazel a very weak increase in range.

However, he still remains the most cheating character in the game he flies from the very beginning of the game, and takes out bosses on the first two floors in literally two or three salvos, even when he is “empty”. At the beginning of the game, he has an absolutely useless tarot card “Fool”, which teleports to the initial room of the floor.

Unlockable Items

Lazarus (Lazarus)

Lazarus opens by receiving four gray/black hearts in one turn. Isaac in a wig (again, yes). The stats are worse than Isaac's, but he has a pill and resurrection. He (or any other character with the Lazarus" Rags artifact) is resurrected with much cooler stats and the Anemic artifact.

Unlockable Items

Eden (Eden)

Eden can be opened by going through the Womb. They can only be played if you have Eden tokens, which are given for killing Mom's Heart/It's Alive. This is Isaac with a random wig - it changes from session to session. A very random character - his stats are based on Isaac's, but vary quite a lot. Accordingly, the style of play for him is always different. The artifacts unlocked for him are as random as he himself.

Unlockable Items

The Lost

The most asshole character in every sense. It's hard to open and almost impossible to play with. It personifies the wandering soul of Isaac, and it must be opened like this:

1. We die for Isaac from the explosion of the Multiboom mob on the first/second floors (seed XEQH N0EB there is a multiboom in the room next to the initial one, there is also a room with spikes nearby to reduce health before the multiboom)
2. We die for Magdalena from our own bomb on the third/fourth floors (everything is simple here, but just in case, here’s a seed ALFA 0NTS in the treasure room there is an artifact that gives bombs)
3. We die for Judas from Mom on the sixth floor (we reach Mom as usual, lower the HP in front of her on the fires/spikes and get killed by her kick, which she always does at the beginning of the battle).
4. Let's fight for Azazel about Satan. It is best to kill yourself against his second form; in the first fight it is not with Satan himself, so it will not count. and there will be no chance that you will die from the mob he summons in the third stage.

If you died incorrectly, immediately after death, without waiting for the suicide note, press Esc, and then hold R the entry will restart, and the chain will not be lost!

This character has no hearts. That is, completely. And they cannot be obtained during the game. All artifacts that give hearts are absolutely useless for this character. If you get such an artifact on the first floor as a reward for the boss, feel free to restart the entry. Death from one poke is partly compensated by flight and free deals with the devil, but only partly. The Dead Cat artifact will be incredibly useful, as it gives nine life without any side effect on the Lost. Any items/artifacts that provide invulnerability or a shield are irreplaceable. All artifacts that give stats/items for damage are of no use to the Lost One.

Religious bagel Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsla grew to truly biblical proportions. In the beginning there was the original and there was an addition to it - . Here he would have happily gone down in history and reaped the fruits of glory, but no - Isaac, not really having time to die. Mom’s basement “ate” about a hundred more hours.

It is being developed in a new mode - Greed. The player is “drowned” by waves of evil spirits, and during periods of calm they are allowed to purchase equipment from the store. At the end of the day, another strong guy is released against us - Ultra Greed. At least this monster’s repertoire is okay. Unfortunately, Greed, along with Daily Challenges, which are a collection of daily modifiers, are the main element of the expansion. They make up the majority of the promised hundred hours of gameplay.

However, in some places BoI unexpectedly became prettier. New satellites appeared in the rudimentary “co-op”. Moreover, another character is even “tailored” to him – Lilith. Adam's ex-wife cannot attack enemies on her own, but she has a combat-ready creature. The developers did not heed the requests of fans for a real co-op mode and preferred to develop a dead-end direction.

* * *

There is also a lot of good things. The desire to make money is understandable - after the release of the remake The Binding of Isaac again at the peak of popularity. But it is unlikely to immortalize the original. Under the afterbirth, alas, there was a dead fetus.

Philip Vujacic

The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth