The Binding of Isaac

[Yggdrasil]

Genre: Action, Adventure, RPG, Indie
Platform: PC/Mac
Release Date: September 28, 2011
Price: $4.99 on Steam

Synopsis: When Isaac's mother starts hearing the voice of God demanding a sacrifice be made to prove her faith, Isaac escapes into the basement facing droves of deranged enemies, lost brothers and sisters, his fears, and eventually his mother. The Binding of Isaac is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like elements."

Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/113200/

Edmund McMillen, one of the members of Team Meat, who brought Super Meat Boy, announced recently that one of his next side projects will be The Binding of Isaac.

The game is meant to be a roguelike, based off one of McMillen's favorite games. He will be working on it with Florian Himsl (Tri-Achnid, Coli) and Danny Baranowsky (Canabalt).

If you are an avid fan of Indie Games, especially ones like Super Meat Boy, then this should be interesting to see what they comes up with

- from teamliquid.net



"Sacrificial" from The Binding of Isaac Soundtrack by Danny Baranowsky

Links of interest:

The Binding of Isaac, coming to Steam!
Binding of Isaac (Wikipedia article)
Quick Look: The Binding of Isaac

[Eusis]

Moved because... Well, just look at the genres you posted.

I've got my eye on this game, unless I see people massively disappointed I'll probably grab.

[Commander Jubby Shepard]

Is there a demo on this? I went to Steam and I couldn't find a demo or a buy button.

[Yggdrasil]

Is there a demo on this? I went to Steam and I couldn't find a demo or a buy button.

Not yet, but the game comes out in late August so keep an eye on that.

[Yggdrasil]

Bumping this just to remind that this is out, also I edited the OP with the Quick Look of Giant Bomb and changed the release date for the real one.

There's going to be a review of this here?

[Ramza]

There's going to be a review of this here?

It's certainly on the border of coverage. Zelda-ish Roguelike-ish. I asked Mr. McCarroll and he said he wasn't sure at the time. I'd guess the answer is no.

If you want to follow this former-editor-turned-consultant getting WAY too into the game, here's a podcast episode on Gameosaurus wherein we do an hourlong interview with Edmund McMillen, creator of Isaac (and Super Meat Boy).

http://gameosaurus.com/roahr/2011/10/jurassic-hour-19-isaacs-creator-and-p-bodys-mom/

Interview starts around 45 minutes in.

[Solstafir]

There's a demo of this as of yesterday on newgrounds - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/581168

I've played the full game a bit and it's certainly worth the ~$5 I paid for it. Fun stuff.

[Adapheon]

I liked the game a lot. There's a patch coming out soon that is going to give a few new bosses, another character a bunch of new items so it's on my backburner until then but it's worth $10 at least. Well maybe at most, it's not an incredibly long game or anything. I would say it is definitely not an RPG, unless you want RPG to stand for Rouge-like PC Game.

[MeshGearFox]

Rogue-likes are RPGs.

[Kevadu]

Rogue-likes are RPGs.

I agree.  I'm surprised this is even in dispute.

Now, not having actually played the game in question I don't know how much it follows the typical roguelike conventions.

[Commander Jubby Shepard]

Rogue-likes are RPGs.

I agree.  I'm surprised this is even in dispute.

Now, not having actually played the game in question I don't know how much it follows the typical roguelike conventions.

Imagine the original Zelda game and... that's about it. Not quite an RPG in my opinion, but we cover Zelda so we should cover this.

[MeshGearFox]

Zelda isn't a roguleike.

[Eusis]

Imagine the original Zelda game and... that's about it. Not quite an RPG in my opinion, but we cover Zelda so we should cover this.

Zelda was grandfathered in, a lot of places covered it for RPGs and it sounds like it was an attempt to (greatly) simplify games like Ultima, albeit in such a manner it made a new type of game entirely. However, something like Darksiders isn't covered when it's even more inarguably a Zelda clone, and neither is Okami. In fact, I've already made the case that this is something like a reverse Okami: that game really does have enough RPG-type elements to be argued as one regardless of the fact it's derivative of Zelda, whereas this eschews more of them and is only lightly Zelda/Roguelike, coming off more like an arcade game that LOOKS like an RPG at best.

And I'd been considering this for awhile, but now that this topic's been kindled anyway I may as well move this pending any editors disagreeing/covering the game.

[Arhkaos]

Actually, first you had Dungeons and Dragons, then you had Ultima in the US (as well as Wizardry), then Dragon Quest simplified Ultima's formula, and then Zelda took inspiration from some of DQ's elements and simplified the formula, again. So Zelda is pretty much a simplification of a simplification of an adaptation. Not much RPG left there! :P

[Eusis]

Actually, first you had Dungeons and Dragons, then you had Ultima in the US (as well as Wizardry), then Dragon Quest simplified Ultima's formula, and then Zelda took inspiration from some of DQ's elements and simplified the formula, again. So Zelda is pretty much a simplification of a simplification of an adaptation. Not much RPG left there! :P

Zelda came first, not Dragon Quest. At least look at the dates before making stuff up.

EDIT: With that said I can't seem to easily find something to confirm any Ultima link or anything. For now I'm just going to assume most RPG overlap is more incidental than anything else.