Game: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Relevant DLC: The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth (Released in 2016), Afterbirth+ (Latest DLC, which was released on 4 Jan 2017)
Blog (upload news and latest issues): http://bindingofisaac.com/
Wiki: http://bindingofisaacrebirth.gamepedia.com/Binding_of_Isaac:_Rebirth_Wiki
Youtube play demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV-w-Zf-mc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_S2zDEMTG8
Description:
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a remake of the game: The Binding of Isaac. It is an action RPG shooter game with randomly generated floors, monsters and items. Players will play the roll of Isaac(or other characters) to explore rooms, collect items, fight with monsters and go to deeper floors to beat fearsome bosses. The attributes of the character, as well as the appearance and attacking styles will change when player gets different items, trinkets, pills or cards. When the player has beaten the final boss, the ending of the game will be shown on the screen, to tell you the sad and dark truth of Isaac.
Elemental Tetrad
Mechanics:
The character has its attribute board, where each attributes will be changed by the items player picks up. Player needs to explore rooms to beat monsters, collect items to strength attributes and finally beat the boss of that floor to get into the deeper floor. Players can choose to go to Sheol or Cathedral after the Womb floor. Final boss and ending will base on the player’s choice.
Aesthetic:
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a 2D pixelated game. Although the storyline is sad and dark, the hand-painted art style makes the game unique and cute. There are 42 monsters and more than 10 bosses with different appearance and movement animations. All the monsters have their own sounds and attacking sound effects. And the background music changes according to floors and rooms. All these designs show the great work and effort put in the game.
Technology:
Players use keyboard to control the character and attacking directions. There are keys to use cards, items, bombs and to show maps and attribute board.
The most important technology in the rebirth is its randomisation mechanism. Each run of the game has a unique seed to generate the whole map, items, pickups and monsters.
The AI of the monsters is also wisely designed to increase the difficulty of playing.
Story:
Apart from the randomisation, the background story is another important element of this game. Rebirth’s story is based on the Biblical tale of the Binding of Isaac. It tells about a young boy named Isaac, to escape from his mom who wants to sacrifice him for God, jumps into the basement (which is the first floor of the game), starts to fight with horrible monsters, using his tears as the weapon.
When analysing this game with its background story, everything will have a deeper meaning and the game itself become more thought-provoking. The level settings of the game, as well as the monsters, for example, angles and demons, are relevant to the story. Besides, all characters in the game are related to Biblical tale as well, such as Magdalene, Cain, Eve, Judas. There are 11 endings and also one hidden character: Lost for players to explore in the Rebirth.
In summary, the story supports the gameplay and make the game more engaging and meaningful.
Lens 1: Essential Experience
The essential experience of a player when playing the game is to grow stronger and to survive when facing all kinds of monsters and boss to reach the last level. Players should consider the effect of the items they collect, the use of money, bombs and keys, and the attacking styles of different monsters to survive the game. The other experience is to unlock achievements by reaching certain milestones, hidden goals or unlocking items. There are hundreds of unlockable achievements designed for users. The achievement system in the game is an effective way to encourage players to play the game.
Lens 2: Surprise & Fun
The charm of The binding of Isaac: Rebirth is its randomisation mechanics, which provides great surprise and fun for players. On each floor, enemies and bosses are randomly generated. Moreover, The game has a huge item pool and all the items player will get in treasure room and boss room in each floor are random. Thus, there are hundreds of, or even more combinations of these items, which will make every single run of the game become totally different as game progresses. That is the reason why many users have hundreds of hours in this game without feeling bored. (Personally, I’ve played this game for 400+ hours and I’m still holding a strong passion on it. :D)
Lens 3: Challenge
It is not easy to win the game. Player is required to get used to the controls and be familiar with hundreds of items and monsters. Furthermore, the difficulty will increase as the game progresses. The deeper the floor is, the more rooms there are and the more difficult to beat the monsters. So it will be hard for new players. Players can select difficulty before starting: normal or hard, which reduces the difficulty to some degree. And for the skilled players, the game is rather enjoyable than challenging. ‘Hard’ mode will have more champion types of monsters and a higher chance of getting cursed on each floor.
Lens 4: Competition
In Rebirth, there is a daily run mode. Everyday the daily run will generate a seed and a role for players to play. Players will be ranked globally according to their final scores. The seed controls the items, rooms and pickups dropped. Players will get penalty of scores when play time increases, getting hurts and collecting items. Killing monsters and getting pickups will increase the score.
Therefore the measurement is fair, as all players will start with exactly the same condition and the only way to get high score is the good skills to reach the goal faster with less damage. Also, as the rank is among global users, higher rank will provide a feeling of achievement and proud. Thus, this kind of competition is meaningful and attractive to players.