The Binding of Isaac is equal parts bizarre, compelling, and challenging. Its original form released in 2011, and it has steadily grown since then. Its current iteration, The Binding of Isaac: Repentance, is the result of ten years’ worth of development, and it's long been considered among the best roguelikes ever made.
For new players, it might feel overwhelming, especially since most of the new content adds layers of increasing difficulty onto an already hard game. There’s no reason to fear the basement, however. The best Isaac players, capable of multiple successful runs in a row, built their skills over many failed attempts. All it takes is time and practice. For those who wouldn't mind a head start, here are some tips that can help newcomers succeed in that early learning period.
10 Keep Moving
This is the most basic defensive option in Isaac, and it’s always available. Almost every enemy in the game will move directly toward the player, or fire a projectile directly at the player. The game doesn't use any predictive aiming, so simply moving out of the way is enough to completely avoid most projectiles.
Attacks from above, which some major bosses use, are hard to see coming, but a moving player will avoid them automatically. In fact, some late-game enemies, such as the stationary eyeballs in the Womb and elsewhere, will only attack if the player is standing still. Keep moving at all times to live a lot longer.
9 Take It Slow
There are very few challenges in Isaac that require players to rush through the dungeon. It can be helpful, especially for newcomers, to stop and think in between fights. Maximizing the treasure acquired on each floor is a powerful tactic, which is possible with some planning.
One technique is to save bombs until the current floor is cleared, to ensure they are used in the rooms with the greatest return. Another is to use Blood Donation Machines with any loose hearts at the end of a floor, since the hearts would be wasted otherwise. Lastly, taking it slow makes it easier to spot rocks marked with an “X,” which contain treasure but are easy for impatient players to miss.
8 Don’t Get Hit
This sounds obvious, but it means something specific in the context of Isaac. A player with a lot of extra health (Magdalene, for example, starts with an extra heart and a health recovery item) might be tempted to play more recklessly, thinking they could afford to, but this is usually not a good idea. Similarly to money, health can often be used as a resource.
Blood Donation Machines, Sacrifice Rooms, and the spiked doorways of Curse Rooms all convert health into loot. Losing that health- and therefore loot- to enemy damage is simply wasteful. Also, from the second floor onward, a rare Devil Room is guaranteed to spawn if a player doesn't take damage from enemies for the entire floor.
7 Try New Things
The Binding of Isaac: Repentance is full of character-altering items, but which are worth picking up? The quickest and most entertaining method is to simply try them out. Even if it would cost money or health to acquire, it is often worth buying a new item to see how it works, since it might behave unpredictably when combined with that player's current item setup.
If it ends up being a bad decision, the player has still gained valuable knowledge. That said, since there are so many items in Repentance (some of which are hard to tell apart), many high level players research their uses lest they risk ruining a run.
6 Check The Options Menu
Reviewing the options menu is good policy for Isaac. . Besides the usuals, there are a couple of options new players might miss. "Extra HUD” displays the permanent items a player has collected, which is a useful reminder of what’s causing the current effects on their character. “Found HUD” displays the player's current stats, which helps track what the odd collectables are actually doing, and also reveals the otherwise invisible odds of spawning a Devil or Angel Room after a boss.
ooking over the control bindings includes a couple of lesser-known functions, as well: a key for dropping some held items, and a key that resets the current run when held down.
5 Unlock Powerful Items
A common goal is to unlock every item in the game, earning the coveted “Dead God” achievement. For these players, it doesn’t matter when new items are unlocked, since they’ll all be included eventually. For newer players, however, it can help to focus on especially valuable items first, some of which are well hidden. Here are three examples:
- The Gulp! pill, which makes trinket effects permanent for that run, unlocks by defeating the Lamb at the end of a victory lap.
- Isaac will start the game holding the D6, which lets him "reroll" unwanted items, once the player finishes the Cathedral floor as ??? (Blue Baby).
- The Lost will start the game with Holy Mantle, allowing him to take one extra hit, once 879 coins are placed in the Greed Machine at the end of Greed Mode.
Challenges, accessed from the main menu, can include powerful rewards for their completion. New players should try these in between normal runs to see what they might unlock.
4 Try Different Characters
In many games, players will choose a favorite character to focus on, but that’s not a good policy in Isaac. Every character in the game is tied to a series of unique item unlocks that apply to the whole game, so a player who only uses one character will miss out on a lot of locked content.
The first few characters are fairly simple, so new players should have an easy time trying them out, but even the later, more complicated ones have significant gameplay bonuses. Azazel, who starts with flight and a short-range laser blast, is very different from standard characters, but devastating when played correctly.
3 Try The Daily Challenge
Isaac players can access a unique daily challenge from the main menu. Each one requires the player to use different characters, sometimes under different special conditions. Besides being an interesting twist on regular gameplay, these challenges also include every feature in the game unlocked by default, allowing new players to freely try some of the game's most elusive items.
Although players can’t make normal progress in the main game by attempting the daily challenge, it does unlock a few items required for 100% completion. Cracked Crown, a powerful trinket that amplifies a character's current stat increases, unlocks after a five-day winning streak.
2 Try Hard Mode
This isn’t a necessity for players who aren't trying for the Dead God achievement, since it is possible to unlock most of the items in the game from Normal mode. However, a few of the most powerful (and fun) items are Hard mode rewards, such as Godhead: a homing holy shot that requires players to beat every major boss on Hard with the Lost (who dies in one or two hits).
For this reason, it’s worth trying for the practice, since the mode changes a few basic features of the game (like bullet speed and enemy type) that take a few tries to get used to. Any progress made in Hard mode automatically counts as Normal mode progress as well, so brave players can earn twice the completion credit.
1 Don't Get Discouraged
Easily the most important tip of all. The game is hard. It's common, especially for brand-new players, to make basic mistakes and die. A new player might even die to something they had no way of recognizing, such as using the Bible against Satan (which instantly kills the player).
At the highest levels of difficulty, players can lose tens, even hundreds of runs in a row. That’s simply how the game is built. Even though very little progress is saved between runs, each loss represents a learning opportunity, and with enough learning, players can find and defeat Mega Satan, as well as what comes after.
The Binding of Isaac is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.