Review: The Binding of Isaac

Biblical influence, faecal matter.

Yep, tiny crying boy versus monstrous, skeletal spider thing; sums up the game really

There's an enemy in The Binding of Isaac; a little maggot that slithers along the ground slowly. With big, bright eyes and a cheery smile on its cute, little face, it whimsically wanders about in random directions, minding its own business and enjoying the scenery. Until it spots you. Then it gets angry. And that mouth you thought was cute? It's now wide open, revealing a set of dentata that wouldn't look out of place in a Lovecraft novel. The way it slowly slithered about? It's now charging right for you hell-for-leather. This little maggot? It is The Binding of Isaac. A game with a cute and fluffy exterior, hiding a viciousness that will rip you apart and eat the pieces. What else did you expect when your primary weapon is a child's tears?

Binding (which I'll refer to it as from now on, just a little time-saver) is a roguelike game. Now, considering the recent influx of this style of game, the term has become more widely-known, but not to the extent where I feel comfortable throwing it about with no explanation. Thus, for anyone unaware, a roguelike is an RPG usually displaying the following features: randomly-generated levels, permanent death, and turn-based movement/combat. Binding has two of the three, with the latter being abandoned in favour of a more action-heavy, real-time combat system. The genre also typically relies on the theme of discovery, along with intense difficulty that demands a high degree of concentration. Binding is no different. It will kick your ass time and time again.

I wish I had something to say about this scene... but I don't

The game tells the story of, unsurprisingly, a lad named Isaac. Taking obvious inspiration from the biblical tale of the same name, Isaac's mother receives a message from God instructing that she sacrifice her young son. She attempts to dutifully oblige, brandishing a scary-looking kitchen knife and making her way to Isaac's room. Luckily, the little scamp spots a trapdoor in the floor and makes good his escape. Unluckily, his "escape" leads him to a labyrinthine basement, full of unworldly terrors. This is undoubtedly the most unfortunate event to befall young Isaac, but not the first, as the game's loading screens show him being bullied and humiliated in all manner of ways. In a way, Binding is the ultimate unlikely hero story. Isaac is a punching bag; a puny, little runt with a mother that wants to kill him, peers that degrade him, and all manner of nasties out for his blood. Yet, despite everything that happens to him--and trust me, a lot of horrible things happen to him--he keeps going and maybe, somehow, he might just overcome the odds and get through this after all. It's up to you to guide him there, and you'll have to be either very good or very lucky to make it. The game has over a dozen endings, and it's great to see the care and humour of the game's art-style crosses over to the story too.

Speaking of the game's look, it might just be the most striking feature of the whole package. Edmund McMillen continues right where he left off after Meat Boy, with a chunky-outlined, cute/gore mashup style hovering somewhere between The Powerpuff Girls and Ren and Stimpy, with a whole lot of darkness and toilet humour thrown in for good measure. The game's dungeons are flooded with faeces, flies, and fearsome fiends, with the bosses in particular being of startlingly gruesome design; from incontinent blobs of flesh to giant burrowing worms. In spite of the game boasting a world rich with bodily-fluids, monstrous creations, and body horror, the times are plentiful where you simply can't help but chuckle at the sight before your eyes. Well, you'll either be chuckling or wretching since the gross-out factor of the game cannot be understated; a simplistic cartoony-style isn't enough to shield your senses when you utilise "Mom's Pad" as a weapon. This is a game where you play a child, thrust into a basement stark naked, and forced to use your own salty tears to break apart piles of excrement, in the hopes of finding coins to pay for a rock to stick into your head and make you more powerful. Frankly, I must pay testament to the art and humour that goes some way to bringing levity to such ludicrously dark proceedings. Nevertheless, the style of the game will naturally prove divisive, but those who like it, will really like it.

It's just apple juice, honestly

So how does this thing play? Well, it's actually pretty simple. You find yourself in a randomly-generated dungeon floor and move from room to room, defeating enemies as you go, while collecting keys, coins, bombs, and all manner of special items. Your objective? Survive, defeat the boss, and make it to the next stage, with your ultimate aim being to defeat your mother in glorious combat. Said combat takes the form of a basic shoot 'em up, with Isaac able to shoot up, down, left, and right, with circle-strafing his strongest ally. Three rooms are more or less guaranteed on each floor: a boss room, a shop, and a treasure room. But there are all sorts of other secret rooms to find, from the "Sacrifice Room" which offers you the chance to spill your own blood in exchange for prizes, to the "Library" which, as you might expect, contains all manner of books for you to make use of. You'll need them. You'll need everything you can get, and boy is there a lot to get in this game. A regular feature of the roguelike genre is a sense of discovery, and Binding incorporates this to maximum effect. There are more items in this game than you can count; an incredibly impressive feat when one considers that this title was made by only two people. Every item has a distinct use, making each feel different than the last, and often is the time you won't really know what each thing does until you use it.

This all works to Binding's benefit in the end; since the frustration of death--which occurs pretty often--is cushioned by the excitement of restarting just to see what you'll find. The fact that most items completely change the look of Isaac, along with your own playstyle, only adds to this. You might find a bent spoon that gives Isaac a flaming third eye in the centre of his forehead, and the ability to shoot purple homing shots, or a little floating baby that acts like a Gradius option or familiar, shooting out its own tears in support.The things you find might even make you chuckle, with items referencing the likes of Super Meat Boy, Magic: The Gathering, and Arrested Development. The phrase "No two playthroughs will ever be the same!" is thrown around an awful lot these days, conjuring images of variety that often disappoint, but Binding absolutely does it justice. With so many things to find, so many different rooms, enemies, and bosses, and so many variations of Isaac--or indeed any of the other six playable characters--to discover, you'll have a different experience every time.

Isaac's time in the basement can change him in all sorts of ways

Thus, we come to one of the unfortunate side effects of such a system; since some items and combinations are so much more useful than others, the luck of the draw winds up having as much influence on your progress as your own personal skill level. It took me an awful lot of tries to complete the game, and when I finally did it was only on a run where I'd been fortunate enough to find the most powerful standard weapon, a familiar, the ability to see the entire map, an excellent secondary weapon, and the ability to fly. My next run saw me grab nothing but a couple of health boosts and bonus bombs. Now, I make no claims at being an expert at this sort of game and I can imagine plenty of people with good skill levels can complete it even with the very worst items, but I can only report from personal experience. Yet, in spite of the mild frustration one might feel at spending their last key on a treasure room and being rewarded with naught but a useless random teleport ability, you have to accept it's all part and parcel of the experience and I wouldn't have the game without it.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from a couple of issues that aren't quite so defensible. A lack of proper controller support is hardly crippling, but remains a hassle that might have been avoided rather simply. Yet the real problem is slowdown; the game was made rather hurriedly in Flash, and unfortunately struggles almost any time there's a lot happening on screen. Upon researching this issue, I've discovered that it is a rather common fault, and occurs even on top-of-the-line machines. I must regrettably recount that it may in fact be considered gamebreaking by some; with the game regularly stuttering to a veritable crawl even on low settings. This appears to be an issue that won't affect everyone, and I hope that others will be far luckier than myself, but it's very much worth bearing in mind before making a purchase.

It's testament to the game that in spite of such an issue, I haven't been able to stop playing it and can do nothing but recommend it. The Binding of Isaac is a wonderful example of where the industry is nowadays, if a team of two can turn out such a deep, engaging, addictive, witty, and most importantly enjoyable product within such a short amount of time, then the mind boggles at the future of video games. The game upholds the standards of its genre, capturing the senses of discovery and difficulty that make a roguelike fun to play, whilst overcoming the seeming inaccessibility of this style of game. With the most hideous of design, the darkest of humour, and the most unforgiving of difficulty, one would expect this game's appeal to be about as limited as possible; yet, through the developers' mastery of their craft, with a careful application of humour, self-awareness, and modern ideas, Binding becomes more than the sum of its parts. It is a complicated game, shrouded with a visage of complexity, and I would implore anyone on the fence to take a peek behind the curtain. There's something pretty savage back there, but you might just love it.

Review: Offspring Fling!

Look before you chuck!

Nawww

From the mind of budding indie developer Kyle Pulver comes yet another retro-styled puzzle-platformer. Offspring Fling! follows the maternal exploits of a fuzzy, yellow bird as she attempts to rescue the little hatchlings she has unfortunately misplaced. How does she go about saving her spawn? By hurling the adorable furballs all over the place. Frankly, I'm a little astonished the species has made it this far, but luckily the chicks seem to possess skeletons that would make Wolverine blush, and can take being smashed against a wall without even the unsightly inconvenience of a bruise. Be that as it may, they're not immune to acid pools and giant hornets, so it'll take every ounce of mama's efforts and your brainpower to suss out the more complex stages and--I can't believe I'm saying this--throw her children carefully.  Nowadays, bird-throwing is becoming something of a subgenre in gaming, but worry ye not innovation-enthusiasts, Offspring Fling! is not the Angry Birds clone its premise might suggest. In fact, it's completely incomparable to the smartphone sensation, focusing instead on a wide variety of evolving action puzzles, with plenty of new hazards and tricks thrown your way with each passing stage.

You don't even have to load this one up to see where its influences lie. Everything about the game screams 16-bit homage, from the trailer sporting an amusing 'Super Pretendo' logo, to the game's cutesy graphics style, two-button control scheme, and simplistic premise. This is the sort of game you really could cut and paste to an old SNES or GBC cart and convincingly pass off as the real deal. Frankly, there were times when I wished it were an old SNES game, if only for the benefit of being able to use a controller. The game's default control scheme--using the arrow keys for movement and Z/X for actions--is frankly diabolical, but even reworking things to WASD provides little improvement. The game's platforming isn't too demanding, too often, but when it is you really begin to notice the awkwardness of the keyboard. Hardware isn't the only culprit here though, the mama bird has something of a floaty jump and difficult sense of momentum, she's one of those rebellious, little characters who just doesn't quite feel ready to respond to your inputs. The game is hardly Super Meat Boy, but at times seems to demand a more accurate control scheme than it bears.

Nintendo could probably sue but who even cares?

Fortunately, the game's progression system helps to make up for its shortcomings in the control department (as does the in-built pad support). Beating levels earns you flowers, beating par times on levels earns you gold flowers, and beating the almost godlike developer times earns you rainbow flowers. What do flowers unlock? Levels! Thus, you'll nearly always have a pretty big choice of available stages, and can jump in and out as you please, skipping the more difficult challenges altogether if you so desire. It's a system Pulver utilised again recently in Snapshot and it works just as well here but, as I said with that game, it can only mask the game's flaws, not erase them. Again, as with Snapshot, it's nice to see the par times thrown in to offer a bit of replayability, and a bonus layer of challenge. Speaking of replays, the game saves ghosts of your best times to race against, and these can even be uploaded and downloaded from the net to really see who is the best fowl flinger. 

The levels themselves are more or less what you would expect. The game, just like plenty of other titles in the genre, has a core mechanic and squeezes a whole lot of mileage out of it. All each stage asks is that you collect your babies and bring them, and yourself, to the exit unharmed. From the humble beginnings of hurling one chick over a gap, right up to levels where you're juggling half a dozen of the sprogs, setting them down on buttons and catching them in mid-air, all while evading killer wildlife. In spite of the huge number of levels and the carefully-paced difficulty curve, I never actually found myself stuck for more than a minute or two. Perhaps the capacity for complications is somewhat limited by the simplicity of the game's mechanic. After all, being able to pick up, throw, and put-down objects is hardly a novelty in video gaming. There really are only so many things one can do with this idea, but you can't fault Pulver's level design; an awful lot of content is eked out of a basic concept. Unfortunately, for the most part, said content doesn't particularly do much to either tease or tingle your brain, and it's all a bit too ordinary. There's a level editor available to download, so maybe the community at large might be able to come up with something special, and at least fans of the game have a way to extend their playtime.

Look at all the retro

Thus, if there's any area where the game falls short, it's unfortunately a biggie. Unlike the Braids and Closures of the world, or even Pulver's more recent offering Snapshot, Offspring Fling! doesn't give you that sense of accomplishment, those "Aha!" moments. I enjoy a puzzle most when, upon solving it, I feel both bewilderment at the intellect of its designer, and pride in my own. Unfortunately, this game never treated me to these emotions. Not once. I completed it in under ninety minutes, and even then barely felt like I'd particularly achieved anything. I'd hate to say the game's too easy, and I don't think it is, but its mechanic is too easy. I spent my whole playthrough waiting for Offspring Fling! to do something out of the ordinary, but it never quite does. The game is cute and simple, that's what it sets out to do and that's what it achieves. Such fast-paced simplicity lends it the feel of an iOS title, and I can't help feeling it would be more successful on that platform. Essentially, this is very much what our modern-day parlance would label a "casual puzzler." There's more than enough fun to be had with it, and for those who often bemoan the difficulty of the genre, this'll be right up your alley. But for the serious puzzle-solvers out there, the only challenge you'll find here is getting to grips with the controls, and mastering each stage to muscle memory in efforts to beat the par times.

Having recently played Pulver's latest game Snapshot, I'm compelled to draw similarities. In both, we have around one hundred levels of puzzling action, with a carefully-plotted difficulty curve, and enough fresh ideas to keep the game from at least getting stale. In both we rely on some cute designs and smart stages to push us along, with neither game presenting much in the way of story. Both are well-made, both are fine little ways to kill a few hours, both are, ultimately, nothing too special. I can just picture the remarkably cute, little chicks of Offspring Fling! looking at me with teary-filled eyes right now as I denounce their game, but--I'm sorry little munchkins--it's the truth. Perhaps, in an effort to emulate the styles of old, Pulver went too far with this one and created a game that certainly would've flown out of the nest in 1992, but can't quite stand-up in 2012. Don't get me wrong, the game has a brilliant look, a super soundtrack, and is a perfectly pleasant way to spend an hour or two, just don't expect that hour or two to be all that memorable.