This is like the 8 th time you’ve done this Here’s why, maybe, Edmund should consider not updating The Binding of Isaac anymore. It was such a surprising sleeper hit that Edmund followed it with an expansion, and then a remake, and then an expansion for the remake, followed by another, and now another, and while the reaction to each of these expansions is mostly positive, it tends to be slightly less positive every time, and I’m here to explain why I think that is, and why it wouldn’t be the worst idea for Edmund to treat the game the way most of its players treat Jacob & Esau and leave them alone forever. The Binding of Isaac is a pillar of the roguelike genre – games with randomized layouts, enemies and power-ups, to maximize variety and replayability – and doubtless one of the most successful independent video games in the world. After the success of Super Meat Boy, Edmund McMillen was able to create Isaac free of any oversight from executives, or financial expectations, so he was able to make a game exactly the way he wanted to full of religious imagery, body horror, and so many poop/dead baby jokes that even mid-2000s Newgrounds would think “Whoa, steady on there, that’s a little bit crude, don’t you think?”

Every crude joke or questionable design choice that would have been focus-tested out of a more professional production would have ruined the experience. See, The Binding of Isaac works well as an embodiment of independent games as a whole. If you’ve ever played a game as Keeper pre- Repentance, you’ll understand. Or maybe it’s just because of all of the games that I undeniably love, it stills irritates me so much. Maybe it’s because I’ve measurably spent more than a month of my entire waking life playing it, maybe it’s because of the general tone of the game (“Aw man, I picked up Sinus Infection when I already had Number One and Brimstone! Now the booger synergy might ruin the pee-lasers I’m firing out of my mouth!”) that makes it hard to discuss amongst people who aren’t aware of it. The Binding of Isaac is, out of all of my favourite games, definitely the one that I’m most reluctant to admit that about. Playing RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe instead. It’s hard to talk about how long I’ve spent playing this game without my gaze drifting off into the middle distance as my mind wanders to things that I could have done with the time I spent playing this game. Unless I live to be 110 years old, I will have spent more than 0.1% of my entire life playing The Binding of Isaac. That’s more than 40 days of my life spent playing this specific video game.

I recently passed a pretty big Binding of Isaac milestone – I have now played the game for more than 1,000 hours, and it’s a little bit jarring to have that number right there in front of me.

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