Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Hullo! I used to write on this site, and then I got very tired. I sleep most the day now. It’s nice. When I’m sleeping, I get my nurse to play podcasts. This is my favourite games podcast in ages. Roguelike Radio is a Roguelike-centric podcast which plays a different one every couple of weeks and does a show about it. In this case, however, they’ve got Edmund McMillen on to talk about Binding of Isaac. And it’s so brilliant, I almost managed to stand up. But my legs failed, and I was left sprawling hopelessly on the floor. I wish I had working legs and a functioning penis, though that’s probably too much information. But honestly, unless my critical faculties are as rusty as my cog-powered cock, this is a genuinely brilliant, wide-ranging interview about McMillen’s latest. Go listen! Meanwhile, I’m going to have a little lie down. Bye!

The devious wee sods. It’s always like this: the Humble Bundle announces its latest pay-what-you-want indie deal, so we duly post about it because the people should know and all that. Then, a few days later, they go and add more games to the bundle, so it seems wise to also post about that. They’ve got us by the short and curlies. Joking aside, clan Bundle’s machinations are becoming perhaps over-obvious by this point, and I do hope there will be updated rather than ritual tactics in future.

For now though, let us celebrate that the Voxatron bundle has seen the excellently screwed-up The Binding Of Isaac and tight puzzler Blocks That Matter added to it.
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The most common complaint about The Binding of Isaac is that it doesn’t contain enough horrid things in it, being a rather delicate cocktail of blood, tears and poo. Thankfully, the Halloween update, which will automatically apply itself to Steam copies of the game by noon PST today, adds “20% more evil”. It says so in the trailer, which is gibbering madly in the sulfurous depths below, along with some details on what that extra evil is composed of, including new playable character Eve.

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The Binding of Isaac, Ed McMillen and Florian Himsl’s icky, ingenious Zeldalike now benefits from an online demo, hosted in the browser-based medium of Flash at Newgrounds.

It only includes two areas of the game and a few of the items and foes, so may struggle to convey the randomly-generated wonder/horror of this shooter/roleplayer/matricide curio, but if you’re still confused about exactly what this game is, this will give you a broad sense of it.

Edmund McMillen’s groovy looking roguelike thing – The Binding Of Isaac – is due out on Steam in the next two weeks, so it’s about time he gave us a heads up of what we might expect. Fortunately, he has: Read the rest of this entry »

And we <3 Team Meat right back. Over the weekend, they've been chatting to the cool cats over at IndieGames.com, and Ed dropped this hefty knowledge bomb:

We’re never going to make a game that couldn’t also be on PC. That’s a stupid thing for most indies to do. PC is crucial

No surprises there, considering that the Steam sales of SMB outnumber the Xbox sales by 2:1.

Don’t just take my out-of-context quote for it though, listen to the interview yourself here. There’s talk about how Tommy’s ex really didn’t like him wearing pyjama pants outside, Ed discusses the development of The Binding of Isaac, and they dish out a bit of advice to indie devs hoping to get a Steam distribution deal.

Traditionally, I enjoy my breakfast while listening to Ravel and watching the labouring classes hurrying back and forth in the street below. That all changed today. I nearly choked on my toasted muffin as my brain attempted to process the contents of The Binding of Isaac trailer. I had assumed Edmund McMillen’s latest would be an inspiring and moving parable relating to the limits of blind faith and infanticide. Turns out I was wrong. It’s actually about a terrifying Man-Baby refugee from an Aphex Twin video going bonkers in a dark room. I should have known. John talked about the game here and there’s no fresh information to digest along with the trailer. But if you can digest the contents of the trailer itself, you have a steelier stomach than I. All this madness can be yours sometime in September through Steam.

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Edmund McMillen, and some of his team behind Super Meat Boy, has announced his next game. And it’s for PC. The Binding Of Isaac is “a roguelike shooter based on the dungeon structure of Zelda (NES)”, and is due out on Steam this August. There are more details below.

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