Critique #2 written for my Master Level Game Design Course. Written in November 2022
Introduction
Edmund McMillen’s The Binding of Isaac has been the poster child of the modern rogue-like since its initial debut on flash in 2011, keeping this momentum through both major game-altering DLC and minor balance patches. The goal set out for the game’s design, in the words of McMillen for the original game’s postmortem, “was to create ‘magic.’ I wanted players to feel like the game was endless and alive, that the game had a mind of its own and was writing itself as they played.” (McMillen). In the same post-mortem McMillen, attributed the success of this goal to its ever-increasing learning curve and complete randomness for item distribution, level layout, and encounters. This coupled with the game’s strong themes of crude humor and the effects modern organized Christianity can have on family made the game “feel longer, richer, and gave it the appearance of a story that writes itself.” (McMillen). This design philosophy carries through many of the game’s systems.
A core mechanic present since the original release are the Angel/Devil Deal rooms. These rooms are important for Isaac as they tie into the game’s focal design of extreme difficulty at all levels of play, dynamism through chance, and striking theming. Encountering these rooms are typically awarded to the player for completing a level skillfully though at the mercy of chance. The obtainable items held in these rooms can be incredibly powerful, as such the appearance or lack thereof of these rooms can drastically alter a run’s success. Angel Deals are often seen as giving defensive boosts for free however the chance of them spawning at least once in a run is lower compared to Devil Deals. The Devil Deal counterpart is more frequently encountered in a run and generally gives exponential offensive boosts in exchange for health upgrades. The game’s most recent update in 2021, Repentance, doubled down on the game’s difficulty curve, but in exchange afforded players further opportunities to directly dictate the chance that one of the two rooms will spawn and added even more incredibly powerful items restricted to said rooms.
The current iteration of these rooms is what this critique will focus on as the mechanics related to them lie in an in-between of The Binding of Isaac’s core, its steep difficulty throughout the run, and the randomness of stats and items. Oftentimes the variability of these rooms spawning leans the game into complete randomness of the player’s success, but the dictation of skill on this chance makes the game unapproachable for newcomers but varied for frequent players.
Three Images above illustrate the distribution of The Devil, Angel, Boss item pool by Item Quality by Reddit user u/chpark0225
Introduction to Isaac’s Feedback Loops
The early game of a typical run of Binding of Isaac comprises six levels of building up an arsenal of abilities and stats through guaranteed sources which include a coin shop, a random treasure item, and a dropped item from completing the level’s boss. The only other somewhat reliable source of power increase is the Devil/Angel Rooms which can only be guaranteed through skillful play by not taking red heart damage. The items in these rooms are of a pool more heavily distributed to Quality 3 and 4 items on the 4-0 quality scale compared to most reliable sources of power as shown in the graph above. The boss items in particular give minor base state increases, most being of Quality 3, and red health upgrades 2 and lower. Comparatively the distribution of items found in Angel/Devil Rooms is weighted towards Quality 3, with examples of items of Quality 3 within these pools being changing your base range attack with a powerful melee sword and causing damaging vortexes to spawn on attacking enemies. One Angel/Devil Quality 4 item is enough to handicap the late-game challenges regardless of skill level, while a slight quantity of Quality 3 can do the same provided that the player can get some luck for other areas.
Maximizing the chance of potentially gaining access to a Devil/Angel Room is necessary for the player's success on a run. However, the method of min-maxing this chance creates a positive feedback loop based on skill. The frequency and quality of items that aid in killing and circumventing enemy attacks are increased based on how effective the player is at killing enemies and dodging their attacks, thus perpetuating said loop. The converse of the positive loop is true with more damage taken leading to less quality items, causing more damage taken on subsequent increasingly difficult floors and so on. Even if the player is not able to capitalize on acquiring Angel/Devil items and proceeds through the run with items from more accessible pools, the game’s harsh spike toward the end prevents this maladroit playstyle. After defeating the story “Mother” boss on the sixth floor the player is then sent through a four-level gauntlet that is absent of the aforementioned reliable power sources including the Angel/Devil Rooms while the steep difficulty remains the same. This is all with the added debuff of taking increased damage from all sources, nearly invalidating any potential large quantity of replenishable red health upgrades rewarded through required bosses. These systems afford skillful players to continually demonstrate their knowledge and ability of the game to be awarding progression and not being at the complete mercy of the game’s ever-present oppressing randomness. However, the systems revolving around Angel/Devil Rooms kill the nascent player experience.
Information of Spawning a Devil Deal shared on Platinumgod’s The Binding of Isaac Guides. Note that percentages were collected from Rebirth but the consistent reliable percentage modifiers are the same in Repentance and are boxed in red
Agency of Chance
Skillful players are rewarded through the Angel/Devil spawning systems however this is undermined through chance. The way players have some leniency with this system is by picking up blue and black hearts which stack on top of players’ health upgrades and cannot be reliably replenished. Aside from the rare chance of red hearts spawning as a blue/black heart, the only other source of obtaining these shields to your reliable Devil/Angel Room chances is by bombing slightly miscolored randomly placed “tinted rocks”. The correlation between these camouflaged rocks and saving your chance for more powerful items is ambiguous to the new players who are not yet keen on looking for these beneficiaries. Distinguishing tinted rocks from the regular terrain is an unreasonable changelle players must face, as visual distinction is not a task that supports the game’s core. The image below illustrates how difficult this distinction is to make. The tinted rocks even have a probable chance to drop blue health. These shields to red health damage have a substantial chance of being encountered on any given floor. Maximizing your blue and black health is paramount to a run’s success as without it your chance of encountering an Angel/Devil Room is significantly reduced to 33% at most. As shown by the graph above not taking red health damage is of utmost importance for the success on the chance for an Angel/Devil Room spawning, but this chance becomes completely improbable if the player takes damage during a level boss fight, the most likely situation of players taking any sort of damage, which again perpetuates the positive feedback loop and is non-beginner friendly.
Screen Game Capture of a typical Treasure Room with a tinted rock in it
Perpetuating Feedback Loops
The only beneficiary to the Angel/Devil chance outside of the player’s knowledge or skill of the game is the softening negative modifiers of encountering Angel/Devil Deals the longer they are unencountered. However, this mechanic only perpetuates random hindrances for skilled players while not detracting from the issue that getting hit ruins your chance for better items. The first time you are able to encounter a Devil deal is on the second floor where no negative modifiers of previously Devil/Angel Rooms are applied. Assuming a skilled player is able to overcome the second floor without taking red heart damage, they can take their overpowered powered Devil item to the next floor. Floor three possesses a spike in challenging encounters and aesthetic changes, as is the case with every odd-numbered level through the ninth. This new hypothetical item can help carry the player through the third and fourth floors, but the player might need another divine item to overcome the next power spike from the fifth and sixth floors. It is safe to assume that a Devil item from the third floor is unobtainable since the maximum chance a skilled player can reliably achieve is 45% which is not moot but unfavorable of the player. What would be an extreme detriment to the player is if they miss out on the 90% chance, then they would not be fully equipped to take on the spike threats of the fifth floor, leading to the increased chance of taking damage and starting the feedback loop based on damage received. Couple that with the sustainability for power trade required for obtaining items in the Devil Room, and the player might not be able to obtain powerful items without the palpable risk of losing it all. This spiraled all from losing a single 90% chance. This risk of the damage loop applies to skilled players as well since itis almost guaranteed that players receive damage at least once per run. This unavoidable damage is owed to the random layout of each level and being able to encounter particularly difficult unforeseeable challenges on said floors from both a player and designer perspective.
Randomness for Angel Rooms to spawn is even more debilitating since the only way to encounter this room is by forsaking every spawned Devil Room putting the player behind in power with the upcoming difficulty spike floors. Even so, players are still at the mercy of a coin fill of whether a Devil or Angel Room spawns. This randomness was slightly alleviated in the Antibirth update by making a guaranteed Angel Room spawn if the player did not enter the first spawned Devil Room. Under the previous scenario though taking an Angel Room strategy, leads to the general min-maxed chance of spawn and Angel Deal of 100% on the third floor, 22.5% on the fourth floor, 45% on the fifth floor, and resets back to 22.5% on the sixth if an Angel Deal was acquired on the fifth. This effort is required not only for characters that lack affordance to liberal health trading with Devil Deals, but also for overall game progression. A specific scenario within the Angel Rooms needs to occur twice, generally from two different spawns, to unlock the door containing one of the endgame bosses. This is where the game somewhat leans too heavily into chance. Run progression through challenges can somewhat be overcome through game knowledge and skillful play however, losing nearly an hour of progression that can be decided by a single coin flip the player had little agency over is frustrating to say the least.
Conclusion
Overall the Angel and Devil Deal rooms encompass all of The Binding of Isaac’s core design choices while allowing the objectively conflicting cores of skill-demanding and random heavy elements to work in tandem. However, the combination of these design choices makes for an extremely inaccessible game for general gaming audiences and new players, which is a staple for McMillen’s games. The positive feedback loops of taking damage putting the player behind in power, and missing Angel/Devil Room by chance leading to less overall power, are debilitating to both new and skilled players alike. The game is fun, being completely unpredictable in item synergies and encounter challenges. Overcoming the game by carrying out unforeseen micro tactics and overarching run strategies keeps players coming back wanting to acquire the skills necessary to beat its most difficult challenges. However, repeatedly losing the game as the result of a single moment of binary misfortune or overwhelming misfortune despite 90% success, eventually becomes unbearable. The theming and mechanics within these rooms are amazing to interact with, and it is great that the game rewards skillful play to balance the randomness. Unfortunately, it is an RNG nightmare to get these doors to open for both new and veteran players.
Works Cited
Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Wiki. (n.d.). [Https://bindingofisaacrebirth.fandom.com/wiki/Devil_Room]. Devil Room.
chpark0225. (2021). Https://www.reddit.com/user/chpark0225/ [Reddit]. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth ~Repentance~ Devil Room Item Quality Table. https://www.reddit.com/user/chpark0225/
Edmund McMillen. (2012). Postmortem: McMillen and Himsl’s The Binding of Isaac. Game Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/postmortem-mcmillen-and-himsl-s-i-the-binding-of-isaac-i-
eluc. (n.d.). Platinumgod: Binding of Isaac. DEVIL ROOM CHANCE CALCULATION. https://platinumgod.co.uk/devil-room#
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