The Binding of ISAAC phenomenon – ugly masterpiece!

Once again, stably showing the meaning of the word “relevance”, I publish this primary April Blog, guided by Article 12 of the legislation Stop Game ru: «Dedlines are needed in order to ask them». And by the way about to push – I hope you are ready for this! Filled with inspiration and the desire to talk about the most burning topic Mikhail Deadnov In place, your advantages and subscription are already standing – we will not pull the gappi for the testicula and we will start!

The question that I asked to write this blog is extremely simple and, it seems to me, is very obvious for Not familiar with the game of a person that he will look at her for the first time: how it can be generally interesting and how it can give genuine pleasure? Everything around looks disfigured and even psychedelic;Enemies and heroes or ugly/distorted creatures are either stinking and defeating without a break. Around pus, flies, dirt, fire and it may even seem that you even felt this Sheptun. But the most important thing is completely different – AroundTonsshit! And if the recent Cult of the Lamb had some kind of similar elements (brown, mainly), then even in it it looked more innocent and cute, as if playing into the hands of an absolutely dual and ambiguous madness of the project, where the dualism of the dark filling and the light hide, as a result, form only an indelible impression, “I will have a good heap, let’s run my good good!». But, If we are talking about The Binding of ISAAC, it looks without exaggeration as a vision of a person who is very sick with something serious, or surviving an explicitly unpleasant life experience, leaving a significant trace in his life … just compare and tell me:

I hope not to say that the Satanic cult is, by definition, the thing is quite terrible?

This happens when your body is overflowing with an attitude that does not require any evidence

And while you all choose the first to go against the system and raise an assessment of the new project, I will finally move on to the main topic of this blog: Isaac is a phenomenon, Which, despite the 90% chernukha in its content, continues to cause almost the same reaction among the players for many years: genuine Joy and interest in the continuation of the game session. And it is here that we will talk in the following areas on the topic:

-What exactly so terrible contains a game?

-How much Deep ideas laid down in this simple project at first glance?

–Why She, despite these elements, works far from a bunch of excrement deposits?

Only demons live in my world: they feed on children and poop bloody prudes

If they ask me what game is the most immoral and which I would ask to slow down the degree of chaos-it would not have some kind of Mortal Kombat, far from Bayonetta or even some Hentai Puzzles. Unlike today’s guest, they do not very much hide what they are. Especially the last category – “Games” of such a plan already tell you everything. But when we are talking about Isaac, in most cases, a person who looks gameplay does not understand anything at all, but he is fun: the kakahs break and contain objects;Strange men run and shoot anything;An incomprehensible something on the fifth floor in the person of the protagonist is arranged by Armageddon from special effects, demolishing everything in his path. And after this you want to try yourself. Try the madness that you saw. You are not careful about the details, in front of you is an exciting action-clip!

But before me, you know, noidverificationcasinos.co.uk/ just a terrible sight: a lot real uglings and physiological diseases that are well adapted in an anatomical way or in terms of the properties of enemies/objects;a bunch of biblical references, most of which refers us to Satanism and the murder of sacred creatures in the person of angels and other people;allusias on many psychological disorders, When contemplating which separately from the game basis, it becomes terribly;The abundance of the moments of the demonstration cruelty and human vices, What permeate the lives of many people!

And all this you observe, if you just stop for a second, distract from a peppy gameplay and look a little more closely and listen to the environment surrounding you. I will say right away: as soon as I began to think more about the content of the game in the key of hidden values ​​- all the more it was not for me from the one in whose patient at first glance I was in the head. It was at this very moment that I caught myself on the resonant thought that I haunted my cranial box: this is too thin allegory so that it can create a healthy person from a full -fledged family who does not know what family grief is. Perhaps the ideas of the project found a response in my soul due to the presence of their own family problems and personal struggle in their childhood, but this is not so important now. Another thing is important – I had to find out who is behind this and why the game looks just like that, and not how else. At this very moment, I climbed to check the information about the authors of the game and its director. And I found her ..

Now it does not look as cute as before? But you just picked up Wooden Cross, Monstro’s Tooth, The Polaroid And The Belt Together with Blood of the Martyr.

Who is the same misunderstood genius or a fled patient?

Edmund Charles Macmillen – This is exactly the person who stands behind the style of the game and the horror that many gamers admires to this day with smiles on their faces. I will say right away: I did not study his biography from and to, this is not my main goal. I do not want to share with you his history in the video game industry. But to understand the general essence of the material and why the game looks the way it looks like in the end, it is necessary to briefly discuss his life at the beginning of the path and the person as a whole. So let’s get started!

Edmund was born in 1980 in California. Is it important for us with you? Someone for whom the dates are simple numbers without context will say «well, I can calculate the age, thank you, thank you». It is for such people that I want to describe the special achievements, which distinguished America of those years: a record level of unemployment of 12%, a huge level of inflation of 15%, a record level of crime and murders even after a whole Vietnamese war, from which only 5 years passed. Imagined? And now let’s move on to the family of our hero: pious parents whose family observed acute problems with alcohol and drugs during the rapid economic recession of after-war years. Could it grow in such an environment absolutely normal, a person who did not know grief and problems? Obviously, no. But is this bad as a result? From the point of view of personality development and growth over all our world as a whole as a system, that I am ready to chew and spit out – I would regard this as an important experience, which will only harden a person. Remember: what does not kill us will make us stronger, and difficult times give birth to strong people. This is what happened to Macmillen.

I want to draw your attention to the so -called “24 advice” Edmund to understand his general mood at the time of 2009 (2 years before the release of the fateful The Binding of Isaac). At this moment, our hero is almost 30 years old. First – Charles calls us «be honest«. This is the very first thing that the developer distinguishes in the framework of his speech. He begins by the fact that he does not want lies and deceit, hypocrisy and similar in the framework of both his activities and the things surrounding him. This is clearly visible within the framework of his work in Isake, since he demonstrates that many aspects of human life and history nowhere, sometimes even too much … I could make out every advice of our guest, but let’s not delay this moment: want – follow the link above and see for yourself. I will highlight only the second, no less important point: Edmund calls «do not expose their ideas to censorship«. Not in the sense that it is necessary to score on everything and go to do a hentai, but from the point of view of the fact that others are far from stupid and ready to talk on topics outside the vacuum of universal casual and sterile perception. And you know, I am grateful to him for being ready to take such a serious step when creating Isaac, about which we are a little more in the context of the creator’s personality and talk now, but first a few words about what kind of person Edmund is now: he is a married man with two children who lives a complete and joyful life;remembers his relatives and especially granny, who supported him from the earliest years. And most importantly – all this is felt even through the prism of the original project, while realizing the words of Edmund: «»Put Yourself Into your work And Show The World Who You Are.»

As part of the game, the very first thing that meets us as players is the general style of drawing. And here the game is already visible in the contrast that is permeated All Project from crust to crust. You see a bloody inscription flying a flying child. But along with this – all illustrations besides the main logo of the game look as maximum … cute something? They are quite naive, like an innocent child painted with the hands. And then there is a place to be, more likely, The impact of children’s works of the developer himself, which were stored from the early age of the author’s grandmother and were transferred in adulthood. We know that even a child’s drawing is able to tell a story, convey emotions and feelings that the author experienced it when it created that. And especially if the author himself looks at his long -standing work, here there is a place to be an event background as an element of the exposition of the entire creative element. And this style was based on the results in one form or another into the final product. The bet clearly played. In combination with children’s illustrations, the general tone and spirit of the project looks extremely ambiguous and incredibly original: on the one hand, we see an incredibly high level of chernukha, but it borders on such a common stylistics that even huge flies-self-kilies seem to smile at you with a childish and innocent picture, which is difficult to imagine that you are a real illustration of despair and hopelessness. But sometimes a fly-bomb is just a fly bomb, of course.

On the levels of the game, even behind the enemies and artifacts, you can already see many terrible elements: dark holes in the walls, covered caves with skeletons who are dead from hunger or creatures, bloody structures, bone and skeleton elements, burning rooms and even hellish corridors of the boundless abyss with a couple of frozen islands, barely connected. All this was clearly created not for the stupid entertainment of the player, but has a specific message and plan. But the most important thing is the goal. Edmund’s goal is to make the player feel as uncomfortable as possible at all. We are locked in limited space, we do not have the opportunity to get out of our only destiny – to go down lower and lower, to meet the inevitable death. But ours, or ominous creatures around – this is a question to which we must give an answer ourselves. At the same time, I cannot but note the musical accompaniment of the whole game and, in particular, levels. It sounds incredibly cool at first glance and as if calling you for action: powerfully sounding guitar riffs that repel the drums and extended choral parties to the beat of what is happening. However, when you look at the whole picture without the participation of the gameplay in it, the music sharply acquires an incredibly oppressive, even in some places a terrifying shade. Listening to her, you feel not the fact that the heads of enemies will fly under the powerful cuts of the guitar, and as if something is already going through your soul-it moves through the door of the catacombs and the labyrinths of this basement. And the roar of drums becomes more like the loud steps of those unknown monsters that are already following you, making devilish sounds in unison, causing only genuine and animal fear.

And here it is necessary to make a small retreat – like Macmillene, I am also a native of the far from the best family cell about which I spoke briefly earlier: the alcoholism of others, the excessive piety of the older generation and although there was no drugs in this equation, nevertheless there was a crazy house. And as a person who knows what a relative who is mentally ill for you is, your flesh and blood, you understand the pain and feelings of an unable to help a child. All that remains for you is to shut up and cry alone, until the time comes to fight for your life, is the best life. And why am I? Yes, to the fact that I am not able to find the best allegory for the state of my existential youth crisis on the basis of psychological injuries, as the structure and composition of the Edmund project. You feel there is nothing native, something frightening and … crazy. Do not understand me wrong: these are all terrible things that would never have existed in principle never. But they are an inevitable part of our life. And the lives of all those who were before, or will be after us. Diseases, religion, fanaticism, dependence, sins and vices – All this is impregnated by our world. There is no black or white – there is only what wants your death. This natural selection and its success is determined only by your personal choice.

As for the idea of ​​the design of these very notorious killer enemies, then Charles did not stint on the structure of his brainchild: he took everything that was available to him in his life and her surroundings. Mortal sins? Separate visualization in several versions. Manifestations of the most terrible creatures that you can think of in the game setting? Here you have a huge head of a man-like monster, which is only able to spew out blood fountains;And then a mountain of human meat and organs, merged together and inside of which a parasite man moves like in a living organism;And how do you like the huge head of a person, whose eyes are pierced and at the same time there is only a huge variety of endless flies inside the body, that they strive to break out of the stuffed carcass with the grimace of despair. Or you are still not enough? Well, here you have Satan, that calls for battle with you all mortal sins, all the riders of the apocalypse and fallen angels, while after his defeat, resurrected in the form of a bone head that wants to betray your mortal body to hellish flame.

When we talk about enemies in the game, it is difficult to perceive them as something simple and ordinary. From the side it seems that they are not ordinary and boring, but when you understand the topic deeper – you understand that the creator of these images adapts very well, albeit classical, but extremely ephemeral and in many places not specific matter under his vision. To some extent, the game can be compared with all of us unloved Dark Souls, where lorne and plot moments had to be sought in details: objects, dialogs and locations. But if there were any special points-here is the totality All Without exception, visual, gameplay and audio aspects of the product are the most important element of the disclosure of general ideas and the developer’s sending in particular. Do not think, supposedly Edmund wanted to create a crypt thing and go out to horror, as many modern tresh projects are used to doing. On the contrary, he sought to create a mundane, but recognizable and signs for himself primarily a style, because as he said – you need to make games primarily the way you want you to see them. And here it is clearly traced that the author really wanted to convey many horrors of life and its aspects to his audience, but not in thoughtless chernukha.

Makmillene would make the style of the game soft and pleasant to the eye, albeit enough crypt, one way or another, if I just wanted to increase sales? With each new floor, he will heated a degree of madness and stops to visual perception and narrative, as well as the transfer of this to the player’s analyzers through an increase in the number of adults and harsh elements? The path from the basement with cute blanks to a bloody pentagram in a battle with the devil himself occurs with the uniform and natural development of all aspects of what surrounds us. The project does not consider the player for an idiot, but does not stick his true nature and essence right under your breath. And the game tells you, how to find it deeper than it, the only one main thing: the more you are afraid, the more thorny your path to the best future will become. If you want everything to become better – be ready to challenge even the devil himself if you need it. And you can consider me a madman, but I sincerely think that this is how you need to do the game: so that it does not impose anything on you, but at the same time gives a huge field for thoughts and discussions about yourself if you want to strengthen your idea of ​​the product of the creator of the project. And this is great. But let’s, after such a cloud of beech, we will finally answer the main question: Why?

Why in The Binding of Isaac I want to play again and again, enjoying?

You know what … madness? Okay, the Farcry-RECOMNISED WHATED, and now to the point: you can be consistent with the following words, or you can go to scribble angry comments in the comment, but I must say this here and now: TBOI is the best representative of the genre until the end of the video game industry. Not a single coward has so many elements: the variety of characters;elements of passage routes;an abundance of objects and combinations;Mod-community and, of course, GIT-GUD potential. Isaac is a phenomenon that is not equal and I do not believe that they will. But I will not compare the game with ETG, Hand, STS, Hades and further on the list of your favorites. Today the goal is not this. Now I want to talk about how the gameplay of the game allows her to stay afloat so many years and why he perfectly complements the ideas of the project, turning a terrible basement into a passed stage in the struggle with his fears and a walk along the corridors of the former horror.

Firstly, we remember the fact that life is a struggle for a place under the sun. Struggle that will go forever. And very often having a cyclic character. In this context, the format of eternal races against changing barriers on your path is an ideal allegory on the plane of the problems of harsh reality and how we try to surpass them: we approach with a cold head to business, try to think through a clear plan of action and our path, and then we go into the unknown to battle with our demons and problems. Similarly in the game: Isaac is unique in that you are everywhere Not safe, however, if you are used to this feeling, we can assume that this is a light walk. While you solve some problems on the way in the person of passage rooms where you can easily die, you twist the plan in your head to your entire floor. The game teaches you not to live a moment, but to count your actions on many moves ahead. Determine what will happen according to the results of this stage, and what is bad. And all this time you are forced to fight for your life on a regular basis. Imagine the situation from life: you are at work, you have a blockage. You are forced to make 5-6 documents until tomorrow, in parallel with this, holding important meetings almost the whole day. And you, while conducting your performances or listening to colleagues, in your thoughts already at the same time think about solving the second and third problems. And such examples can be given a lot according to a variety of aspects of our activities. Yes, it sounds quite corny, but Isaac works due to the fact that he does not hold you by an idiot. He does not lead you by the handle and does not resemble everything in a row, playing for you. Your mistakes will be on your conscience. The results of the races are only a consequence of your actions and decisions. But the most important thing is to more intellectual.

The whole project is built in such a way that you should strive to be better than the game and use even the most seemingly useless mechanics to your benefit. Pilyulya, which creates a trace of shit for a couple of seconds? Excellent, I have a keychain on the drop items from it. Or in front of me is a wave of enemies, which I thus isolate and after breaking one heap, making their movements beneficial to me. Although, it would seem, just shit, not a pill! And this is the whole game: it completely encourages a creative approach, approves your experiments and even pushes them itself. After all, you are not just a slave of a system that is unable to change it. You are the one who will use all the opportunities surrounding you for your favor. Both in the game and in reality.

Well, the abundance of special effects, of course, is present for all stubborn and cruel mechanics!

However, how it turns out that the gameplay works for the main idea of ​​the project and all this atmosphere of Severn, horror and in general? Well, here it begins secondly. Remember how I pushed you a cart about the complication of the style and structure of the design in the framework of deepening by floors? The same with the complexity of the project. Despite the fact that you start in a simple area with simple enemies – each floor becomes more complicated: the number of mobs increases, their hp, they become more complicated and diverse, and your lives are taken twice as much as the path. The project does everything so that you do not feel safe even here, during the passage and, it would seem, fully equipped. This allows you to make Isaac not only dependent on your ingenuity and intelligence, but also on skill as part of the ability to “press the buttons”, let’s say, let’s say. The game in this respect manages to keep the near-ideal balance. Only with a rand can you disappoint you, but usually it works for the sake of immersion regarding the idea of ​​the project: the unknown. Thus, whether it is your 1 race or 100 – when switching to the final location, you have an eye before, it will press now. Edmund was able to create such a concept on the basis of the first Zelda and develop it to such a complex system that every race you are surprised: how all this chaos can work as clearly as a clock ..

Well, now thirdly: diversity. The game has 720 artifacts, each of which has its own unique effects. 180 trinket-subjects and a huge number of expendable items in the person of runes, cards and so on. An unprepared player for the first hundreds of races with a huge probability will not let this site out of your hands, because the number of different properties and elements of the game, which carry a direct impact on the results – just goes off scale. This project can be considered as a separate severe discipline, the knowledge of which is a separate type of art or masochism, who likes more. But the main thing is that all this variety of workers does all this is a random. Even if you saw all the combinations, if you saw all enemies and rooms, you will not see all their possible combinations and unique situations for life. This is the reason why the game will live forever: it is already a unique structure in all respects synergies with the uniqueness of the entire game process of each individual race, as a result of which it is impossible to say that you play the same game from time to time. And if possible, change the character to Eden, which each race is also randomly randomly in itself, adding another incredible accident to this layer of accidents.

This is what my head looks like now, which is overwhelmed by the desire to talk more about the ton of the project elements more likely, as if we had just started a conversation. But we will postpone it the other time, you never know it is not interesting for you to read something on the topic of this game from under my pen, like a last blog for example. My favorite boss is drawn, by the way)

What can be said at the end of this modest blog? Yes, in fact there are a lot of things, but I will limit myself to a couple of words: I sincerely believe that Edmund coped with his work excellently. He did not just make another game that could entertain you. He created a project that is much deeper than at first glance in these innocent eyes of a sobbing pixel man in the basement of pixel monsters. Isaac is an autobiography of Edmund, which is more like an obituary about a person’s dead childhood, which did not deserve all this, but thanks to which we all gathered here now.