The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth News

Hey there! My name's Vinh (maybe better known by some of you as _Kilburn ), and I handle most of the programming and game design stuff in Repentance, along with a few artsy bits such as item sprites and visual effects. Today I'd like to talk about one of the upcoming characters in Repentance: Bethany!



Bethany is my attempt at giving Magdalene a more challenging, attack oriented counterpart. At first she was a white mage type character with an entire set of holy themed spells and a mana counter that would fill up with soul hearts, but I quickly realized that was way overcomplicated and she eventually shifted towards a more exorcist-like archetype, catching souls and using their power to defend herself.

When playing as her, soul hearts will drop more often, but instead of granting health, they count towards a new "soul charge" counter, adding 1 charge per half soul heart. Active items will then draw from that counter when used on an empty or partial charge. This allows you to use your active items more aggressively while still saving charges for when you need them the most.



She also starts with a neat active item: the Book of Virtues! When used, this book spawns one wisp familiar that orbits you, blocks shots, and fires low damage tears. This might not seem like much but...



...this wisp will also follow you between rooms and stick around until it dies! Which happens whenever it comes in contact with an enemy or gets hit by too many projectiles. This means if you play carefully enough, you can end up with a whole bunch of wisps lighting up the room while protecting you.



If you've already experienced the Antibirth mod you're probably thinking "wait I know this character, she sucks, no one wants to be stuck with the same active item and no devil deals for the whole game!!!". Well you got me, I lied, the Book of Virtues isn't quite an active item. Check this out:



That's right, when you pick up any active item, the book will open up and the item will combine with it, allowing both to be used at the same time! You can still swap active items as normal but the Book of Virtues will always stay in your active slot and attach to whatever's in there. Losing your active item, for example after activating a single use item, will simply result in the book reverting to its closed state.

On top of it, many active items will grant a unique effect to the wisps they spawn, which either compliments their original purpose or brings them in a completely different direction.
For example here's My Little Unicorn in action:



As a general rule you can expect items with a short cooldown to produce fragile wisps that are easy to lose, and items with a long cooldown to produce sturdy wisps that stick around for longer.
As for single use items or items with no cooldown? Who knows? Anything is possible!

Okay fine, how about this:



Using How to Jump offensively? Nonsense!!!

I'm very happy with how this turned out (thanks for the design input Edmund!) and I hope this will be a good incentive for you to give some of your least favorite active items another chance!

Of course, keep in mind things are still subject to change before release.

Repentance is coming along well and I really appreciate how understanding the community has been. It will be worth the wait. You guys rock.

Until next time!

Uhhh hey, is this thing on? Nevermind, it is. Silly me.

Hi there, I'm Not Your Sagittarius (or Sag, for short). You might know me as the lead sprite artist on Repentance. Or you might not. Either way, I'm in this weird phase of existing and not existing in some peoples' eyes. But let's get right to the point - those monsters and bosses full of mystery and personality, that stinky green floor that disintegrates noses upon entry, returning characters
and other things looking cuter than you last remember them and so much more? I'm the one that makes all the art for them. Or... most of them anyway. My two hands could only do so much before they get occupied for other things.

But enough from me! In this blog post I'd be happy to show you an insight in the process of what I do as a sprite artist.

Before an enemy gets its invitation into the game, we start with a discussion of what kind of enemy to add, and for which floor. Either that or Nik drops his 51st concept art onto the table. Sometimes it's not always him though - I make concept art too, though despite my artistic background it's not Mona Lisa grade at all.

The usual routine for making an enemy or boss is simple - one of us draws a concept laying out what it does, then I take the concept and make the sprites for it, and finally Kil adds it to the game. Of course, more complex monsters takes more time.

Here's some concept art I made for two mucky new additions to the Dank Depths - something I'll go in "depth" later! (please get the joke...)



Fairly simple enemies while you're still in the early game, the Butt Slicker is a devious variant of that one enemy you forgot existed, now stickier and shares a mob mentality with other Butt Slickers!



Messier than their bloodied cousins, the Sticky Leaper hops around spreading their tar and making messes around the battlefield!



Now I'd like to talk about visual changes for Repentance. If you haven't noticed yet, many of the characters and monsters have been getting beauty treatment. That's right - characters like Blue Baby are getting visual upgrades - not only for costumes but for the thing you'll see 70% of the time in your run - their hair. I made sure every character gets a free bottle of shampoo. It seems to be working wonders for the characters with hair. Not sure about the bald ones, though.





As for bosses and monsters - this is an interesting topic I'd like to talk about. You might have noticed Fistula getting a visual upgrade - and it does not end there. I'm retouching as many bosses as I can and bringing back details from the flash version that were lost in translation and a little more.
Say hello to the new Gemini.



With a little guidance from Ed, I'm also upgrading some visuals for the monsters you've known from Antibirth. Here's one you might be familiar with - the Whipper.



As for floors... I've given it some thought to revamp some of the afterbirth alts to enforce their theme a little more. One floor in particular is the Dank Depths - I've completely remade it from the ground-up to tailor to my tweaking. It's more or less the same dank depths you know and love (or hate), but with some much added detail to bring out its mucky theme. By working with Kil we've made the dank depths more danker than it ever was. Check out the difference!



There's still a lot of work I have left to do for bringing new monsters into the world of Isaac as well as making everyone else cuter, but I'm enjoying it all the same. I'm so excited for you guys to get your hands on this! I made sure to puts lots of love and care into every sprite in
the game.





Now if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to drawing girls.

...right after I play Isaac and laugh and die horribly to the _____ ____ for the 7th time.

Hey it's me, Nikola Antibirthdesigner, I made 3 million levels and Baby Plum. And as the guy who makes the rooms for Repentance, I am very fond of enemies and making new levels with them by pressing buttons on my mouse a bunch of times.

Because of this, Edmund has generously threatened me into writing about all this in today's blogpost. Let's not waste any more time and start with the first enemy I wanna talk about.


**Needles**


Originally made for one of the booster packs, the concept of these enemies is simple; they're just mini-pins that try to get ya by jumpin' around the room.



You'd think "This is no big deal! I've beaten Pin a few thousand times before, how is this supposed to be a difficult enemy, huh!" Not a bad assumption actually, but they DO start being a problem when there's like 3 or more of them in one room along with other enemies you gotta deal with.



Keeping up is especially difficult if you're a beginner, but where they truly shine is when you've had thousands of hours in the game and are on auto-pilot 'cus you have approximate knowledge of all the rooms in the game. Unlike most enemies in the game they do not make their presence known as soon as you enter the room, not even a puff of smoke when they spawn.



So if you come across a room that looks pretty generic like you've seen it a hundred times before, it might have one of these suckers dive bombing at you.


**Holy Eyes**


I know I know, everyone reading this is sitting on their seats foaming at the mouth screaming "Come on! Where's a guy gonna get some Four Souls stuff!" Well you're in luck, we got another brand new enemy in repentance based off this fancy Four Souls©™ card!





Wow! What a Great Card probably!
When making rooms, a good enemy dynamic is having monsters that attack you when alive for a while, and monsters or obstacles that distract the player so that the other monsters get a chance to do their thing. The Holy Eye is a Cathedral enemy that's an example of the former. When it does it's attack it'll surely make the player move their ass anywhere they are in the room, which is good 'cus then they might dodge into another enemy's attack.



Thanks for the gif, Vinh. Hope you get some sleep after I make you record these gifs at like 3AM.


**Bishops**


Another returning favorite from the Antibirth mod, this time with a new look! This is a stationary enemy that protects every other enemy in the room, so the player has no choice but to focus on him first and then everyone else. A great example of a "distraction enemy", the only way it could be more distracting is if it came out of your screen and robbed your house.



Vinh also gave them a new self-defense attack that doesn't look too bad, but you'd be surprised by how tricky it can be to dodge in some room layouts.
(Just ignore the fact that they attack in the cardinal directions despite being bishops)


Well it's the end of the blog post, and last week Tyrone shouted-out a random song he found, so this week I'll keep that up and shout-out this


That'll be all from me, enjoy analyzing those gifs fellas, I'm going back to my cave.

I'm back for more, are you ready? This week we have another preview of the gorgeous soundtrack from The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. By the way, did you already add it to your wishlist, you should because *maybe it'll have a pre-release little discount that you'll want to take advantage of.

In last week's episode McEdmund took over this glorious blog to show yo some new stuff for that game you like so much. This week you get to enjoy Juggernaut, the ultimate boss alt song.



Edmund told me it's got a ton of action and has some really good feel. But I also asked Matthias and Jon--you know, the guys who make the soundtrack. According to the east coast due who clearly enjoy each other’s company (as evidenced by the joyful rhythmic underpinning of this entire song), they tell me it's got a bit of sparkle and even an iconic melody laid over the top of this one. Edmund threw Ridic a bone and let them take a drum solo during this boss fight theme. This shows the depths of the Santa Cruz native's humanity and empathy.

In other news, I'm not a musician, but I can play the piano with my right hand. I can tell you right now this might be my favorite boss tune. It has a good beat and the rhythm is just right for the pace of some of these wicked bosses we're putting together. It's the exact accompaniment you need to fight, ___ ______ and ______. (Sorry, Edmundo wants redacted named, but I was gonna give it to you)

Bonus fun, Free Ridiculon discography to anyone who transcribes the rhythmic puzzle at the end of the track!

Before I forget, here's a gif, because I know why you're here...



Lastly, 1000% unrelated to Repentance, 5PM by Chris Kogos autoplayed while I was finishing this new post for you. I thought you'd like to know that because it's the kind of person you are. Give it a click, you can thank me now.

Well hello there strangers, its me Edmundo McChaos and I'm here today to do one of those blog post updates about that new fangled Isaac DLC, Repentance!

some of you may be wondering... what the hell do you do anyway? aren't you that asshole who cuts and runs with all our hard earned cash? well sure, but i still do game dev stuff! when it comes to my work on Repentance not only do i yell at Vinh about how much i hate those rolling meat things from anti-birth BUT i also act as director of this whole project! that means i get to be vague with my designs and then scream at the team when what comes out isn't to my liking!

but i digress, lets stick to the topic and give you guys what you want! and what would a blog post i make be without huge fanfare right? "spoil items!" they type at me on twitter, "no one cares about the people who made this dumb game! we want to see new enemies!".

well you win.


THE SPIRIT SWORD!



those of you who played the anti-birth mod may remember this glowing fan favorite.. well its back! according to google it appears to be a reference to an "American heavy metal band from Austin, Texas. Formed in 2003" or something.. i guess the team are huge fans of this band and wanted to pay homage to it with this amazing item (now with new combos!). lets check it out in action...





wowza wasn't that cool? I've honestly never seen anything like it in a video game, just an example of the originality our amazing team is bringing to the table folks.. but enough about them.. lets talk about ME!


DIVINE INTERVENTION!

this neato new item appears when you double tap one of the fire keys, yep that's right, we are breaking all kinds of rules now! so yeah, when you double tap, out comes this super pretty, angelic shield that not only reflects bullets but can also reflect brimstone attacks! lets watch...



ARE YOU SEEING THIS!!!!!? chew on that for a little while.



done chewing? well swallow it down because i got one more tease for you and its huge and bony!

HOLY BONY





its been said that at some point i may have mentioned wanting to make holy and tainted enemies in repentance in reference to that Binding of Isaac card game that came out a while back.. well i was thinking maybe new champions or something easy, but these guys took my idea and turned it into actual new enemies with their own graphics and attacks!! insanity i say!



what a big boy! you can now find these guys wandering the cathedral along side a few other holy enemies that ill let other people spoil because its dinner time and my daughter sprained her ankle yesterday, meaning i need to carry her around all day like that trash man used to carry around Oscar the grouch back in the 80s... oh i forgot to mention this post is angel themed, so you'll find these items in angel rooms, and you said angel rooms sucked! well you know what, YOU SUCK!

now leave me alone!

toodles
-Mr. Doom (& gloom)