The Binding Of Isaac: Four Souls turns its inspiration into a multiplayer game with co-operative and competitive elements. — AFP Relaxnews
The sixth expansion to video game smash The Binding Of Isaac passed its crowdfunding goal in little over an hour.
A swift success upon its 2011 release, The Binding Of Isaac lended a grimy and cute-meets-grotesque hand-drawn aesthetic with dark biblical allegory, hidden secrets strewn throughout a randomised level layout, and intensely challenging action.
Both critically and commercially acclaimed, the computer game generated a swift follow-up expansion (2012's The Binding Of Isaac: Wrath Of the Lamb), and then a remake for computers, consoles and mobile devices (2014's The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth), which received its own packed expansions in 2015 and 2017.
So what of 2018?
Edmund McMillen, the game's designer and programmer, had already been approached about converting The Binding Of Isaac into a card game – a possibility he dismissed due to commitments elsewhere.
But then, months later, "I was sick with the flu, stuck on the living room couch, bored out of my mind when the basic structure for a Binding Of Isaac card game started taking over my brain."
"Within five days I had roughly 200 cards, drew them up and started testing things" with his wife, Danielle, who was integral to the project's success. "Even at this phase the game was fun, every play session felt totally new, dynamic and interesting."
"I'm extremely happy with how well it plays and everyone I've tested with always wants another round so that's a good sign," and the McMillens' enthusiastic audience clearly agrees, pushing The Binding Of Isaac: Four Souls past its modest US$50,000 (RM202,134) target in 1 hour 15 minutes.
Its cards, tokens, random events and layout are derived from the original Binding Of Isaac format.
Players can join forces to take down giant bosses, barter their way to more items, and betray one another once someone gets too close to having the titular game-winning stash of four souls.
An initial estimated delivery date of November this year has been applied to The Binding Of Isaac: Four Souls; a launch-day livestream with prototype demonstration has been set for June 27 at noon PDT (8pm BST, 9pm CEST, then June 28 at 3am in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Beijing, China, and 5am Sydney, Australia) through kickstarter.com/projects/isaacfoursouls/the-binding-of-isaac-four-souls. — AFP Relaxnews
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