5 Tips To Get You Started On The Binding Of Isaac: Afterbirth

The Binding of Isaac is probably one of my favourite games ever made, I have spent hundreds of hours learning its intricacies, and generally roaming around in mother’s basement. With the release of Afterbirth on PS4 just around the corner, I thought now would be the best time to share a few tips with those that are new to Isaac, or maybe just want to brush up on some tips before they return to the game. These tips will be pretty basic, so I won’t be spoiling any of the deeper lore.

1. Unlock Azazel

It might seem like a daft tip, but Azazel is one of the best characters in the game for beginners. Players must strike three deals with the devil in one game, this could probably be done in a few runs. Unlocking Azazel nets you a much easier character to play as, giving you the chance to learn endgame floors and bosses before attempting them with Isaac. Azazel has the the Brimstone ability from the off, which replaces the tears with a solid beam. This beam does higher damage than the tears, whilst also firing through surfaces and defenses. Couple this with the ability of flight and you have yourself a formidable character. If I am having a bad stretch of runs with other characters, I fall back on Azazel to help me get back into the flow of things. Bottom line; Azazel is seriously awesome and you should use him.

2. Bomb Walls

There are various walls you can bomb throughout levels, bombing these walls opens secret rooms containing a variety of items. Some will just contain money, bombs or hearts but you will often find rooms that contain trinkets or pick ups. Finding the rooms can be a little frustrating during the later stages of the game, but there are a few easy rules you can follow. Firstly, a bomb room is usually surrounded by two or three walls. The more walls there are around a secret room, the easier it is to find one.

As you can see in the picture above, the secret room is surrounded by 4 other rooms. This won’t be so easy in the later levels, but knowing this tip still helps eliminate the areas it likely isn’t in. There are also the harder secret rooms to find, they aren’t surrounded by any other rooms and they often hide better items like souls hearts and sometimes collectible items. These are often towards the boss room, but they can be anywhere.

3. In Greed Mode, always check the shop

Greed Mode is one of the biggest additions to Afterbirth. It creates a much more controlled playthrough of the game, eliminating much of the randomness prevalent in the normal run. Instead of the procedurally generated levels of the normal game, Greed Mode features; a large main room, a shop, two collectible item rooms, a devil deal room and a curse room.

At the beginning of any level of Greed Mode, check the shop. chances are you may be able to blow up a marked rock or some pots, nabbing yourself some coins or key.This will let you pick up both of the collectible items from the off, giving you an instant advantage at the start of each level.

4. Easy Tiny Spider Kills

When exploding rocks, vases and many other things, tiny little spiders appear and fill the screen. They move around and basically just try and cause real bad times for you. If you are in a room with no enemies in and this happens, simply exit the room and re-enter. The spiders will now be gone and you are free to pick up items, blow up more things and do whatever you wish. This tip becomes especially useful when you are looking to save time on your run, or wanting to limit the amount of damage taken on challenge runs.

5. Train Your Brain, Find Those Marked Rocks

Marked rocks are great, they drop anything from soul hearts to chests. Training your brain to find them is important, when entering rooms in The Binding of Isaac you are usually overwhelmed by enemies instantly, so don’t worry about scanning until you have cleared the room. Once you have cleared the room take a quick look for any unusual rocks, marked ones are usually a dark blue in colour, plus they have a big X on them as well.

If you are about to face the boss but you are short on hearts, sweeping the entire floor for marked rocks is an excellent way to help get some hearts. It will quite often give you back the bomb you used to blow it up as well, marked rocks are nice like that.

This is all I have for now, I will likely return with some more advanced tips in the future.