The Binding of Patrick: 02/28/2014

I love this feature

Favorite feature on the site at the moment. Much more fun that spelunky even =)

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

This is one of the first games featured on the site where I feel like I can learn as Patrick is learning. I only say that because I'm already familiar with Spelunky, Souls, etc. Definitely makes it more fun to watch that way.

Thanks, guys. :D

Caught a little bit of the stream shortly after Patrick got the Book Of Revelations, and it was pretty funny seeing the chat losing its mind shouting USE THE BOOOOOOK.

Excited to watch this. I love Binding of Isaac, and these videos have been lots of fun so far.

Can't wait til Patrick gets the expansion going.

Boy, that's some super meat.

@patrickklepek to answer your question, the mouse is good for exactly one type of tear (hint, it has to do with a notable villain from a previous mcmillen game). Also, it's pretty rare, but pretty amazing.

Another Brimstone? Lucky boy.

Think you made the right decisions in both runs, just a matter of practice in how to take out enemies and room designs cleanly. Continues to be fun to watch someone puzzle out the strategy behind the game - you do a great job at having an outer monologue that reflects my normal inner monologue during a run.

Also, you picked up the Book of Revelations (which was giving you the 1 soul heart every use), not the Bible. Though the Bible almost looks identical to that book.

I really wish my computer didn't struggle to run the game at a decent framerate. I might be interested in the remake if it's better optimized and fixes the difficulty curve

Really enjoying watching patrick fumble with random pill/tarot card effects. To be honest I also coudn't remember what any of them did.

Also, making too many deals with the Devil. Tsk tsk. :P

i always use the mouse for shooting.

Ah, the joys of fast forward.

A handful of non-spoilery tips:

1. Damage avoidance is more important than dealing damage. Itʼs much better to clear a room unscathed than to clear it quickly and get hit, relying on luck to get some hearts. (and there are rewards for not getting hit…) Be aware of your surroundings and the enemy movements. Quite a few times you have backed yourself into a corner, or run into an enemy that you would have avoided if you had stayed still.
2. Always use telepills or the teleporter when you get them. (or maybe wait until youʼre on the next floor if you have already found the regular secret room) They are not bad items…
3. Donʼt be afraid of using your items. Theyʼre not one-use things which need to be saved for the boss. Most floors are big enough to recharge them more than once.
4. Itʼs a lot more entertaining if you donʼt know what an item does before you decide to pick it up or use it, rather than consulting a wiki or The Chat. Half the fun is trying out new items which may or may not hinder your progress.
5. If you are only playing the game when streaming, and playing it “seriously” with a focus on making progress, rather than playing it casually while listening to a podcast or something else, things are not going to get very interesting. The game starts out with a small pool of items available, and the more you play, the more items you unlock, so the more random each run becomes, and the more crazy items you see. This is why you have been getting the same good items over and over again—because the item pool is still relatively small. Playing the game more, or adding the expansion increases the number of available items, which makes things a lot more interesting.

I was thinking of doing it more like this -

These pretzels.. are making ME THIWSTY!

#TooSense

While I was watching this, I booted the game up for the first time in a long while. Got Polyphemus and Brimstone, including a bunch of tear speed upgrades, and just totally wiped the floor with all the bosses. Soooo satisfying.

Oh Book of Revelations, you're so hilariously broken. Combined with the Habit and the Wafer means you will never, ever die.

@patrickklepek Have some non-specific (meaning I don't tell you secrets or what items do) advise I'd like to give. A really good mindset to have in this game is... even if you see a space item (like the yum heart) that you don't want going forward, maybe there's a way you CAN get some use out of it before moving on to the next level.

ex: you had 2 individual chests blocked off by rocks, but only one bomb. You see kamikaze, but don't want it for the rest of your playthrough. Instead you take kamikaze, destroy the rocks surrounding one of the chests with it, get your yum heart back, heal, now you have a chest. There could be money, bombs, keys, cards, pills, hearts..

That's the binding of isaac: utilizing what you have in smart ways, even if its just for one chest. Breaking stuff down like that in logical ways is why I love it so much. It's almost like solitaire in a weird way (taking inventory of what has been presented to you by the game, and going step by step to utilize what you have to make it to the end).

Also, it seems you avoid taking risks for silver chests (like when one is found in a challenge room, what you refer to as the armory). Gold chests are better (better drop rate probability, and a slight chance to get stat/use items like the wooden spoon) but silver chests drop bombs and keys, which are the heart of the game. Keys open shops and item rooms, bombs can give you access to chests out of reach (which could have more bombs and keys).

That's it. Love the feature, by the way. It's nice to see BoI get some love on the site. Very well designed game (its a bit clumsy because of flash limitations, but it's smartly designed regardless of that).

When you combine the Chocolate Milk with Brimstone it gives you the ability to shoot the beams faster but those fast ones do completely average damage. Even though you can shoot faster it is still more advantageous to wait for the full charge.

This one was a little frustrating to watch (that's the fun of it, though, don't change :P), but those were some unfortunate drops compared to the previous runs.

Regarding my own play: I got Polyphemus and split shots yesterday, as well as a ton of damage and ROF buffs, AND a health restore pill that I didn't end up needing... holy shit, I couldn't have died if I tried. That had to be my best run to date, and I've got a lot of hours in this game.

Love this one too! I haven't watched today's yet, so I'm not sure if this is something that's been addressed, but I think there should be a little more interaction with the chat. Like, once at the end of each stage just to see if you missed something crazy or anything. That way you'll still learn and spend money/bombs and make all the new player mistakes, but you'l still have the chat at the end to give some advice and let you know about secret rooms and stuff.

Great work, keep it up!

Awww yeah, just finished beating the super secret final stage using Samson in combination with Chocolate Milk. Now all that's left for me to do is beat the super secret final stage with Eve and Blue Baby.

#TeamGFB

This is seriously a great feature.

Also, it's good to finally get some good-old-fashioned angry swearing. That's what The Binding of Isaac is to me, anyway.

The game really opens up once you get Wrath of the lamb! Angle hearts, super secret rooms, more rooms!

So, I didn't hear it if Patrick found out what the shovel (in-game, it's called "We Need To Go Deeper") did, but it's one of the best items in the game.

Patrick, you need to use the charge more. Walking into a room and immediately killing whatever's in front of you is pretty useful, as is popping from cover and taking something out in one hit.

My favorite feature by far! Keep it up Patrick. I really wish more of the Bomb Crew would take on this type of daily show. Just a quick 30 minute show of whatever they feel like showing off, or are playing.

Patrick's had some insane luck with the pills so far. So much so that Cain will probably seem just average at this point.

This is a good feature, but it'd be great if you got the Wrath of the Lamb DLC soon.

Enjoying the series thus far! Played the game myself when it came out for a few days but never got into it. Seems I like watching it played rather than doing so myself!

I skipped to the end of this one because I didn't have time to watch it, and I immediately regretted it. He had brimstone, book of revelations and super meat boy, and died??? What the heck?

I really hope Patrick hasn't actually given up on Eve for good

getting all of the game's best items requires using all of the characters

Yes, Cain is OP, you weren't being trolled Patrick.

Too many deals with the devil Patrick. Too many deals with the devil...

This feature contains way to little Max and Dave.

The Youtube upload of this is cut off at 1 hour, 5 minutes in.

@patrickklepek After you've mastered all the roguelike like like's have you thought about moving on to metroidvanias? I'd love to see you try and master games like Symphony of the Night and Super Metroid

Fun to play Isaac on my main screen, and see if I beat your run. Beat the second boss with Cane, so suck it Patrick! Ready to play more tomorrow :)

Why did you buy the two items from the shop BEFORE getting the 50% off item? That seems silly :/

Oh man, I just remembered that and realized that had he bought the Steam Sale first, he would have accumulated 55 cents and unlocked Cain.

Oh well! Live and learn, right?

@crippl3 said:

I think the shovel is kind of useless unless you're going for the "don't take damage" achievements (where skipping a whole floor is nice). Otherwise, you're just robbing yourself of item pickups whenever you use the shovel. Bosses tend to yield stat boosting items (except all the crappy new boss items in Wrath of the Lamb). If you dig past a floor you miss its treasure room and shop (unless it's the Womb or later, where that is irrelevant).

I mean, sure you could just burrow down through a multiple levels if you're impatient to fight the final boss, but if you've been shoveling all game, you're probably so underpowered that The Womb II (or later levels) would annihilate you.

Let's be real here, there's no way Patrick wants to keep this feature going long enough to 100% the game. Most of the items you unlock through Eve are garbage anyways. Demon Baby is ok, and Sacrificial Knife/Dagger does good damage but is really situational and not really worth it. The rest are bad items/trinkets.

Lolz, I'm surprised Steam Sale doesn't instantly empty your wallet and make every item $.01