Nov 20, 2020

An Interview with Edmund McMillen: The Story

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - ty

Welcome back back again again!

If you were here last week, you know we were in the middle of interviewing Edmund. If you weren’t here... well, now you know, too.

This week we’ll continue with more questions for Edmund and find out more about his growth as a game developer and a game creator.

What kind of work did you do before you started making games?
Edmund: Tons of jobs since I was 15. My first was at the SPCA, cutting stuff around there and doing manual labor for a summer. Right after that I did cameraman work for a show that was on public access. I enjoyed that a great deal. I worked in a factory with my dad; they made pieces of washing machine parts. I worked at Blockbuster for a year, GameStop on-and-off and the other things it became—different iterations on-and-off for many, many years. I was still working at GameStop if I needed money; after Gish had won IGF, I went to doing that part-time.

How and when did you start designing games?
Edmund: When I was sixteen, I started making comics, then I started making games in the Duke Nukem [engine] with mods. I made a lot of stuff with Duke, Doom and Quake in the later years. Then I was making games with Klik & Play. There was a game I made called Build the Lower Intestine. I don’t remember what it was called, but I used to make pretty in-depth games with this weird ASCII editor.

[NOTE: At this point in the interview Edmund has another negotiation with his daughter Peach. I’m still uncertain who the better negotiator is yet, but given that Peach is 1/10th of Edmund’s age, she has the clear advantage.]

Are your life experiences intrinsic to your game design?
Edmund: The games that I make are pieces of my life reworked. I’ve found a way for people to experience little bits and pieces of who I am by putting them in interesting game design.

What’s your first game that you say is “my first game”?
Edmund: Dead Baby Dressup! was my first game. I didn’t think it was a game. When I was making games in high school, I remember thinking if I could make a game, I could join a studio and that’d be something I want to do. But I also remember thinking that there was no way, because I’d only be happy making games at a studio if they would listen to my ideas... and no one was going to listen to my ideas. There was no way anybody would be down with the stuff I wanted to do. I thought at least I could make cartoons or do animation or something. I was leaning towards 2D and 3D animation at the end of high school. That seemed to be my only real option. Truthfully, I didn’t want to go anywhere; I didn’t want to work for anyone. I wanted to figure out some way that I could do it myself.

In my sophomore year of high school—or maybe even freshman year—there was a guest speaker named Clay Butler. He was a local cartoonist; he had his own comic strip under syndication called Sidewalk Bubblegum. It was a political comic strip. He had multiple animations that played on public access as well as Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation. I felt like no one gave a shit except me. I was like, “Oh my God!” I was in awe. He was like a movie star to me! I was enamored by this, and the idea that it could be his job. He talked about it, that he didn’t make a lot of money but he was really happy and creatively fulfilled and that sounded like the most amazing thing in the world. I just want to do anything and everything to get a little closer to where this guy is at. All I want is this guy’s creative life.

Even now I feel envious of these crazy artists like Tonetta—somebody who can really just make art all day, every day, and never worry about the financial aspects of it. Be himself, unbridled, and let the creative juices flow. I’m not going to complain, because I feel like the compromises I’ve made are very slim.

I didn’t think I’d be doing the Repentance [development], but it’s been one of the more enjoyable experiences I’ve had. Same with Mew-Genics—I didn’t think I’d ever get to work on that again, but I’m pretty proud of where it’s going.

For you, what’s the sweet spot of your game dev and your art?
Edmund: The original Isaac, where it was super simple. It was just me and one other person. No expectations, no real profit is being thought of. The last game I made like that was Fingered. And that’s the reason why I continued to work with James and made Bum-bo; it was such an easy, effortless experience that I enjoyed it.

I would love to do that and get back into just making a bunch of small games that don’t matter but are creatively fulfilling. I feel like in order for me to grow and not stagnate, I need to have fun and be able to make goofy stuff that is “worthless,” because then I can learn. It’s like sketching or drawing—I’m still designing and still kind of innovating.

If Bum-bo had come out a year or two after its conception, it would have blown the minds of a lot of people, because it would have been like Slay the Spire before Slay the Spire. That didn’t happen. Creatively, I need to dive into the black unknown and pull some things out of there and take a leap to be able to get something out of left field like Isaac or Time FCUK.

What's your value in game developer and art?
Edmund: My value is in my theme and game design. That’s my high true value. The only thing I can do differently than other people. Design and theme isn’t something that can be quantified. You can’t put it against someone else and see whose design and theme is better. All designers hit the ceiling. I feel that the level design from Celeste can give me a run for my money in terms of level design, and I feel the same way about Spelunky. There are so many of us at that level and you don’t really go higher than that. Game design goes to a certain point.

But when you talk about theme or the richness of how theme talks to design, how design talks to art, how art talks to story, pulling everything together into one cohesive theme... it’s limitless and can’t be ranked or put against something else. The reason why I’m good at that is because I’m telling bits and pieces of who I am, and I try to stay true to the things I’ve experienced and be as honest as possible. And in the process, I’ll produce a unique experience, because it’s a piece of my unique life. That’s where I feel my talents lie, and my ability to speak through it in an abstract, artistic way.

When it comes to art, I’m to the point that I’m literally hiring the kids that were fans of me 10 years ago. [laughs] Because they’re better than me, they do my art better than I do. I could throw ten of them at you, they all grew up with my work and they can draw just like me, but better. What’s interesting, too, is that I feel more comfortable working with fans of mine, because there’s an understanding of my work that I can’t explain with just words.

Before we get into Isaac dev, do you have some memorable kid stories about games?
Edmund: I didn’t get an NES until I was 10. I was the last kid on my block to get one. I lived next door to my realtor, Alma, for a few years. That block was full of kids who were actively trading and borrowing NES games and trading information about said games. Carlos had an NES; he was my closest friend on the block.

And I remember vividly that when Mario 2 came out, I thought it was the coolest shit ever. I didn’t have an NES yet. I faked being sick, stayed home from school. I broke into their house and went in and started playing for a while. I remember playing the hell out of it. Then his mom woke up and came out yelling at me, “What the fuck are you doing in here?!?” I remember running away screaming. She vividly remembers, too, which is funny to bring up when we bump into each other so many years later.

For my 10th birthday I got an NES, finally. Things were already bubbling for Super Nintendo at that point. The cool thing was that there were already a lot of discounted games at that point. I remember there was a game called Werewolf—it was a piece of shit, but I loved it.

That era of games must have made a real impression on your future game design career, whether you knew it or not at the time.
Edmund: Yeah, Mario, Zelda and Mega Man were significant. But Super Mario Bros. 2 was the most significant for me. It was a game where I really loved the design overall, but it was the character design and the world that I really liked, the multiple characters. It really felt like they were telling little stories with the characters; I thought they all had a uniqueness to them. It felt weirder than “Mario” Mario and it had so much character. If you look back now, a majority of the standout characters came from Mario 2.

You know the origin of Mario 2... that there is a different Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan?
Edmund: Yeah. Doki Doki Panic. Wasn’t their SMB2 just “hard” Mario 1…?

It was pretty clever to “skin” Doki Doki Panic and make a whole new game with these really colorful characters.
Edmund: Don’t forget Luigi, Peach and Toad. All of those characters were made from this game that wasn’t originally a Mario game. The fact that people think that Toad is a strongman little guy that can pick anything up comes from that game. Princess Peach being able to fly, even Luigi being a weird oddball... it comes from that game, where they made him thinner and taller.

Castlevania was another; I loved the gothic and movie monster theme. The furthest I ever got was Death. I could never get further than that. Zelda was the most magical; it felt like a living game. We didn’t have the Internet, so nothing was spoiled. Kids would go around burning trees for days until they found a secret. All the greats. It’s not like I have some niche game that influenced me more than others.

I loved Mega Man, not because of the design. I don’t necessarily think that the controls and general design of Mega Man were very good. It was so fucking hard. I think the appeal is in the robots. It’s a traditional samurai movie game. You’ve got to go kill the samurai, and with each one you kill, you gain a skill. And they just abstracted that into this cool thing. I’m not even into robots, but I could dig Mega Man because it kept it organic and kept it unique.

The NES era was major. Me and Danielle collected NES games for years before it was a thing. We had 452 NES game cartridges. I had to sell them to make Super Meat Boy. I sold all my stuff to do that. It was fun collecting and it was fun playing, but it became a hassle to move; it was insane.

Any random games that were memorable?
Edmund: The most obscure games I actually enjoyed were Shadowgate, Deja Vu and my favorite was Uninvited—it was like a more horror-oriented Shadowgate.

I know you liked Sega CD, did that inspire or influence your decision to prototype Camdrome?
Edmund: Yeah, for sure. That and stuff like Night Trap. I really liked how weird and kind of creepy some of those digitized videos looked; it made them look creepier. That might be why a lot of people thought Night Trap was worse than it really was, because it looked creepy.

The Sega CD was a way for me to play PC-style games, because we couldn’t afford one. We didn’t get a PC forever. I had the 32X, too; the shittiest of the shitty. The only game I ever had was Doom. And did you know that it wasn’t even the full version? It was the shareware version, not even the full version of Doom. I beat it and there’s no cyber demon. Where’s the spider? It just ends after the first chapter! It was so fucked and the most disappointing thing in the world, because it had taken me forever to get all the components to hook up the 32X to my television. When I finally did, it was a week after Christmas and I finally beat it. “Where’s the second chapter?”

And after 32X? Any inspiration there?
Edmund: I missed the PlayStation; I never owned one. I had a PS2. I loved my PS2—it had a lot of great games. I had Nintendo 64. I sold the 32X, Sega CD, Genesis and all my games to buy a used Nintendo 64 and Mario Kart. I eventually started buying other games. I would play Mario 64 on the demo kiosk at Sears. I did play a shitload of video games, but they were not as significant in my life as movies and music. For me, growing up... I liked playing video games, but music was huge for me. Music was more of an artistic influential thing. It was my number one, and movies—especially horror movies—were number two. Then games.

I was alone all the time, so I got into whatever I wanted. I was walking the railroad tracks when I was seven or eight years old for porn. There was an adult bookstore called Frenchy’s, probably 10 blocks from my house growing up. People would buy stuff there and rub one out on the tracks and leave their material there. I remember some of the first boobs I saw were stuck together and had to be pulled apart to be seen.

So what music was an influence?
Edmund: Guns N' Roses and Nirvana. I dabbled a bit with Beach Boys and MC Hammer and a little C&C Music Factory. I remember really getting into R.E.M, Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses. I really like the grunge era. And yes, Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream is probably my favorite album of all time. That album was phenomenal.

Did you ever see any of your favorite bands in person? (Aside from Matthias’ band?)
Edmund: I could have. It’s one of my biggest regrets. My dad was a bouncer at a local club here in Santa Cruz, The Catalyst, which was a really big venue for rock bands in the ’90s. So my dad saw Nirvana, Pearl Jam... he used to get me autographs, but I was always too scared to go because I was only 12 or 13. The whole grunge scene was the opening into everything, and I dove deeper into weirder stuff like Butthole Surfers.

Nine Inch Nails?
Edmund: I appreciated the rich themes in Broken and The Downward Spiral; those are things I always strive for in a video game. That sort of rich theme that flows throughout the game that tells a story.

The one thing that makes me different is that I want the experience to be more like a song. At the surface it feels more open to interpretation, but it’s more about setting a tone. You set this tone, you say a few words, you throw down a few images, you’re painting this abstract picture that doesn’t necessarily tell a story, but it evokes a feeling or experience. That has more value than traditional storytelling to me. I feel like I learn more about that through music than traditional media and the way video games do it.

It’s very clear with the new Repentance music that it’s going to lend a very specific feel for the game.
Edmund: I’m super happy with everything, it’s crazy. When it comes to most tracks, I’m the only person to check it out and I’m very critical. But with this game, I feel a responsibility to check with Vinh. If it’s something for one of the alt areas, I want to make sure it’s to his liking. But we’re very much of the same taste.

How would you describe his understanding of music?
Edmund: It’s always a little surprising to me. Usually, most programmers I’ve worked with don’t care about the other disciplines, but he ventures into each one of these things, so he has an opinion about stuff and he has feedback, which is always helpful. The only way to get better is to have someone I can bounce ideas off of and make sure I’m not being lazy. My laziness and Vinh’s perfectionism balance each other out.

You’ve worked with us for a long time. What are the differences you see in young programmer/designers like Adrian, Tyler and Vinh?
Edmund: Tyler and Vinh are similar. Tyler is obviously a very skilled programmer. He’s making his own engine, he’s also a designer... but he’s not an artist, so he doesn’t have an opinion on that. Those are his allocated stats.

You and Tyler went with a remaking of famous classical songs for The End is Nigh soundtrack.
Edmund: Tyler researched the songs and chose the majority of the music.

My wife loves the soundtrack. That soundtrack is fantastic; we’re going to produce the audio CD and vinyl next year for The End is Nigh. But the whole game is fantastic. The game as an experience stands as one of my favorite games of all time, all these amazing things together. It’s such a great game.
Edmund: Well, thank you. I agree, and I don’t always agree with people’s opinions about my games. Every year around the anniversary of a game I release, I’ll play it again and see how it stands up and what I would have done differently. And The End is Nigh is one that I enjoy every time I play it. It feels like a game I didn’t make, but one I’m enjoying. I get why it’s not for everyone because it’s difficult, but it’s definitely my best work and the most cohesive, even though development was difficult because of where I was mentally and emotionally. It really flowed out, it felt effortless. It was a difficult but rewarding experience. I learned a lot about myself in the process. I’m glad it got made.

Are you able to separate the game and work from the difficulty in your life, then?
Edmund: It does feel like it’s not part of me. Usually it feels like it’s removed from me when something comes out. When I’m playing it, I don’t think about the development and what it means; I’m playing the game and I experience the game from a player’s perspective.

You’ve spoken about messages you’ve received from fans about how your games have helped them get through difficult times in their lives. Are there any games or experiences that did that for you?
Edmund: I remember playing Pokémon Blue when I was having problems. Playing Game Boy games when I was a kid while driving from Santa Cruz all the way up north to the McMillen house. I knew I wasn’t going to have a good time and it was going to be awful, and I was going to escape the awkward conversations and I was going to feel like an outcast. I was able to escape the drive there and back. To have my Game Boy when I was younger, and even older... to have it around when I had terrible stomach pains was a lifesaver for sure.

Isaac is semi-autobiographical and you put some of that into Repentance and other parts of Isaac.
Edmund: I think by far Isaac is closest to an autobiography and most direct. And the more time that passes, the more it feels like that. In a lot of ways, since you get to see all the spoilers and secrets, having had a daughter who is now the same age I was when my parents got divorced, I feel like I’m able to say more, and have a better perspective on situations. It was more appropriate for me to be able to speak to the relationship between Isaac and his mother, and between his mother and Isaac’s father.

Does your family know your relationship with Isaac?
Edmund: I don’t think so. They don’t play video games. But I know my dad knows the game’s theme is religious, and he appreciates that it’s religious. He installed it on some of the computers at his church. I remember telling him it’s kind of critical of religion, though. To him it’s OK, by the book.

Initially, Isaac was definitely me talking about how I struggled with religion growing up: what I believed, what worked for me, what didn’t, and the influence it had over me creatively... and in general, still to this day. As time passed, it became more of a personal thing about how I felt as a kid. Now it’s become more like talking about a poor family, a broken home and what happens to a creative kid who already feels like an outcast in a family that falls apart... in a world that’s falling apart, with nothing to hold on to except religion, with the hope that something good might happen eventually.

We’ve seen people relate to it from a dark place, but other players are able to enjoy and experience Isaac in another way
Edmund: When The Binding of Isaac came out, reading the description, people wondered why anyone would want to play it. And it’s been almost 10 years, so some people don’t see the different references. They don’t see the naked child, the child abuse. It’s just a video game, it’s just Smash T.V., and that’s the magic of video games. Something becomes part of the streaming culture—which is cool, to get to that point—because it’s a fun time-waster, and they don’t even see the story, the theme, the content, the M rating, the stuff that goes off into some other territory.

How does that change with Repentance?
Edmund: It was already serious before, and it’ll strike a chord with players. We’re closing the book on this, and I want to close the book hard. It’s not going to feel like a significant ending to Isaac if we don’t close it hard. I feel like Repentance has closure. It feels neat.

Have you thought about Isaac 10 or 20 years from now, how it will affect players and designers?
Edmund: Maybe we’ll do an ultimate version for the consoles 10 years from now for the 20-year anniversary.

Is Peach a fan of your work?
Edmund: She knows I make games; when we were playing Spelunky, she thought I made it. When my nephew was really young, he thought that everyone’s uncle made games, because I knew everyone who made the games he was playing. He felt like it was a really small world. I was trying to be the cool uncle with my niece, when she was into Minecraft and I was telling her that I know Notch. And I told her, “I could totally have him give you a call or record a message for you.” She asked if I knew DiamondDan—he’s a streamer she likes.

I’m sure it’s like that with Isaac. There are probably kids who play Isaac and their entire life might be Isaac, and the parents might offer to get a hold of me and the kid just wants NorthernLion.

So we’re just about done with Repentance development, then it’s Mew-Genics after that. Does Mew-Genics take place in the Isaac universe?
Edmund: It definitely takes place in The End is Nigh universe. Everything I made takes place in the same universe. All the games I’ve made since Aether take place in the same universe, a cohesive universe.

Isaac has to take place before The End is Nigh. And Time FCUK
Edmund: Of course. Time FCUK doesn’t take place in time. And Time FCUK takes place in some abstract stasis. At the end of The End is Nigh, you see that Steven is time, he’s the man on the world who turns it to make the days pass. Steven is more of an abstract concept.

What are you really happy about in Repentance?
Edmund: As a fan of Isaac, going in to play it, the first thing that a fan will be pleased by will be the attention to detail. There’s a surprising amount of little details in the Flash version that were left out of the later versions. They seemed insignificant at the time, because there was so much you guys added to Rebirth and it seemed great to me. We went back through and spent four months updating the game with tiny little details. I’ll say that all the old stuff is in. Fans will remember these things that haven’t been in the game for a long time. And there will be a shitload of new stuff that’s akin to that.

There’s a ____ _____ ____ that’s in ___ ____ and it’s ______ ____ _. You have a _____ of ____ and it’s _____ across_ and it’s _____ and _________ and doesn’t ____, but it’s one of those _____ things _____ that will _____. It’s one of those little things. That happened a lot in the Flash version. I think with Repentance, superfans will really feel that the world is even more alive. And little things that creep up on people, or really rare stuff that creates this illusion that the game goes infinite.

When I play Repentance, it feels like a new game.
Edmund: Have you played ____ __ _____? It changes the game.

To me, Greed was revolutionary, but now it feels like a bonus mini-game compared to Repentance.
Edmund: Now, yes, I would agree. It feels like a mini-game within the game. People won’t expect what’s coming with Repentance.

I was going over parts of the game with the guys, and they’re going through and adding what you and I like before we even ask. It goes back to your point about working with fans.
Edmund: I know what players expect, but they don’t expect what’s coming. It’s insane. I can guarantee that, and no one expects the amount of story and theme that will go to close. There’s a lot more going on.

Players are expecting the expected, but Repentance is really The Binding of Isaac 1.9. It’s as close to a sequel as we can get.
Edmund: I was going to say, this could be Isaac II. With Repentance, I think players will shit and realize what is going on and realize how much there is to do. There are players who have the three million percent.

There are players who have three million across multiple platforms!
Edmund: The thing is, I want people to know that ______ _____. We don’t not want to ____ ___, but when the time comes soon, when we do a release trailer we’re going to ____ ____.

We can post that when we get closer to release here. Players still send us screen shots and it’s in thousands of hours, and they’re going to double and triple that.
Edmund: [NOTE: Edmund gave a really good answer here and I had to redact the whole thing. I’m sorry. This will go in a dev post later.]

That’s it for now! We’ll be back with more info on 2020’s best game of the year. You’ve been patient with us and it’ll totally be worth it. We’re saving a lot of the best content for you to discover. x0x0

(NOTE: We have not confirmed the year, month, date and hour of the best game of the year. If you didn't already figure, the GOTY 2020 was lighthearted hyperbole. more xoxo)

Nov 13, 2020

An Interview with Edmund McMillen: The Prologue.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - ty

You know Edmund, you play his games, you’ve read his interviews. Like other members of the Isaac team, we wanted to give you an even deeper insight into who he is and what made him the game designer, husband and father he is today.

There’s a lot to go over with Edmund, and I want you to enjoy every answer, anecdote and story he has to tell, so we’re breaking this one into a multi-part interview, covering a lot of his past, his upbringing and his origin as an artist and game designer.

This is just the entry into the interview. I hope you enjoy it, please be sure to talk about it and discuss. And if you have questions for him, HMU on Twitter or just go directly to Edmund’s Twitter.

Let’s get started...

What’s your name?
Edmund: Edmund McMillen.

How do we know that’s your real name?
Edmund: You don’t; you could be fabricating this whole interview.

I didn’t think of that. But this interview is real. Start the beginning for us.
Edmund: I was born in Santa Clara. Just about 20 minutes from Santa Cruz.

Tell us about your family.
Edmund: My parents were together until I was five. [My dad] is a preacher. I have a relationship with him. It’s gotten better in recent years. We have a respectful relationship where he doesn’t push anything on me and I’m not critical of him. We both live our lives and check in on each other once or twice a year. I send him pictures of my kids and ask him what he’s doing. It’s nice. We had a difficult relationship when I was younger, but it’s become a mutually respectful, adult relationship as of the last seven or eight years.

Is your mom religious, too?
Edmund: My mom grew up Catholic, but I would say she’s not very religious anymore. But my grandma was super religious, very Catholic.

Your Grandma Rodriguez, I love her last name.
Edmund: [Laughs]

To make Isaac you must have had some understanding of the subject matter. Where did that come from?
Edmund: Grandma. I had seven years of catechism. I stopped at confirmation. That was the year that I told my mom in the drive-thru at Burger King that I wasn’t sure that I believed in God and I felt it was disrespectful to continue to go to catechism when I didn’t really believe what they were telling me.

How did she take it?
Edmund: Very badly. She cried before I got to order my Whopper.

Did you stop going to catechism?
Edmund: I think right after that I said I wasn’t going to do it. She had a fit about it for a bit, but then eventually warmed up enough for her to stop bothering me about it and didn’t force me into it. It’s one of the few things I put my foot down about when I was younger and said, “I think I’m old enough to say I don’t want to do this anymore.” I stopped going.

I also did a summer of Catholic school. That was terrible. That was back when the nuns would hit you and stuff...

[Peach enters the room. Edmund and Peach proceed to negotiate. Peach wins.]

You started your art very early.
Edmund: I think by kindergarten people started saying I was good, so I wanted to do it more.

Some of the fans who are reading this, they may not know about “the talk.” It involved a teacher expressing concern to your parents regarding your art. When was “the talk”?
Edmund: Third grade. I just relived it recently because I’ve been taking Peach to that playground. Since school is closed, it’s the safest park. Most of everything is exactly the same. And I walked by the place.

Her name was Miss [Redacted] [not actually her name]. It was her first year of teaching. She had the most hellish boys in the class—there were some rough ones. For whatever reason she really hated me and had it out for me. She had multiple meetings with my parents and tried to convince them that I was completely disturbed and I needed to be mentally evaluated because something was wrong with me. To the point where they gave in; they had me evaluated. They also had me tested, [and it] turned out I did [have something wrong]. I found out I had dyslexia, because some red flags went up for certain questions.

[So the] tests come back. I’m not disturbed, I have dyslexia, but it turns out I’m actually really smart, which angered her. She’s totally convinced something’s wrong with me, that I shouldn’t be in the class. She just hated me; I don’t know what it was, but she had it out for me.

After that happened we’d always play kickball. It was the last part of the class, but for some reason I really wasn’t into it. I remember I was a big fan of red rover. The year before that, we’d get to do that quite often. I was trying to plead my case and get her to alternate between the two games. Something other than kickball. Then she started mocking me in front of a group of girls: “I don’t want to play kickball!” [Note: Edmund does the best whiney shrill voice at this moment.] I was so pissed. I got so pissed and I yelled at her, “YOU SHADDUP!”

Instantly she turned red and looked evil. She grabbed me by my arm and she dug her nails into my arm. She slammed me up against the wall while these girls are watching and yells in my ear, “DON’T YOU EVER DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!” And then she pushed me, walked away, then I split—I left school. I just made a beeline to the exit and waited where I knew my mom would come to pick me up. I showed my mom, I was bleeding from where the teacher had ripped me open. They had to call the authorities and the lady was fired.

The first part of your story sounds like a scene from an Adam Sandler or Seth Rogen movie, but then it turned into a Stephen King story.
Edmund: She was a horrible woman; she was totally, totally gone. She was young. When I was little she looked old to me, but my mom always referred to her as young.

That’s an easy way to make a child permanently dislike school…
Edmund: For whatever reason, I had teachers who either hated my guts or really liked me. It was love ’im or hate ’im.

Fifth grade was the first time a teacher was super encouraging, but the bad thing is there’s a chance he may have been a pedophile. Because in hindsight there’s some weird stuff. He would get the kids to run faster by goosing [them]. But he was the nicest guy in the world! He was an artist himself and super encouraging. We’d listen to music together like REM and Queen. He brought an NES and let all the kids play an NES. The more I think about it…

Was this before or after the candy?
Edmund: Looking back it was weird, but the other boys... later in life they would ask if I got invited to sleepovers at his house and laughed. This was like the coolest guy in the world, one of my heroes, but maybe he was just grooming me. But he liked my work and was very encouraging with my art. He was really into Mad Magazine and let me borrow them. Inside was a very graphic R. Crumb comic.

…I had a good teacher in second grade, though, a Japanese dude. I was very hyperactive and couldn’t control myself. I can’t remember what I was doing, but I wasn’t doing the right thing. I was always bored, always doing something in my head. Maybe talking to myself or singing like Peach does.

He was the first person to come up with a weird game plan, but it was so simple and worked so well.

Each quarter of the year, you could go to the principal’s office five times and if you went more than that you’d get suspended. And I always went five times and stopped. I got five times really early when I met this guy. I remember throwing some kid’s backpack down a hill and breaking his glasses, before he and I became friends.

So this teacher put me on this thing where he’d write me a note at the end of the day, “Edmund had a good day” with a stamp on it and I could show that to my mom. That was it. Simple. I wanted to collect as many slips as I could. And I remember my mom and Grandma would try to come up with, “If you get [this many] slips you can get something.” But I remember that didn’t really matter, because I just wanted the stamps on the strips of paper. I still have a bunch of those.

So then you get into middle school?
Edmund: Sixth, seventh, eighth I went to New Brighton Middle School. I had hit puberty. I was only kind of bad my freshman year there, sixth grade. I was in the principal’s office a lot. At the end of that summer of sixth grade, I hit puberty and mellowed out and I wasn’t hyper and insane anymore. I was more depressed and reserved.

By the end of middle school and nearing high school, you must have been getting quite good at drawing. If you were like me, you were probably just drawing as much as you could. Did you find you were drawing more than studying at this point?
Edmund: Oh, of course. I would find any excuse to draw instead of doing reports.

By middle school and high school I really started to feel around and [ask] what do I have to do to draw? Like, what’s the minimum amount of work I have to do? I found out early on you didn’t have to do more than Intro to Algebra to pass. So you can throw the math away. You only have to do two years of art, but if you ask the teacher they can set you up as a miscellaneous elective and you can continue to do art.

A lot of teachers would meet me halfway. I was the kid who was always bargaining: “Can I do this instead of that?” “What are my options?” “Give me some wiggle room with this.” I asked, “What options do I have?” and he asked “What do you want to do?” I asked him if he’d give me credit for making a comic every quarter. Then I’d hand him a complete comic every quarter and he’d give me an A. I did that all the way until the end. I barely had any classes other than art classes my senior year.

What comics were you reading from junior high through high school?
Edmund: The Maxx. I went through a phase of obsessively buying Image Comics like Spawn and The Maxx and a few others. Me and my cousins were into collecting Nirvana B-sides and then Image Comics first editions. I was more into collecting them more than reading them and the only comic that ever really spoke to me was The Maxx.

As an artist, what did you think of artists like Todd McFarlane? What do you think about them now?
Edmund: I still think the same as I did back then: It looks insane. I love the detail, the detailed work he does. I was also really into Lobo. Keith Giffen was the writer and he started drawing and did a series called Trencher which was like Lobo but a different character. I loved his art style a lot. And Simon Bisley was one of the original awesome artists for Lobo. I fuckin’ loved it; the Lobo’s Back series and Lobo: Infanticide, by Giffen. I loved anything I felt maybe I shouldn’t be reading. I was exposed to R. Crumb at way too early an age. So I got a taste for the forbidden fruit, I guess.

Looking back now, do you think being exposed to artists like R. Crumb and other risque art had an influence on some of your design such as your R-rated game?
Edmund: I’d say so. For me to like something, there always has to be impact. There has to be some sort of danger. If you look at a lot of Disney movies, they do a lot of fucked-up shit, [like] killing the mother. There has to be some darkness to pull people in. It’s that kind of darkness that I feel I was obsessed with when I was young—the unknown, dark, weird things, and I wanted to know why. In high school I was really into getting all the Faces of Death I could find.

On VHS, of course.
Edmund: Of course!
[Note: Kids, VHS is like YouTube but inside a black cassette.]

That’s all folks! Well, it’s not all, but in the next part of our interview with Ed we’ll talk about what happened after high school—how he went from making tiny games to becoming the creator of hugely impactful games like Meat Boy, Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, and starring in your favorite Netflix movie.

Oct 29, 2020

The Binding of Isaac: Repentance Dev Team Interview Pt. 2

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - ty

Welcome back!

Thanks for return to The Binding of Isaac: Repentance devblog. I’m your host.

Last week we interviewed some of the newest members of The Binding of Isaac team (and in the future we’ll interview some of the oldies, too). Vinh, Nik and SAG really opened up and gave some awesome insights into what they were doing before Isaac and what they’re working on now. So we made the decision to divide the interview into two parts so you could get to know them better.

This second part of the interview delves further into the development of the game, the background and some of their process in the making-of.

I really hope you like, we’ll continue to talk to more members of the Isaac team here so if you haven’t already added the game to your wishlist, please do so.

For now, let’s continue where we left off

You're working also closely with the original Rebirth development team on Repentance, which has benefitted the development of the latter significantly.
Vinh: It's pretty crazy to walk in the Rebirth team's footsteps and see how they did things. It's one thing to try to make sense out of the garbled output of a disassembler, but to actually see the code the way it was originally written, and to work with the people who originally wrote it, that's something else entirely.

I'd say my coding style has changed a lot from trying to stay consistent with the code base, I've definitely picked up a few handy optimization tricks here and there and my code is a lot more readable now, I can't even read my own code from Antibirth anymore!

How are you able to nail the style and also resolve your design aesthetic and the needs for the Isaac world?
SAG: Edmund offers very thoughtful information on when something doesn't look right. It's also quite easy to follow! Most of the time I run a design to Vinh and get some feedback from him and Ed to see if something fits. I'm happy with my designs as a result because getting feedback from the big man himself makes it easier to understand how an enemy or boss looks, what it uses to attack, and other things like that.

There have been some stylistic changes to certain monsters that I initially was sad to see go, but now these changes have grown on me and I love and appreciate them now. As for design aesthetic sometimes I imagine a separate Isaac world in my head filled with possible monsters. It helps me narrow down a certain design and then I take some of Ed's elements to make it fit. Will you ever see this separate Isaac world in my head? Maybe, if have the motivation to...

When I was designing the bosses early on, my plan was that "This boss belongs in a room this size" and placing that boss in a room smaller than intended doesn't seem to yield the desired result of increasing the challenge.
Nikola: Yeah, that's pretty much it. Some bosses aren't that bad in small rooms, but if you had a boss that spawned a bunch of troll bombs in a tight room all you could do is pray. While that's pretty fitting for the game's themes, I didn't really have fun in those rooms. Besides, in the much later floors, some of the bosses come back as regular enemies, so I think in that case it's fine.

Are there any limitations for your development needs in the engine that you've encountered and how have you remedied this or worked around it?
I'd say the biggest limitations are shaders, basically what handles all the fancy visual effects. We have to work with a very outdated shader language for the sake of staying compatible with even the oldest machines, I see that as a good thing but it also means there are a lot of features we don't have access to.

It's interesting in a way because it forces us to come up with creative ways to make good looking effects with fairly simplistic code. In Antibirth, Downpour used something called "clipping planes" to cut sprites at their base, giving the illusion of Isaac and all the enemies being partially submerged in water. This is something not all graphics cards supported so we had to get rid of it.
We could have come up with a workaround for it but I never liked that effect in the first place, it looked really awkward with bigger enemies or bosses like Monstro. One of the new floors actually has an effect I'm quite proud of, and it doesn't even use shaders at all! I don't want to get into the details too much but it blends a couple of scrolling layers with the overhead shadow that's visible in most floors to achieve a rather nice atmospheric effect. I hope you'll like it when you see it!

A lot of the effects we did in the original Rebirth series were inspired by classic art effects that wouldn't require the most powerful hardware, you've probably noticed that during your time in development.
Vinh: Honestly I don't think hardware has ever been a limiting factor, Isaac is a retro looking game and while it's fun to add fancy effects that would be impossible on older consoles like the new water shaders, I try not to stray too far away from Isaac's low budget flash game roots.

I suppose one thing I'd add to Isaac if I could would be HDR support. That'd allow for small objects that glow in the dark, or the player's eyes adjusting to the light when moving from a bright room to a dark room and vice versa. This is already something I simulate via shaders but it has its limitations, HDR would make all of that a lot more natural.

Actually, some time before Afterbirth+ released I had a dream about it being revealed at PAX, and it featured HDR support along with some footage of the basement showing off some seriously cool lighting effects, with more vibrant lights and darker shadows. This actually inspired the look of one of the new floors some of you might have seen at PAX West last year!

How different does it feel for you making a mod for a game you love than being one of the people on the dev team responsible for making it happen? Do you feel a different sense of responsibility or about the same?
SAG: Back in the Antibirth days we were all just having a fun time spitballing ideas and making something. We all got to know each other and we all had great hopes and ambitions for the future. Everything was great! We all felt like one big happy family. When working on Repentance, the overall vibe felt... different.

We were all the same three dummies we were when working on Antibirth, but there was a strange sense of seriousness in the air. Like holding a huge weight on your shoulders - an important duty you need to fulfill. It's the same feeling as like, a prince or princess being the next to run a kingdom as a king or queen. Your freedoms and funtimes just sort of... fade, once you get to that place. I share this same responsibility with the others and honestly I feel pretty bad for the delays... time has not been very kind to us, but we still keep our chins up and try to make Repentance the best it can.

How do you merge those new design mechanics seamlessly into "classic" Rebirth design? Do you smile when you imagine surprising a veteran Isaac player with something they've never experience before?
Nikola: I think consistency is important (or at least that's what Vinh's been telling me for years), so making these new rooms still feel consistent with the style of rebirth rooms is fairly important. That familiarity in how rooms are structured is important for long time fans, who instinctively know how to handle a situation. Luckily, by the time brand new players unlock the new repentance floors, you should be familiar enough with the game to not be totally lost.

Also, you bet I'm smiling whenever I put in some weird new mechanic in the game players aren't used to. I'm really looking forward to everyone playing the game and encountering these new rooms and enemies and going "What the hell is that?" I know I like to put in some obscure or rare surprises in my own games 'cus it makes people go on wild goose chases and come up with outlandish theories of what other rare events could be in the game. I really enjoy stuff like that.

That's exactly how we felt when designing really clever traps in 1001 Spikes. IF, and a big IF, this wasn't Isaac and consistency with thousands of other rooms weren't a consideration, what kind of experimentation would you want to do with the rooms?
Nikola: I don't think it would be that much different from what I do now. I think the others would agree, there is comfort in using previous references for consistency. Sometimes coming up with things from scratch is hard and it's good to have a base to fall back on. I think a healthy mix of that and experimentation is what makes for good content.

A lot of your designs are much larger than even some of the largest Rebirth bosses, do you enjoy working in larger scale pixel art and what kind of challenge do you find in it?
SAG: Larger scale pixel art is pretty tough but it is absolutely rewarding in the end. Bigger bosses have all these little details like scratches or wrinkles and it takes some time for it to look perfect. Now multiply that like... 10 or 20 or 40 times...

I'd say it's not harder in a drawing sense, the hardest part is that they require much more detail than small or medium bosses. SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE THAT HAVEN'T PLAYED ANTIBIRTH. I still remember the time I was making sprites for the Witness. This boss is HUGE. The head alone is almost as big as Delirium's and had much more intricate detail. I believe I started on it 2 weeks before Antibirth was released? Every head took roughly 40 minutes to line, color, and shade. I had to do this like... 10 times?

The Witness also had giant arms and another phase with lots of giant parts... Hay nako I lost so much sleep over this LOL. Repentance has so many weird and wacky monster designs. I really like how Ed is approaching with his designs, many of them using challenging and interesting concepts we have never done before, art and animation wise.

Min Min was a design that grew on me, and I've grown to love the idea of a ghostly girl wearing an empty shell like a jack-o-lantern. For a while there's been one monster that I created that I really like. He's got a big head full of teeth and walks on two stubby feet. At first glance he doesn't sound threatening but he holds a really nasty surprise...

The changes you've made from Antibirth, both as a team and as a game, do you feel it's for the better two years later?
SAG: I think the changes we've made are for the better! Some of them came at a really small cost so I'm totally cool with it. I wonder what the other guys think!

Did you review the original flash codebase?
Vinh: I haven't studied the original Flash codebase, though I think I caught a glimpse of it when looking at the code that governs boss pools. I've seen Florian work on Eternal Edition a couple times and he has a rather unusual way of coding things, which I'm pretty sure I could recognize there! Going from Antibirth to Repentance was pretty smooth, in fact some of the features that took me a long time to code in Antibirth were much easier to achieve in Repentance, mainly because when making a mod, it's much easier to add content than to modify or remove it.

If you wanted to slightly modify the behavior of an existing enemy, the best option was usually to rewrite its AI from scratch, replicating its original behavior, and then adding your own changes. This is something that becomes completely trivial when you're able to modify the original code base. Most of the challenge from porting Antibirth content actually came from redesigning it. There are a lot of things in Antibirth I'm not particularly proud of, and it can be hard to take a step back and rebalance them without being influenced by the original design.

We have a lot of different room sizes and shapes now for the game, is there a specific room type you really enjoy designing?
Nikola: Standard size rooms are my go-to, most of my room ideas are usually normal sized rooms. But despite what I said about Bosses earlier, I really enjoy the occasional small rooms too. Those rooms are way more concentrated and focused which I think is sometimes a neat thing to make something interesting out of. Making rooms I see as solving puzzles, so small rooms are a neat challenge to me. I also like "Tall" rooms, at least more than "Wide" rooms. I'm really not sure why, I think it's cus they resemble squares more. One thing I kinda wish I could do is make bigger rooms be 1 tile longer, so that they have a true middle tile. But I can deal with just making some enemy placements a little asymmetrical, it ain't a big deal.

You've been working together now for a few years. How has your team dynamic changed or grown during this time?
Nikola: Working with Vinh and Sag has been fun. Surprisingly, both Vinh and Sag have the exact same work ethic, so they're both doing some real good work.

It might not feel the same as when we were a scrappy team working on a big rebirth mod back in the day, but at least we've improved how we work together sense then. Some things got easier because we have feedback from Edmund, so it's nice that we don't have to guess what fits in the game anymore.

SAG: I keep some sort of internal clock in mind for when Vinh and Leather are awake, and it's pretty easy to follow. For me, the best time to chat is at night - that's when literally like the other half of the world is awake. Usually in the day I just play games and take naps. Though it hasn't been easy recently, with classes and all...

Throughout the years we've had many ups and downs, some happening to all three of us at the same time. It's made me appreciate working in a small team that knows and understands each other. If I made a game sometime in the future, I would not mind bringing Kil and Leather along...

Vinh: We actually started drifting away from each other for a little while once Antibirth came out, our baby was out there and none of us were really sure about what to do next. Repentance is what brought us back together and I'd say we're closer than we've ever been! Nik and I are actually in the same time zone so we basically talk to each other all the time every day, we don't see Sag around as often but whenever she's around it's always a good time.

Sag was the first person to join the Antibirth team and her art has improved a ton since then. Many of the bosses and enemies from Antibirth have been visually revamped thanks to her (not to mention Maggy's glorious hair) and I think I can safely say Isaac has never looked this good. Seeing her make art for new content is always a huge motivator for me since it's a lot easier for me to imagine how something works if I can see what it looks like.

Nik came in as a guest artist/designer and ended up being our dedicated level man and probably lead enemy designer. His design skills have improved tremendously since Antibirth, many of my favorite new enemies and bosses are designed by him and I know I can trust him when it comes to making room layouts for the new levels. We used to butt heads all the time about enemy or item designs and while we still do, I've come to trust his instincts a lot more.

We're all so close to the end, does the end of this development journey feel similar to that of Antibirth? What are you looking most forward to on release of the game?
Vinh: Oh boy! Things are a lot more tense now that there are so many expectations to meet. Releasing Antibirth was easier because it came out of nowhere, nobody was expecting it, while people have been waiting for Repentance for more than two years... it's a lot of pressure! I hope it will live up to the hype and I'm really excited to watch everyone find all the new secrets. Especially that one.

SAG: The end of this journey carries a different vibe... fans that have played Antibirth know a bit of what to expect and there are also fans who have never seen Antibirth at all, so it feels like we've been developing a full game and a half game at the same time, you know? It's kinda weird now that I think about it...

The initial reaction for Antibirth was the most exciting part. From the surface it looks like a simple mod that adds items and enemies and such... until you get knee-deep in it. That's when it hits you. I'm curious on what everyone will think about Repentance. I hope it'll inspire and encourage fans to make fan art. I love and appreciate everything you guys make, thank you!

Vinh: Oh yeah, it's hard not to feel like we're not adding enough, since the part of the community we interact with the most has already experienced all of Antibirth.

Nikola: It feels the same to me because the end of development happened around the same time of year too. I remember when we were approaching the end of antibirth I would be constantly writing down how much stuff we have left to do and how much time we had left 'cus I like organizing stuff like that and knowing how much a project has progressed. But I think doing that only made the others more needlessly stressed.

I guess you could say I'm equally as worried if we're gonna finish this on time as I was back then. I'm really looking forward to watching all the streamers play repentance, those videos are always pretty good in the first couple of weeks of release when everything is new. I also look forward to seeing how people will adapt to the changes when it comes to regular and high level play. And of course, here's hoping that there's tiny little secrets in the game that are discovered months after release.

If you have one thing to say to people reading about the game, what is it?
Vinh: If you can eat pork, look up "saucisson" and try to get your hands on some, it's one of the tastiest things France has to offer!

SAG: If you see something like a character, a monster, or something that looks either more cuter or more anime than usual, it's probably my fault. I hope you'll like it anyway!

Nikola: Brie…

What do you recommend to a budding artist, programmer designer who wants to get into pro development? Knowing know what you know, what would you tell them to prepare or what to study, how to get ready?
Nikola: What you'll hear from me isn't anything you can't otherwise get from just asking Ed. Just make lots of small projects about small things that interest you, that way you make more mistakes, you learn more, and your games become better for it. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, just make them now and get it over with.

Vinh: If you want to get into programming, don't be afraid to copy, a lot. You'll learn a ton from copying or modifying existing code if you put in the effort to understand it, and you'll get results a lot faster than if you tried to make something from scratch. Modding in general is a great way to learn new things because you already have a base that works, so you can easily make changes, see what happens and learn from it.

Also don't underestimate the usefulness of math, some basic vector math, algebra and calculus can get you a long way, there are a lot of problems in game development that can be solved in a very elegant manner if you understand the math behind them.

I like to think programming and math go very well together because the former helps you understand how useful the latter is. If you want to get into game design, just play games, a lot of them. If there's a game you like, try to understand why you like it, and when you design your own game, try to capture that same feeling. If there's something you don't like in a game, try to understand why, and remember it as an example of what not to do.

SAG: SLEEP. I cannot stress this enough. Think of sleep as a core part for doing tasks. I often joke about not getting enough sleep and end up realizing that's true like 70% of the time... Sleep does wonders for the brain and helps you concentrate on the time you spend doing things. Without that sleep you don't have the energy to have a clear and focused mind, and that's no good. Like, at all.

If you have a heavy job that requires a lot of attention, think of sleep as part of your job. Your boss and your brain (mostly your brain) will thank you for it.

Aside from bug fixes and tuning, what do you want to do after Repentance? Does the team have some ideas?
Vinh: If we're talking non-Isaac stuff, I'd love to work with Nik on one of his games, maybe the three of us could get back together and make something cool.

Nikola: After Repentance releases, I'm hoping we can add some new stuff.

SAG: After Repentance I will sleep for 5000 years. ...joking aside, I hope we'll be able to make more post release content for Repentance, but other than that, I'm uncertain about my future. Someday I'd like to make a game to dump all this weird character lore I've been writing in my off-time. But that's for another time...

Vinh: Sleep sounds nice though...

_

Oct 22, 2020

The Binding of Isaac: Repentance Dev Team Interview Pt.1

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - ty

It's been no secret that the original The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth dev team at Nicalis has been working closely with Edmund for over eight years. Since that time the team has developed two DLCs and now for Repentance we're working with three new talented members who help little Isaac continue to grow.

You probably already have seen names like Jeremy, John, Simon, Adrian and Matt from the credits--and we'll interview them at a later time--but this week we want to introduce you to three of our newest members of the Isaac dev team. On the internet you might know them as _Kilburn (lead designer), LeatherIceCreme (designer) and NotYourSagittarius (artist). We've gathered together to get a better understand of their background and what they're doing to make the last DLC to your favorite video game.

Before we start, the trio have a ton of interest things to share so we're going to break this interview into multiple parts. We'll be sharing some pre-production dev screen shots and art so this is your #nospoilers warning.

You made proceed!

OK, now it's your turn, as we talked about we want to give little glimpse into the people who are making their favorite game. Can you each tell us a little bit about yourselves?
_Kilburn (Vinh): I was born in the south of France from Vietnamese parents, my dad was a software engineer so we always had a PC at home for as long as I can remember, I was playing all kinds of DOS games as a kid. It didn't take long for me to realize I wanted to make games well actually, I was more interested in modifying them, adding stuff on top of them one of the games I played the most as a kid was Worms, I'd always dream about all the weird items and weapons I would add to the game if I could mess with its code in some way, it's probably the one game that really made me want to become a game dev.

I only got into programming much later though, when I entered high school, at the time I had very limited access to my PC since you know... strict Asian parents so my main source of entertainment was a graphing calculator. I spent most of my free time trying to figure out how to get games onto it, and eventually I started making my own, nothing amazing obviously but it was something to pass the time that's where most of my knowledge of Lua and C++ comes from, actually then when

When I entered college I got into this game called Garry's Mod, which wasn't so much of a game rather than an engine made to be modded, I made all kinds of small projects on it, including an attempt at a perfect replica of Team Fortress 2 which I eventually dropped after a year or two, I think still, I learned a lot from it, how a lot of game mechanics are implemented and how game engines work in general, and since I was studying IT in college at the time I got to apply a lot of what I'd learned as well

So, yeah, long story short, got my masters degree in IT, had a brief programming gig at a petrol company, then Rebirth came out, stuff happened and now here we are.

LeatherIceCreme (Nikola): My name is Nikola, I live in Serbia (not Siberia), I'm known on the internet as LeatherIceCream. My Isaac obsession started with me making animations of the Duke of Flies and "Isaac of Isaac: Reisaac" on youtube before becoming the room/enemy designer for Anitbirth. And today I'm still doing that but for the official game.

I'm pretty glad about this turn of events as I really like Isaac and I also really like making video games. As a kid I would draw levels of my favorite PC games in a notebook treating it as a pseudo-level editor, so to this day I really like making levels/rooms. And because I like making levels I also like making enemies to put in them, so I'm very glad I get to do some of that for Repentance. I've made a few standalone games already, so I've had experience with my craft from there.

I fell into making content for the actual Isaac game back before Rebirth was released in 2014. There was a mod for the original flash Isaac was called "The Community Remix Mod", I asked to join their dev team as soon as they released a trailer, and I contributed a couple of items to it. Shortly after Rebirth was release, I was invited to become a developer for the Rebirth port of that mod as well, which eventually became Antibirth. Some of the items from Community Remix that I made up even made it to Antibirth. I'm really not an "items idea guy" at heart, I'm more comfortable with the aspects related to level design rather than game progression.

NotYourSagittarius (SAG): Hi, I'm the main sprite artist of the three of us. I live farther from the other members so my sleep schedule has always been a little topsy turvy. I'm fine with it though! My discovery of Isaac happened when I saw the original flash game on Steam. I had some extra money on hand so I thought why not, I bought it for gits and shiggles. I got hooked a tiny bit but then it snowballed and now Isaac shows up the moment I pick up something to draw with.

I met Vinh and Nikola later on when Rebirth came out. We all had great ambitions to make this thing called Antibirth. I came up with the crazy idea of adding alternate floors for each chapter and I thought it was just a pipe dream. But it's a thing now, and that's badass, because you can achieve anything if you put your heart into it. And Antibirth was nothing but heart. Then Repentance happened. I was overjoyed. Our little monster is now official.

Aside from Repentance, I also have an artistic background and I draw things on the side. How long I've been drawing I don't exactly remember. I just know that I've taken it a little more seriously early in my high school days. I attended college quite a while back, and I still do! Except in this unusual time everything is handled online, which hasn't been easy on the mind lol. I'm currently enrolled in an animation program.

BACKSTORY TIME.

When I was younger was often home alone doing my silly little tasks, like drawing on my sketchbooks and listening to music very loudly in my room. I had a bit of a strange upbringing - my mom insisted I should get a career in medicine like her one day, but now she and the other members in my family support the potential I have in art and I am very thankful for them. I'm gonna try my best to repay them back. Normally I live in the Philippines, but once the whole pandemic passes by, I'm planning to move to Canada when the time comes. Who knows, maybe I could meet up with some online friends I know that live there!

What is it that drew each of you towards Isaac?
Vinh: An old friend of mine! I remember playing Super Meat Boy and thinking it wasn't really my kind of game, so when Isaac came out and I saw the same art style, it didn't really catch my attention either, until one of my friends threw the game at me and basically forced me to play it so he could watch. Then when I started getting into it I couldn't put it back down anymore. I've always had a thing for games that offer a large variety of weapons or items that let you play the game in different ways (hence Worms), so there was no way I could resist this.

I could have walked right past this game without noticing it if that friend wasn't as pushy as he was. The theme really spoke to me as well, Isaac is a pretty familiar name since I was raised a Christian, and my mother is quite conservative as well (though thankfully she's never tried to stab me with a knife!). And while I wasn't too fond of the art style at first, it eventually grew on me and I came to really appreciate its simplicity.

Nikola: Back in 2011 I saw a no commentary gameplay video of the original flash version of Isaac. The first item they picked up was Boom! and it gave Isaac a fuse on his head. I didn't know of the whole items appearing on Isaac's sprite thing in Isaac so I thought he always had a burning fuse on his head and it was metaphorical, as I knew Isaac's themes were quite depressing. I really liked the fact that the game looked like a flash game I'd play online for free, but the gameplay and art style were so great that it was elevated to a "real game", and it taught me that those things makes a game special.

It was strangely inspiring to me, as I've been making small flash animations (and sometimes games) for years before finding Isaac. It was also the first piece of media that really got me interested in drawing gory and gross stuff. And the use of religious elements for items really peeked my interest too 'cus not a lot of games did stuff to that extent back then.

SAG: Oh boy, where do I start. My younger self had an interest in dark themes and Isaac fit the bill perfectly, despite looking all cutesy and funny. I had a sketchbook filled with Isaac drawings but I don't remember where I left it. I think it's best I don't find it. Initially, I never found an interest in this game. I remember seeing the trailer and had zero clue what it was. It was on sale one day so I bought it for no reason. I can't really imagine what would happen if I never picked it up that day...

For me, it's the weird style of Isaac that drew me to it. There's something absurd about a round and happy creature carried by flies.

What did you think when we announced Rebirth and the artstyle, music and gameplay was changed?
Vinh: I was so excited for it! I'd just completed Wrath of the Lamb when it was revealed and couldn't wait to experience more Isaac. The switch to a pixel art style was a bit jarring at first but it grew on me pretty quickly and I completely stopped thinking about it once the first few screenshots came out. Of course I was looking forward to all the new items the most and I remember taking apart every single one of Edmund's blog posts, looking for new items and trying to figure out what they did and how they worked.

I also remember being really excited for all the new synergies the game would bring and any eventual new characters.

SAG: This was very interesting because the idea of Isaac getting a remake felt unreal. I remember seeing some pictures on Ed's blog and it looked promising!

I remember when Man VS Game was playing it at PAX and I was so excited to see all the new little things like Fatties and new room sizes. Needless to say I've never been so hyped about a smiling poop that whistles. I found the change to pixel art a bit strange but seeing how there's so many lovely and creative ways people are playing with the artstyle now, I think it's for the better! I can't imagine Antibirth being done in the original's artstyle...

Nikola: I did find the change in art style to pixel art weird at first, I was very fond of the flash Isaac art style as well as music, but Rebirth did grow on me quickly once I started playing it. Although I did have very high hopes for the attention to detail in rebirth art, as Ed's blog posts at the time really got me excited for the brand new game and it's improvements. I remember believing that the level of detail was going to be so high that in one of Edmund's early Q&As I asked him if the same enemy types will look slightly different depending on what area they appear in. So I'm glad that Antibirth/Repentance has that high attention to detail thanks to Vinh really liking that kinda stuff. Either way, I was incredibly excited for the game thanks to all those old blog posts.

The team’s art has very quickly been able to integrate into the art style from the original team.
SAG: I'd say it took quite a bit of time to fully grasp the artstyle. There's some very simple rules to follow but are difficult to master. Anti-aliasing and line thickness, for example, are simple concepts that can make or break a design.

I'd say the trickiest part aesthetic-wise is trying to come up with a design that looks like something Ed would draw. I would sometimes study what Ed drew in the past and try to integrate some of his design elements along with a dash of my own style when I make sprites. Size of dash varies from 'too scary' to 'too anime'.

Technical wise, I'd say the toughest part is doing floor art or anything that requires lots of shades in general. Floor art is the most beautiful part of the game but it's also the hardest and least documented - many people struggle with it as a result. Someday I'd like to make an in-depth tutorial on how floor art works. I can't guarantee it but it's something I'd like to try. As for what software I use? Paint Tool SAI. It's the same program I use for drawing and it wasn't designed for pixel art but I use it anyway. Gotta stick with what you're familiar with or so they say...

What is the design methodology when designing rooms?
Nikola: I find it comfortable enough to make about 20-30 rooms per hour (that includes testing and tweaking each room multiple times). What tool you use is a matter of preference honestly, you just have to use what you're the most comfortable with, as I am definitely a creature of habit. The way I make rooms heavily relies on what new enemies/obstacles Vinh gives me to play around with. I try to make some basic rooms of varying difficulties with the new entities, then I make a bunch of rooms pairing those up with complimenting enemies. Sometimes I might even think up with interesting ways that new mechanic reacts to other mechanics to make the occasional interesting rooms.

A lot of the new content in Repentance is meant to be harder than the base game, so for many of the rooms I try to put the enemies far apart from each other. This way players with busted item combos don't clear the room as soon as they enter it. I also try to avoid putting spikes or other dangerous obstacles 2 tiles in front of a door, as to avoid players accidentally getting hurt when backtracking and not paying attention.

How did you find working with the Isaac code base so far?
Vinh: Oh I'll need to go back a few years for this one. When I got Real Platinum God in Rebirth, I immediately started taking the game apart to really understand how it works (is that okay to talk about?). This was my chance to add all the items I had in mind so how could I resist? It took me almost half a year to gain near full understanding of the engine, from there we started more and more items, then moved onto more ambitious things like enemies and levels, then we got a tiny bit carried away and Antibirth happened.

After spending a couple years working with the Isaac engine unofficially, working on the Forgotten Booster and Repentance was basically like being in familiar territory and nothing really changed. I wouldn't be able to tell you how I make enemies and items, all I know is that I usually have a vague idea of what something in the game should do, then I type some code and it eventually does what I want. I can assure you I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time and Nik can probably confirm this, he's witnessed it for himself.

Sometimes it takes a lot of trial and error to get something that really feels right. The Forgotten is probably my second proudest achievement and I'm so glad he got a positive reception. He ended up quite different from his initial design, the soul was originally pink and didn't have a chain but we ended up making it blue once we decided it would be more interesting if it could only get soul hearts, and the chain was added to give an incentive to switch back and forth instead of staying as the soul and ditching the skeleton. My one proudest achievement? You'll have to wait until release for that one!

Are there room designs from Rebirth, Afterbirth or Afterbirth+ that you really enjoyed and tried to emulate?
Nikola: For the sake of consistency I do try to look at Ed's previous rooms as a guide. To me it's almost like the older the rooms are the more "pure" they are to me, and I sometimes look at them for inspiration. I also like to sometimes reference old rooms from previous DLCs, mostly to draw parallels between the "Base path" rooms and the "Alternative path" rooms. As for what to look forward to: I play this game every day and I'm no pro. I'm the closest thing to a casual player on the team, and I like to play the game a little bit "relaxed". So when something I did in a room bothers me a bit too much or I think it could have been more fair, I tweak it accordingly.

You've been doing pixel art for a few years now.
SAG: I've been doing pixel art since Rebirth came out. I found it an interesting subject to get my feet wet in. Eventually I branched out to other games that utilize pixel art like Nuclear Throne and to some extent, Enter The Gungeon. Making mods for other games is a fun challenge that really tests how well you can imitate their unique artstyles. In a similar way with Antibirth becoming official, there are those that push their skills to the absolute limit, and get their creations recognized enough to be put in the official game. Check out TF2 for example! They have a powerful community filled to the brim with boundless creativity.

TO BE CONTINUED...