What if God told you that you must kill your son? The story of Isaac is an often-discussed test of faith from the Hebrew Bible in which Abraham is told to sacrifice his son Isaac, only to be told to spare the child's life at the last moment and slaughter a ram that was entangled in the brush nearby instead. The game's story begins much the same way, with a modern day child trying to escape his mother's attempt on his life due to a religious vision. The game's graphics may be cute, but the content is chilling. Isaac escapes through a trap door in his room, and finds what amounts to hell under his house.

The game was created by Edmund McMillen, one-half of the team behind the indie hit Super Meat Boy, and programmer Florian Himsl. Why create a game so soon after the success of Super Meat Boy? "I was bored... honestly. Tommy (Refenes, the other half of Team Meat) was going to take a vacation and I wanted to do the same, but I hate traveling," McMillen told Ars. "I thought instead I'd do a little game jam with another friend of mine, Florian, who I'd done a few games with in the past. It was supposed to be a game in a week.. and it just ballooned."

The game is out now on Steam, works on both Mac and PC, and is only $5. It has obvious influences, but after a few moments of play, you'll find a unique experience.

The game features random dungeons, enemies, and items, so each time you play you have a completely new experience. You move with the WASD keys while firing with the arrow keys, and you must go from room to room collecting items, destroying enemies, and solving puzzles. There are a selection of boss characters to fight, items that change how your character looks and acts, and ultimately a story to uncover. There are multiple endings, so you'll want to finish the game more than once to see everything.

While the graphics may look cute and whimsical, the dark tone of the game is disturbing. Isaac is fighting for his life after escaping his mother's attempt at religious sacrifice, and according to the game she's acting on the orders of God himself. Isaac has been systematically abused and terrorized by her in the the past. He's fighting these horrific monsters with his own tears. This isn't the proud hero of the Legend of Zelda series, this is a small child who is the victim of real horrors.

The game offers you a series of items that upgrade Isaac and make him more powerful, and they also change his appearance so that he slowly becomes something monstrous and ugly. Other items will grant you special attacks, but it can be unclear which each item actually does until you use it. The game is filled with this sort of content, so even after hours of playtime there is room for surprise. In fact, the random nature of the gameplay is the reason the game went from an experiment to a full release.

"I had this experience where the game generated an experience that I didn't realize was possible," McMillen told Ars. "The random aspects of the game's design totally surprised me, and I designed them. I knew after that that if I put a few more months into development I could create something that I could be very proud of, so I went all in."

The game is fascinating to play; the subject matter and hints at Isaac's life are, again, brutal and hard to stomach. "But okay, say God provided the ram. So what? Once Abraham raised the knife, it was as if he'd kiIIed [Isaac] in his heart," a character argues in the film The Believer. "He couId never forget that and neither couId Isaac. He's traumatized. He's a putz the rest of his Iife."

Other interpretations say that Abraham was testing God, and since Abraham had absolute faith in a just and loving deity he knew he would never be asked to bring the knife down. In many ways, the arguments come down to a torturous game of chicken, with God and Abraham trying to determine who would blink first.

Whichever interpretation you believe, the father and son had to leave the mountain and continue their lives, and what do you suppose that dinner conversation sounded like? By placing the emphasis of the story on Isaac himself, this game makes a few interesting points about the original text by recontextualizing the story for modern times. The results are scary, but thought provoking.