The Birth of Rebirth

Hello, I’m not Edmund McMillen. I’m Tyrone Rodriguez, part of Nicalis—the developer/publisher working with Ed on The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. I’ve taken over the blog for today’s update, which will have a focus on console along with new information seeds.

You probably don’t know who the hell I am. I’ve worked on other games like Cave Story and more recently 1001 Spikes.

To tell you what you should expect on PlayStation 4 and PS Vita I have to take you back to how we started. Isaac Rebirth was originally envisioned as a 3DS game back in 2012 by Ed and I. With that said, the native resolution of The Binding of Isaac was going to be 400x240. However, some things had to be changed once we increased the scope of the game and went the way of PlayStation 4 and PS Vita instead of 3DS.

For PlayStation 4, PS Vita and even PC the native resolution is 480x272. Why such an odd resolution? Aside from being the most versatile resolution across PC and most consoles with semi-16:9 screen, this resolution is a good fit for pixel art AND lets us we get everything we need on-screen in Rebirth.

The differences between the PS Vita and PS4 versions will be generally visual/superficial. The PS Vita DOES NOT have the CPU/GPU of the PS4 and that means not all the crazy special effects and shaders will be in the PS Vita version. Visually, there’s A LOT going on with Rebirth and on Vita we’ve prioritized the game feeling good and being fun. Anyone who’s played the flash version of Isaac can tell you trying to play at 10fps is anything but fun. That doesn’t mean the Vita version won’t look awesome, it just means that if you want all the visual effects, you’ll be play on PS4 or PC. If you want to play anywhere, you’ll be playing on Vita.

But what you will get with the PS Vita (and PS4) is a console version of Rebirth that will run at 60 fps (the original flash version was 30 fps) with analog/digital control support and fully configurable control mapping. So now everyone will be happy—even southpaws.

PlayStation 4 Control

By default, you’ll move and shoot using both digital and analog controls. That way you can play with analog movement and analog firing, analog movement and digital firing or any combination. The pill, item and bomb are all, by default, set to the shoulder buttons.

PS Vita Control

The PlayStation Vita is “missing” two additional buttons, but we’ve found a decent work around. The general configuration will be similar to PS4 in that, by default, both digital and analog input work for movement and firing. The shoulder buttons are used for Pill and Bomb and the Select button is used for Item.

Changing map size is handled with the front touch screen. We’ve put a border around the touch screen so that you don’t activate the larger map by accident. There is no use for the rear touch because it’s not precise.

NONE OF THIS MATTERS!

Because The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth has a fully configurable button setup. You can literally set the buttons as you like. And we’re certain that you’ll change them around almost instantly. For example, on Vita, if you know you only play with analog movement and firing, then you can move all the vital inputs to the face buttons and not have to mess around with the shoulder buttons.

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SEEDS

So you’ve heard Ed and I mention unique seeds for Isaac Rebirth, but we haven’t told you everything, not entirely. As part of today’s update, let’s give you some more information on them

What you probably do know is that in the original Binding of Isaac (that is, the flash version), floors were produced randomly the moment you entered them. In Rebirth, the seed determines every floor layout, room, enemy and item in the run. There are 2^32 - 1 or 4,294,967,295 possible seeds—over 4 BILLION combinations.

And what this means is that if you’re playing and find a really fun or challenging run, you can find out the seed, write it down and replay it later or send it to your friends.

If you and your friend have a different set of items unlocked, you will mostly see the same items in the same places, but any items the seed generates which you haven’t unlocked will be replaced with one you do have.

However, you will not be able to unlock anything while you are playing a seeded run, so you can’t cheat to unlock everything easily.

Lastly, the seed is 8 characters in the format ABCD EFGH with all alphanumeric characters allowed except the letters I, O, U, and V—because those look too much like other letters.

Follow me on twitter @tyronerodriguez or don’t (I’ll be crying over here)