_Kilburn AMA

[WitchAmy]

So today there was an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Isaac official discord server, featuring _Kilburn - the lead programmer of Repentance. I have participated in the AMA and it has been absolutely great and uncovered a ton of information.
I've decided to share the most important things with the Steam community, so here you go!

(Also, one of the moderators on the discord server is going to publish a recording of the entire AMA soon, so you can watch it by yourselves!)

All the information I could gather

-Kil will try to release the void revamp in 2022 and a fix for custom rooms on Monday, but no promises
-Mortis coming eventually
-More synergies for t.Apollyon's locusts coming eventually
-New resprites on their way if NotYourSagittarius and SnakeBlock (two Repentance spriters and artists) are up to it
-A new character could come out eventually
-More small patches will come out regularly
-Kil really likes the concept of subthemes to floors, like Fiend Folio does
-Kil is talking with LeatherIceCream (room and enemy designer) about a complete greed mode rework, but nothing set in stone
-Kil will move on to other projects eventually, but for now he's enjoying working on Isaac
-Fixing bugs and working on the mod system is top priority rn
-More reworks to items are probably coming
-Kil is going on vacation next month
-Devil deals were probably over-nerfed. There are a few devil deal items that could need a buff
-Using Lazarus Rags with t. Forgotten and becoming THE THING was intentional
-More changes to donation machines on their way
-There's an unimplemented quality system concerning items as t. cain? (Not sure, haven't really understood this one well)
-Kil said there's no way they'll add a new item for every single completion mark as t.characters because they would be too many to add. This said, he said that he can't promise anything, but they could do something about it
-He likes the idea of custom mod presets/modpacks but said he'd have to find a proper way to do it
-Ed wants to play Among Us with the rest of the dev team
-Cut bosses will be added eventually
-Kil hates R key
-Kil is still figuring out a clever way to nerf Echo Chamber
-Apparently Black Champion Scolex was meant to be Black Champion Pin but someone made a typo
-Kil would like to make t.Eden feel more visually unique
-Kil would like to work more on champion versions of bosses
-He referred to Colostomia as "Her"
-Tainted Laz was almost based off of the Chronos mod
-Repentance mod api 2.0 is a thing Kil would like to do, but it would require a lot of work
-The angel room pool for Ultra Secret Rooms was just a placeholder because they couldn't come up with a proper pool
-The donation machine change was Kil's idea
-Kil considered making alt floors more secret and unique, like doing "Downpour, Mines, Mausoleum, ecc..." instead of "Downpour I and II, Mines I and II, Mausoleum I and II, ecc...
-J&E don't need a buff according to Kil
-Kil likes Corpse Eaters, he just needs to figure something out to implement them better in rep
-The "Mysterious Candy" trinket could maybe benefit a tweak
-Blue Baby does not need buffs
-Kil would like to add more enemies to the Mausoleum
-Tainted laz wasn't supposed to be a challenge character, but then kil went with it until he realized it didn't work in practice
-Kil has no involvement with console ports
-Concepts for new curses are hard to come up with
-Kil's favorite new item is Suplex, while his least favorite is R key
-New synergies for Spirit Sword on their way
-Kil said that Isaac does not work too well with the concept of daily runs, but at the end, everyone plays the game however they want
-Kil wanted to rework victory laps for Repentance's release. The rework obviously didn't make the cut, but he'd like to make it (although it's not high priority)
-If Kil reworked dailies, it would be tweaking the score system, messing around with pools and stuff, but it's too early to talk about this. Kil would personally like dailies to be endless runs in which you go further as much as you can, but he understands it wouldn't probably be the best choice
-Northernlion is Kil's favorite Isaac content creator
-Kil would like to make online coop an official feature, but he doesn't know if it'll be implemented
-Kil's favorite color scheme is red and black, but also yellow with other stuff
-Tainted Isaac, t.Eden, t.Samson and t.Judas were surprisingly easy to make. t.Samson had Berserk as a pocket active before but was scrapped to have less control over it, cause it felt boring once you saved it for the boss
-Kil thinks that Epic Fetus ignoring your tear rate is not good, so he'd like to make a rework to it
-New achievements on their way, there's always room for them
-Sisters Vis and Rag Mega reworks confirmed
-The Red key was originally inspired by a recurring theme in Kil's dreams were he was in a familiar place with a door in places where it shouldn't have been. He would always wake up before opening that door. It was Ed's idea to expand its concept and link it to Mom and t.Characters
-He probably overbuffed angel rooms, he needs to come up with a proper way to counteract that tho
-Kil is not planning a C-Section nerf unless people start complaining too much about it. He acknowledges it's a really good item tho
-He likes raspberry ice cream
-Kil has ideas for new challenges, but nothing is set in stone yet
-Kil doesn't like achievements tied to dailies, but Ed does
-Kil likes Blue Baby's music theme. If he reworked bosses like Blue Baby, he would just listen to their soundtracks since he gets a lot of inspiration just from the OSTs. The same happened with Ashpit's creation process
-If Hornfel played TF2, he would be a Demoman main
-Kil thought people would like Jupiter because it's kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ item (farts haha). He's surprised people don't really like the item as much as he thought they would
-"Infinite Eden tokens for a full save" is on Kil's list
-Tainted Round Worms could deserve an hp buff
-Curses are kind of just an annoyance rn according to Kil, so he'd like to rework them
-One idea for a Keeper rework was giving him 99 coins as his life, but he'd have no invincibility frames so that he'd lose them faster. This got scrapped because it didn't fit that well
-Originally, he called the t.characters as "b.skins" since they reminded him about those in Nuclear Throne
-Kil already wanted to make t.characters before knowing that ed had the same idea. Ed pushed the idea to what we have now
-The most overused character is Eden according to Kil, even tho Kil doesn't really like playing as him
-Alt t.characters not happening
-Posthumous anti bosses are apparently a maybe but his tone didn't seem too reassuring
-Dumplings are NOT off the table and lil Dumpy will probably get a buff

So that's all I could get from the AMA by myself and my friends. Once again, there will be a recording of the entire event published on Youtube soon, so you can rewatch it from start to finish. I will post a link here when it happens.

[Nazemec]

-Using Lazarus Rags with t.Forgotten and becoming THE THING was intentional

Wait, what? Well, I know what I'll check next time I launch the game.

[squat_instructor]

fairly certain Eden being overused is solely due to streaks being played on him

also I think the joke behind Jupiter is good because 'gas giant' = you get huge and fart a lot but it does not translate into fun gameplay sadly

[UwU]

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

-Ed wants to play Among Us with the rest of the dev team

The most important one

[mraz]

Kinda hard to find development info for isaac, thanks for that sum up.

Does anyone know, if Repentance is last DLC for Isaac. And wil theyl stop development in near future?

[WitchAmy]

Originally posted by tomcat:

Kinda hard to find development info for isaac, thanks for that sum up.

Does anyone know, if Repentance is last DLC for Isaac. And wil theyl stop development in near future?

as far as I know, Repentance is the "last" DLC (like Afterbirth+, which also was supposed to be the last one). I highly doubt there will be another but, on the other hand, I won't be surprised if it will actually happen.
Kilburn does want to work on the game for as long as he feels like.

In addition, Ed said that he wants to make Isaac 2 at some point but that won't happen until at least 5 years pass.

[mraz]

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

as far as I know, Repentance is the "last" DLC (like Afterbirth+, which also was supposed to be the last one). I highly doubt there will be another but, on the other hand, I won't be surprised if it will actually happen.
Kilburn does want to work on the game for as long as he feels like.

In addition, Ed said that he wants to make Isaac 2 at some point but that won't happen until at least 5 years pass.

Thanks for answer.

Sad to hear that, I would gladly pay for another DLC if they make one.
And hope i wont be too old to play Isaac 2 at the moment they release it.

[Nazemec]

Originally posted by tomcat:

And hope i wont be too old to play Isaac 2 at the moment they release it.

"Too old to play"? You mean when you're grown up you're supposed to live a miserable life?
You better change your mindset right now, for your own good.

Originally posted by Nazemec:

-Using Lazarus Rags with t.Forgotten and becoming THE THING was intentional

Wait, what? Well, I know what I'll check next time I launch the game.

Just tested it.
WHAT THE HELL?!

[TommyDLBassX]

Originally posted by tomcat:

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

as far as I know, Repentance is the "last" DLC (like Afterbirth+, which also was supposed to be the last one). I highly doubt there will be another but, on the other hand, I won't be surprised if it will actually happen.
Kilburn does want to work on the game for as long as he feels like.

In addition, Ed said that he wants to make Isaac 2 at some point but that won't happen until at least 5 years pass.

Thanks for answer.

Sad to hear that, I would gladly pay for another DLC if they make one.
And hope i wont be too old to play Isaac 2 at the moment they release it.

They went silent for 6 months and the game still has bugs and things like Delirium and you are asking for another DLC...

[TommyDLBassX]

"Kil said that Isaac does not work too well with the concept of daily runs"
???

[WitchAmy]

Originally posted by TommyDLBassX:

Originally posted by tomcat:

Thanks for answer.

Sad to hear that, I would gladly pay for another DLC if they make one.
And hope i wont be too old to play Isaac 2 at the moment they release it.

They went silent for 6 months and the game still has bugs and things like Delirium and you are asking for another DLC...

I mean what's wrong with it? I'd also want another DLC. And nobody said we need it now. If it'll ever happen, I can wait even 4 years.

[TommyDLBassX]

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

Originally posted by TommyDLBassX:

They went silent for 6 months and the game still has bugs and things like Delirium and you are asking for another DLC...

I mean what's wrong with it? I'd also want another DLC. And nobody said we need it now. If it'll ever happen, I can wait even 4 years.

What's wrong? Man, the delivered a half made DLC and waited to update the game 6 months for no reason at all instead of giving small updates fixing basic things. One man can't do a gigantic job like that, specially for a multimillionare game like this with thousand of people playing daily... Yeah is wrong to ask more content when they can't even finish what they sold at time. If anything, I would be down after fixing all the gamebreaking Bugs and Greedier mod/Delirium... But again, I lost pretty much all my will to keep playing after watching how Nicalis (Tyrone) and Ed treated the fans at A+ and how they overwork one dude now for no reason at all

[WitchAmy]

Originally posted by TommyDLBassX:

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

I mean what's wrong with it? I'd also want another DLC. And nobody said we need it now. If it'll ever happen, I can wait even 4 years.

What's wrong? Man, the delivered a half made DLC and waited to update the game 6 months for no reason at all instead of giving small updates fixing basic things. One man can't do a gigantic job like that, specially for a multimillionare game like this with thousand of people playing daily... Yeah is wrong to ask more content when they can't even finish what they sold at time. If anything, I would be down after fixing all the gamebreaking Bugs and Greedier mod/Delirium... But again, I lost pretty much all my will to keep playing after watching how Nicalis (Tyrone) and Ed treated the fans at A+ and how they overwork one dude now for no reason at all

Do you know the reason they couldn't give us smaller, more frequent patches? Well I do.
It was also said in the AMA and it goes somewhat like this:

"We were too far in the tainted patch, and splitting the update into smaller patches would cause more issues than it would help"

Once again, I am not saying I need the DLC NOW. I can wait for Kilburn to fix, polish and improve all the things he wants to, I can wait for him to have a break as long as he wants.

Stop whining already

[HeraldOfOpera]

"-Tainted laz wasn't supposed to be a challenge character, but then kil went with it until he realized it didn't work in practice (thanks Sand for this one :salute_cain:)"
Notice this, in comparison to the two challenge characters he's saying don't need changes. Like yes, if characters are supposed to be hard it's going to take a lot more to convince the dev to make them easier to play as. T.Jacob managing to cross that line is actually a big deal.

[TommyDLBassX]

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

Originally posted by TommyDLBassX:

What's wrong? Man, the delivered a half made DLC and waited to update the game 6 months for no reason at all instead of giving small updates fixing basic things. One man can't do a gigantic job like that, specially for a multimillionare game like this with thousand of people playing daily... Yeah is wrong to ask more content when they can't even finish what they sold at time. If anything, I would be down after fixing all the gamebreaking Bugs and Greedier mod/Delirium... But again, I lost pretty much all my will to keep playing after watching how Nicalis (Tyrone) and Ed treated the fans at A+ and how they overwork one dude now for no reason at all

Do you know the reason they couldn't give us smaller, more frequent patches? Well I do.
It was also said in the AMA and it goes somewhat like this:

"We were too far in the tainted patch, and splitting the update into smaller patches would cause more issues than it would help"

Once again, I am not saying I need the DLC NOW. I can wait for Kilburn to fix, polish and improve all the things he wants to, I can wait for him to have a break as long as he wants.

Stop whining already

Is not my problem to fix the game my dude lmao I bought the dlc on preorder day one, I am the first supporting this DLC because Kil ideas fit with the game and he clearly has talent.
I have been saying for weeks now that if anything, Kil needs absolutely more help to do his job since one person can't deal with a gigantic game like this. I am asking to much? Apparently you are ok with him being overworked. Ha. Also, that is not an excuse to pospone any update for 6 months my dude, totally unnacceptable because there were some run breaking things and as today we still have some of them and crashes, besides Delirium that was never fixed by Nicalis for some reason...
And yeah forget about a DLC, is for the better to leave the community work on mods as adds now imo, that's the reason mods exist anyway, they can't keep supporting a game like this forever specially with the horrible base code of rebirth...

[WitchAmy]

Originally posted by TommyDLBassX:

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

Do you know the reason they couldn't give us smaller, more frequent patches? Well I do.
It was also said in the AMA and it goes somewhat like this:

"We were too far in the tainted patch, and splitting the update into smaller patches would cause more issues than it would help"

Once again, I am not saying I need the DLC NOW. I can wait for Kilburn to fix, polish and improve all the things he wants to, I can wait for him to have a break as long as he wants.

Stop whining already

Is not my problem to fix the game my dude lmao I bought the dlc on preorder day one, I am the first supporting this DLC because Kil ideas fit with the game and he clearly has talent.
I have been saying for weeks now that if anything, Kil needs absolutely more help to do his job since one person can't deal with a gigantic game like this. I am asking to much? Apparently you are ok with him being overworked. Ha. Also, that is not an excuse to pospone any update for 6 months my dude, totally unnacceptable because there were some run breaking things and as today we still have some of them and crashes, besides Delirium that was never fixed by Nicalis for some reason...
And yeah forget about a DLC, is for the better to leave the community work on mods as adds now imo, that's the reason mods exist anyway, they can't keep supporting a game like this forever specially with the horrible base code of rebirth...

Did you read what I said?
Where did I say I am OK with kil being overworked???????
And read once more - if the update was split into smaller patches, it would bring more issues than it would fix.