It's fair to say that Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth is my favourite game, since I invested a few hours into it... With this being said I won't review it because my opinion will obviously influence my review, I will critique it using the concepts written by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in the book Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

The authors came up with five concepts that players should find in every game. These are: Physics, Internal Economy, Progression Mechanisms, Tactical Maneuvering and Social Interaction.

Physics are very important in video games, because natural laws like gravity, mass, inertia can be applied in a game to either make it realistic or to distort reality. Not only the Newtonian physics are affected by game physics, it can also affect sparks, explosions or even smoke.
The controls in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth are quite simple. The characters use physics for movement using the WASD keys and firing tears using the arrow keys.
There are a few items in the game that distort the veracity of the physics.
Such as Fate, Lord of the Pit, Spirit of the Night and a few synergies that gives the player the ability to fly. And tear effects that makes the character to shoot stationary tears (Anti-gravity), gravitational tears (Tiny Planet), bombs (IPECAC, Dr. Fetus and Epic Fetus), knife (Mom’s Knife) and even lasers (Technology, Technology 2, Tech X, Brimstone, Mega Blast and Shoop Da Whoop). Not counting with the synergies that can occur if the player mixes two or more of those items.

Real life has an economy based on a system that produces currency or other objects that have a monetary value.
However, there is other type of economy in games, it is called internal economy, which includes all kinds of resources, such as: Health, XP (experience), skills, levels, ammo and a lot more. In order to know better a video game’s gameplay, it is very important to understand how its economy works. How to get resources and how to spend them, in order to benefit the player.
This game has a great quantity of examples for internal economy. It has coins, keys, bombs, and HP.
The coins allow the player to buy items, consumables, gamble on slot machines. It even can contribute to the player’s damage if the item Money = Power has been picked up.
The Bombs are used to blow up tinted rocks (that gives spirit hearts, keys, bombs, golden chests or Small Rock). Bombs can be used also to find secret rooms, or simply as a damage dealer.
Keys are required to get into certain rooms, such as Item Rooms, Shop, Double key rooms, libraries… It is also required to open golden chests.
There are different types of HP, there are red hearts (usually gained from an item), spirit hearts and black hearts, the last two are temporary and are important in the beginning of every run. The temporary HP are used to protect red hearts so the player can access Deals with the Devil, these deals consume red hearts in exchange of some powerful items. If the player runs out of red hearts, temporary hearts can be exchanged as well.

Progression Mechanisms are one of the most important type of mechanism of any video game. And the reason for this is that it can engage players into spending lots of hours in a game just to try to beat the high score, to get through a level or to finish a game. There are lots of examples of progression mechanisms, such as: defeating an end level boss, puzzles, scores, getting certain items that allows players to proceed in the story, allowing access to more advanced levels and narratives.
In Binding of Isaac the progression mechanism is to defeat bosses in order to go to the next floor. There are ways to go around that method, if the player has the item We need to go deeper! or an ehwaz rune, he can create a trap door in the ground and go to the next level. This is a viable way if the player is powerful enough or wants to get to Boss rush or the Hush fight on time, because jumping boss fights and possibly Deals with the Devil can have a great impact on the player’s stats, making the player weaker since the difficulty level goes up with every floor.

Tactical Maneuvering is very important mostly in strategy games, because it gives benefits to players if certain units are located in the right place. However, each video game is unique and tactics differs from player to player, depending on how aggressively or how passively players tend to play the game.
There are lots of things we need to consider before talking about Tactical Maneuvering. Since the game is randomly generated, the player can’t count on a certain item to show up at any time.
So it’s hard to have a defined tactic and it’s better to adjust the way the game is played with the items that are given. For instance: a player with the synergy brimstone + guppy will play differently of a player that has the synergy tiny planet + mom’s knife.
Other thing that affects tactics is the amount of HP that the player has. This will affect the run especially in Deals with the Devil because there are lots of times that the player can’t make a Deal with the Devil given his low HP.

Nowadays, the activity of playing video games is becoming more of a social activity. There are two ways of playing games with other people, either by the Internet or by LAN parties. One important step to improve social interaction in the gaming world was the creation of gaming platforms such as Steam or Desura, these incentivize players to socialize, talk, discuss game-related matters, and share their experiences and to play video games together.
Binding of Isaac is a single-player game, however it can be played with another person in a local co-op scenario. One thing that came up with the DLC Afterbirth is the daily challenges, where lots of people can play the same seed, and in the end there’s a leaderboard where people can compare their scores. This is the only way that people can socialize in this game.

For a video game to be good it must follow some rules, which will allow players to become engaged while playing the game. For Adams and Dormans there are five different types of mechanics that a player could find in any game.
The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth can fit in all of those concepts excellently, with the only exception being the social interaction (which still is pretty good for a single-player game!).
After 830 hours, this game still surprises me for its complexity and for its coherency. Edmund and his team made an amazing work with this gem here, and I encourage everyone to try this game.

It's fair to say that Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth is my favourite game, since I invested a few hours into it... With this being said I won't review it because my opinion will obviously influence my review, I will critique it using the concepts written by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in the book [i]Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.[/i] The authors came up with five concepts that players should find in every game. These are: Physics, Internal Economy, Progression Mechanisms, Tactical Maneuvering and Social Interaction. [h1]Physics:[/h1] Physics are very important in video games, because natural laws like gravity, mass, inertia can be applied in a game to either make it realistic or to distort reality. Not only the Newtonian physics are affected by game physics, it can also affect sparks, explosions or even smoke. The controls in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth are quite simple. The characters use physics for movement using the WASD keys and firing tears using the arrow keys. There are a few items in the game that distort the veracity of the physics. Such as Fate, Lord of the Pit, Spirit of the Night and a few synergies that gives the player the ability to fly. And tear effects that makes the character to shoot stationary tears (Anti-gravity), gravitational tears (Tiny Planet), bombs (IPECAC, Dr. Fetus and Epic Fetus), knife (Mom’s Knife) and even lasers (Technology, Technology 2, Tech X, Brimstone, Mega Blast and Shoop Da Whoop). Not counting with the synergies that can occur if the player mixes two or more of those items. [h1]Internal Economy:[/h1] Real life has an economy based on a system that produces currency or other objects that have a monetary value. However, there is other type of economy in games, it is called internal economy, which includes all kinds of resources, such as: Health, XP (experience), skills, levels, ammo and a lot more. In order to know better a video game’s gameplay, it is very important to understand how its economy works. How to get resources and how to spend them, in order to benefit the player. This game has a great quantity of examples for internal economy. It has coins, keys, bombs, and HP. The coins allow the player to buy items, consumables, gamble on slot machines. It even can contribute to the player’s damage if the item Money = Power has been picked up. The Bombs are used to blow up tinted rocks (that gives spirit hearts, keys, bombs, golden chests or Small Rock). Bombs can be used also to find secret rooms, or simply as a damage dealer. Keys are required to get into certain rooms, such as Item Rooms, Shop, Double key rooms, libraries… It is also required to open golden chests. There are different types of HP, there are red hearts (usually gained from an item), spirit hearts and black hearts, the last two are temporary and are important in the beginning of every run. The temporary HP are used to protect red hearts so the player can access Deals with the Devil, these deals consume red hearts in exchange of some powerful items. If the player runs out of red hearts, temporary hearts can be exchanged as well. [h1] Progression Mechanisms:[/h1] Progression Mechanisms are one of the most important type of mechanism of any video game. And the reason for this is that it can engage players into spending lots of hours in a game just to try to beat the high score, to get through a level or to finish a game. There are lots of examples of progression mechanisms, such as: defeating an end level boss, puzzles, scores, getting certain items that allows players to proceed in the story, allowing access to more advanced levels and narratives. In Binding of Isaac the progression mechanism is to defeat bosses in order to go to the next floor. There are ways to go around that method, if the player has the item We need to go deeper! or an ehwaz rune, he can create a trap door in the ground and go to the next level. This is a viable way if the player is powerful enough or wants to get to Boss rush or the Hush fight on time, because jumping boss fights and possibly Deals with the Devil can have a great impact on the player’s stats, making the player weaker since the difficulty level goes up with every floor. [h1]Tactical Maneuvering:[/h1] Tactical Maneuvering is very important mostly in strategy games, because it gives benefits to players if certain units are located in the right place. However, each video game is unique and tactics differs from player to player, depending on how aggressively or how passively players tend to play the game. There are lots of things we need to consider before talking about Tactical Maneuvering. Since the game is randomly generated, the player can’t count on a certain item to show up at any time. So it’s hard to have a defined tactic and it’s better to adjust the way the game is played with the items that are given. For instance: a player with the synergy brimstone + guppy will play differently of a player that has the synergy tiny planet + mom’s knife. Other thing that affects tactics is the amount of HP that the player has. This will affect the run especially in Deals with the Devil because there are lots of times that the player can’t make a Deal with the Devil given his low HP. [h1]Social Interaction:[/h1] Nowadays, the activity of playing video games is becoming more of a social activity. There are two ways of playing games with other people, either by the Internet or by LAN parties. One important step to improve social interaction in the gaming world was the creation of gaming platforms such as Steam or Desura, these incentivize players to socialize, talk, discuss game-related matters, and share their experiences and to play video games together. Binding of Isaac is a single-player game, however it can be played with another person in a local co-op scenario. One thing that came up with the DLC Afterbirth is the daily challenges, where lots of people can play the same seed, and in the end there’s a leaderboard where people can compare their scores. This is the only way that people can socialize in this game. [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] For a video game to be good it must follow some rules, which will allow players to become engaged while playing the game. For Adams and Dormans there are five different types of mechanics that a player could find in any game. The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth can fit in all of those concepts excellently, with the only exception being the social interaction (which still is pretty good for a single-player game!). After 830 hours, this game still surprises me for its complexity and for its coherency. Edmund and his team made an amazing work with this gem here, and I encourage everyone to try this game.