The Binding of Isaac

• There's an item on every floor in a special room marked by a crown on the map and a yellow border around the door, but on every floor besides the first it's locked. Always have at least one key to open that room.

- There's a secret room on every floor. A couple items will tell you where it is and you can find it by bombing walls. There's a pattern to where it spawns, though TEMPORARY-DASH-CHARACTER it can only spawn in a 'blank' map tile with at least 3 rooms touching it (except occasionally on the first floor where there sometimes are no such groupings of rooms)

- There are some rocks that are suspiciously dark-grey. Bomb them for goodies.

- When an item says it "appeared in the basement" that just means it will now spawn (some items you have to do particular things before they'll spawn); it doesn't necessarily mean that they're somewhere in your current game

- If you have a bomb or two, it's worth looking for the secret room. It's almost always bordered on three sides. If you see a blank, black space on the map that is bordered by 3 sides, throw a bomb down. You'll get money, most often, which is very valuable.

- For the late game, The Compass is probably the most valuable defensive item there is. It allows you to make a bee line for the boss rather than explore, which is important.

- The game will be a bewildering nightmare until you start figuring out what things will do. Enjoy it! I have all the items memorized and it was fun getting there.

- Pills: at the start of each game, you get a random set of 6 pills. They can be a stat up or down (anything other than damage), as well as a couple of other miscellaneous effects. Always take pills! If it's bad, you'll only take it once but if it's good, you'll know what to look for. Pill colors are random at the beginning of the playthrough but are consistent within one game. So if you see a red/white pill and it's a health up, it will always be a health up in that game.

- Try to unlock the first two training wheel characters. Try to get a lot of money (without spending it) in one playthrough, and try to get a lot of hearts in one playthrough (without trading them to the devil). Both Maggie and Cain are easier for new players to play with, for the most part.

- Deals with the devil are your friend but think hard before taking them, especially if you're just starting out. If you're new to the game, the health could be worth hanging on to.

- You may have figured some (or most) of this out after 20 hours, but heres a few things for Binding of Issac: Rebirth (I dont have the afterbirth expansion because it still isnt out on PS4). I am far from a master of this game, but I've played it a shitload.

- The main helpful "hidden" thing is knowing that the secret room is connected to multiple rooms, all of which must give possible access (eg the wall joined to the secret room cant be blocked by rocks or whatever). Its usually 3 rooms, if not then 4, if not 3 or 4 then 2. This can be very handy if one of those rooms is a treasure room/shop and you have lots of bombs and no keys.

- Similarly the super secret room is only ever joined to 1 room, and its usually as close to the boss room as it can be (although not always), and again the joining wall cant be blocked with anything.

- The main way to improve your chances of getting a devil room is to avoid being hit at all on the floor, particularly by the boss. There are other modifiers (blowing up beggers or shopkeepers for example), but avoiding taking red heart damage (IIRC) is one of the biggest. If you see a devil room and dont trade hearts for anything in it, you have a chance to spawn an angel room on the next level. Again, there are other modifiers for an angel room (donating to the donation machine or donating to a coin begger until he gives you an item and fucks off), and I dont think its ever guaranteed (unless you have the goat head item).

- On that note, donating to the donation machine unlocks a few good items (the candles). Do not donate over 999 coins, 999 coins in the machine is the last unlock, putting in one more resets it to 0. If you dont reset it you can always bomb it to get coins out (note the number on the machine goes down by more than the coins you get if you do this).

- Try the Challenges, they vary from fun to unbearable shit, but they are all beatable and some let you practise with item interactions you wouldnt have necessarily seen otherwise. In some cases I beat them by using a dice room to reroll the manditory items into some crazy overpowered build or by transforming into Guppy, but it still counts.

- Worth mentioning I suppose; If you havent seen it already, a Guppy transformation is achieved by picking up 3 "guppy" items in one playthrough. They are the Dead Cat, Guppys Head, Guppys Paw, Guppys hairball, Guppys Tail, and Guppys Collar. As guppy you can fly and hits on enemies generate blue flies. There is also a "Lord of the Flies" transformation for getting 3 fly items but it isnt nearly as good. If you can be guppy, you should be guppy. Taking an early Dead Cat is hellish if you are a new player but with practice having one heart isnt a big deal.

- Not all characters are created equal, some are legit better than others, some have an advantage/disadvantage that you prefer to another. After 20 hours, you've probably unlocked a few of them? If not you will eventually through more or less normal play.

- Aside from that, I'd say just play around and see what items you like and which you dont, what works well with what and so on. If there are some items you hate (for me its cursed eye) learn what they look like and avoid them.

- Isaac is absolutely not a game where you need to pick up every item you see. if you like what you currently have, you dont need to pick up something that replaces it.

- "Soy Milk" is fucking terrible 99% of the time. Opinion is divided whether thats a bug or deliberate. Either way its probably not getting fixed. It increases your RoF while dropping your damage, but the 2 arent equal so even if you hit with every tear your dps is worse than it was without it.