Everything you need to know about Booster Pack #1!

##Hey everybody! Welcome back to another one of Binding of Isaac posts.

Today I wanted to showcase the new and first, Booster Pack! It should be noted first that if you want to view this in a video format, like always, a link to the video can be found right here. I recommend it a decent amount here as I showcase each new thing in the Booster Pack visually. (Also for the record, I make the videos too. Apparently that wasn't clear on the last post...) But moving on,

What the hell’s a Booster Pack?

Well for those that don’t know, Edmund and the developers of The Binding of Isaac Rebirth decided that a part of Afterbirth+ would be the addition of mods created by the community into the actual game, which is actually very cool. This was supposed to happen every month, but for some reason the first Booster Pack came now instead of two and a half months ago. That’s okay! That just means we can get a look at the items and pickups that this Booster Pack adds. I’m going to showcase each item and attempt to give some practical uses and synergies of these new additions to the game.

##COSMETIC MODS

Extra Eden Hairstyles by Niche Hobby Robot

This simplistic mod merely adds more hairstyles for Eden. As many know, Eden can start with a variety of hairstyles in the game when you start an Eden run; this just adds more. Pretty straight forward, a nice addition for some people. For me, not the greatest addition in the world as I don’t really care for cosmetic changes, but also my opinion matters pretty much not at all here.

Chargebars for Brimstone and Co by Wofsauge

This is a cosmetic mod for seeing when your Brimstone, Tech X, Chocolate Milk, Monstro’s Lung and other items are fully charged. If you do not like this, you can turn it off in the settings, which I do think is a nice addition. It even works on familiars like Incubus when you have the synergies above. Pretty neat.

Dice Room Descriptions by Wofsauge and Edmund

This nice addition to the game is for those that have to constantly search what each Dice Room does (me). It’s nice to be able to walk into a 2 Dice Room and know exactly what you’re getting. I know that, me personally, I just group 1 and 6 together as full run rerolls, 2 and 3 as pickups, 4 as items, and 5 as a restart. Now you can clearly see a design on each dice room floor that tells you what the room does.

1 Room - shows the D4
2 Room - shows the D20
3 Room - shows the D20 and a floor layout
4 Room - shows the D6 edit: derped, changed from D10 to D6
5 Room - shows a Forget Me Now
6 Room - shows a D100

This helps know exactly what each one does so you don’t get accidentally screwed on a run where you left a great trinket or item somewhere on the floor and then accidentally reroll it. Now onto the items.

##ITEMS

Lil Delirium by Scayze & Ashkait

Lil Delirium is the ultimate familiar since it can be, well, any familiar. It’s a unique item found in the Devil and Angel Rooms and can be a very helpful item on a run. Every 10 seconds it will turn into a different familiar including familiars like Incubus, Succubus, and Lil Brimstone, three great familiars. It’s really no shock that an item like this was added to the game and liked by Edmund since it fits right in with the chaos-y theme of Afterbirth+.

Sprinkler by Kieran & Stewartisme

This is definitely one of my favorite new items in the Booster Pack. This 4 room charge active item spawns a stationary sprinkler in the room that shoots out tears in a rotating fashion throughout the room. The tears fired out of maintain the damage and rate of Isaac’s tears as well as any effects you have on the room. This is cool as is, but the synergies it has are even greater. Upon picking up Brimstone, you fire out bars of Brimstone that rotate around. Add Loki’s horns to that and you have Krampus’s wet dream. Add homing tears to that and you just have a great time. Other fun synergies include Epic Fetus which will fire out crosshairs in every direction as well as Tech X which will fire out small bursts of technology shots.

Buddy in a Box by Scayze & Ashkait

This item is one that I think has been needed in the game for a long time and I would love to see even more work done with an item like this. Buddy in a Box spawns a different random co-op familiar to fight alongside you each floor of the game after picking it up. This allows for the co-op babies received through completing achievements in the game to actually become usable for someone playing single player. I would love to see Lilith start with this item as it would be fun to be guaranteed co-op babies more often while playing.

Black Hole by Custom Phase

Now this item stretches the imagination of Isaac a bit. This 4 room charge active item will spawn an black hole above Isaac’s head, similar to the starting animation of Shoop Da Whoop that then requires Isaac to pick a direction to throw it. When it hits the ground, it will suck (haha, yeah succ) everything in the room into the black hole. It will kill enemies, move consumables over pits, break rocks, and ultimately just look dope as hell on the screen. Definitely a fun active item.

Broken Modem by Freeze

Wow that’s a bit of a pun when you look at the name there. Broken Modem is a unique item as it will cause enemies and tears on the screen to temporarily lag. This makes fights like It Lives! and Hush much more… interesting. I can’t necessarily say easier but it does make it interesting. The frequency of the effect scales with luck so the higher luck you have, the more enemies are gonna freeze in their paths. This is a great item if you have low speed on a run as it could allow you to dodge slightly easier.

Angry Fly by Custom Phase

Angry Fly is basically the ultimate Isaac item. Just another useless fly. I kid a little bit, but a fly that orbits around enemies but doesn’t actually attack them? I do understand that it will deal 2 damage per tick to other enemies in the room if it comes in contact with them but that seems relatively rare. I’m not a huge fan, but hopefully you guys can find a great synergy for this guy because it’s sprite is pretty damn cute.

Mystery Gift by Mills

½ of Eden’s Soul without a 14 room charge. Works for me. This no charge active item can be popped to receive an item from the current pool you are in. Say you use it in a shop, it will give you one free shop item. Devil deal? Devil item. Angel room? Angel item. I think it’s a great Isaac item that should have been in the game a long time ago since it has a strong RNG approach to it that Isaac thrives on. Plus it can now be used for Christmas dailies or birthday dailies.

Bozo by Electoon

You heard it here first, welcome the new Isaac meme, Bozo the clown. Famous for his television appearances in the 1960s, this clown is now not so happy as he’s stuck in his mother’s Uterus. A small damage up and the ability to fart out full health poops when he’s hit combined with the ability to charm or fear enemies makes this a pretty unique item to pick up on a run. Really though, it’s just awesome to turn into a sad angry clown in Isaac.

Fast Bombs! by Edmund

Fast bombs is something we probably could have gone a significant amount of time without ever having in the game, but here it is. Fast bombs removes the cooldown between placing bombs. The more significant thing it does is gives you 7 bombs. I suppose it could be used to successfully blow up numerous enemies chasing you down in a small room but the implications I see for this item are “yay 7 bombs.” It is not affected by Dr. Fetus or Epic Fetus which saddens me a little bit as it could have been a fun synergy.

##TRINKETS

Hairpin by Zarat.us

Hairpin is a relatively straight forward trinket that I got blessed with having on the daily the other day. It will recharge your active item after stepping foot in the boss room. This is incredibly useful in many different situations. I always forget to charge my D6 before walking in and then can’t reroll a crappy Devil Deal; this fixes that. You’re guaranteed to at least have 1 and a half hearts with each boss if you have the Nail, Book of Revelations, or Satanic Bible which can save you in a close run. It’s also just great if you want to use the charge somewhere else on the floor but didn’t have any other rooms to clear. I think it’s a very min-max-y kind of trinket and I think the game needs more items like that.

Wooden Cross by Mills & ep

The wooden cross will grant you the Holy Mantle affect at the start of each floor. This will help save a heart on a run and could be the ticket to successfully beating that Lost post it you’ve been stuck on after rerolling your run with the D4 (which I’m not positive why you would do but hey trying to find something positive about Wooden Cross here). Overall it would be a good trinket if you don’t have anything else to hold but its usefulness is questionable.

Butter! by Florian and Edmund

This is a very unique trinket that I seem to think is really cool right now but will likely never use properly. When holding this trinket, upon using your active item, it will use it then drop it onto an item pedestal in the room.

so what?

This allows for some strategies such as rerolling your run in a Dice Room but dropping your Guppy’s Head outside of it so you can pick it up after you reroll. Or say you had the Void in a library and you really wanted to void Satanic Bible and Book of Revelations but didn’t really want to void Anarchist Cookbook. You can pick up Anarchist Cookbook and drop it outside of the library and then suck (haha he said succ again) the other two up. I think this is a great trinket addition.

##CARDS!

Sorcery: The Assembling by JOHN MADDEN (probably not the former NFL star head coach)

They also added three cards from the Sorcery: The Assembling mod. The cards are based off of cards from Magic: The Gathering.

HUGE GROWTH - This card makes Isaac larger than everything else in the room, gives him a +7 to his damage, and increases his range by 30. It will also grant him the Thunder Thighs / Leo affect which allows him to destroy obstacles by walking over them.
ANCIENT RECALL - This card simply spawns three other random cards. This can be good for getting a variety of stuff to use.
ERA WALK - This will slow down all of the enemies in the current room, speed up Isaac and decrease his shot speed. This is a very random card that can be used as a one room Stopwatch. Which I suppose could be very good for Hush or Delirium.

As you can see, we got some good stuff from the first Booster Pack and they promise to do more as the rest of the year goes on. It’s nice to see the community getting involved with the actual production of the game and seeing some cool mods being added to the game. Continue to create mods if you’re a mod creator or look into making one if you haven’t and have some coding experience!

Check out some of the other Top 10 Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth lists I’ve created on Reddit if you want to see where certain items fall on my list of greatness.

Jesus this list is getting long, I should probably cut it down sometime.

Posted Mar 31, 2017, 11:35 PM UTC · edited

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