In a 30-minute interview cut from Indie Game: The Movie, The Binding of Isaac creator Edmund McMillen goes into what led to the game’s development, the game’s religious themes, and its explosion in popularity due to “Let’s Play” videos.
Two years ago, Super Meat Boy developer Edmund McMillen, working with programmer Florian Himsl, put The Binding of Isaac on Steam for $5, unaware that the game would go on to sell over 2 million copies and get ported to PS4 and PS Vita by popular demand. McMillen expected the game to be a small cult hit, thinking that its twisted Christian-inspired story and premise of a crying child wandering around a basement fighting grotesque monsters would turn most people off.
However, it turned out that many Christians actually liked the game’s incorporation of religion, and many gamers enjoyed the replayability and dozens of secrets The Binding of Isaac held. Rather than turn people off, the game’s strangeness in narrative, visual style, and gameplay appealed to a lot of players, and it now stands as a solid indie success.