Binding of Isaac card game Kickstarter clears $1.2M

Video game developer Edmund McMillen, maker of Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, has launched a crowdfunding campaign for his first tabletop card game. The Kickstarter drive for The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls met its $50,000 goal in the first few hours it was live. The campaign currently sits at more than $1.2 million, with two weeks left to go.

The card game is being produced in partnership with Studio71. This is the company’s first tabletop game.

Four Souls is a two- to four-player semi-cooperative card game. Starting characters include Cain, Isaac, Judas and Maggie. Each has their own unique ability and starting item. Players work together in the early game as they attempt to become strong enough to defeat bosses and earn souls. The first player to end a turn with four souls wins, and as the endgame closes in, that competitiveness kicks in. Players can use their strengths against monsters, but also the other players at the table.

From the description of the game itself, it feels like McMillen is on the right track. The tabletop version of The Binding of Isaac features themes, mechanics and items that will be familiar to fans of the video game. However, the mechanics of the gameplay itself don’t seek to mimic the virtual experience.

Four Souls is absolutely its own thing.

“The card game is incredibly similar to the video game, except it doesn’t play like it at all,” McMillen said in the Kickstarter video. “It embodies what the game is, except it’s a multiplayer environment. It’s competitive, but a little cooperative and there’s a lot of betrayal involved. That’s stuff that doesn’t exist in the video game at all.”

“I am treating this as I would any game that I’ve ever worked on,” McMillen added.

The campaign includes a few notable stretch goals, including one that required 21 parents over the age of 50 to reach the Caves level in The Binding of Isaac by themselves. Of course, it required video proof.

The campaign is scheduled to end on Friday, July 27. Delivery is expected by November 2018.