The Binding of Isaac is an addictive dungeon crawler with some of the most macabre themes and stories in video games. The story of Isaac is that your Mother goes crazy and tries to kill you. Isaac then jumps into the basement which is filled with flies, poop, and monsters.

The basic gameplay is a down-looking camera with WASD controlling movement and the arrows keys controlling your tears (yes, your weapons are your own tears). It is very satisfying to move and shoot and the upgrade/weapon variety keeps the game fresh. No session of Isaac should last for more than 3 hours. Every time you play is different experience because each room, item, and enemy is randomly generated.

You start at the first level of the basement and work your way down to wherever your ending is at that point. Each time you go to the bottom floor and defeat your mother you earn a new portion of Isaac’s story and a new items to move through the game.

The game has many religious themes and religious characters involved in it. There are multiple characters that can be unlocked ­throughout the game, such as Samson, Eve, Azrael. They all play differently and by beating the game with these characters you unlock different items that could be in the basement next time you play. Also every single character can beat the game in numerous ways; this gives the game a large amount of replayability.

If you are a particularly squeamish person, you should avoid The Binding of Isaac. The monsters are disgusting and foul, but it is the ideas and story ideas that will actually disturb you. I mean — come on ­– the game’s initiating force is your own mother bursting into your room with a butcher’s knife. The game is extremely solid and eventually you stop paying attention to the nastiness. This does lead to uncomfortable situations where you have to remind yourself, “I just blew up a huge mound of flesh with a cleft palate, using my tears… , I should go watch reruns of Mr. Rogers instead.”

Once you’re done watching old PBS shows, the game you should buy is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth on Steam. It is currently $15, but it drops to very low amounts during the Summer/Winter sale. It will entertain you for hours and at least give you creative nightmares.