The Binding of Isaac: Whybirth is a fan expansion to The Binding of Isaac created by Nick M. It adds several new items, trinkets, enemies, pill effects, challenges, and even a sidequest that leads to a brand-new boss fight.
To succinctly describe the mod's design philosophy, it's the general mindset of someone who creates Platform Hell ROM hacks: making an unreasonably difficult and unfair experience as a joke that the player is on the ass end of. While there are some cool items to be found here, the bulk of the new content is designed to frustrate and confound you. Do not play this without a guide unless you want to lose your sanity. Heck, even with a guide, this mod will probably drive you insane.
The Binding of Isaac: Whybirth contains the following tropes:
- Fake Difficulty: You don't have to pick up any of the new items (which may be a good idea, since several of them only exist to make your life harder or flat-out end it, and even several of the useful ones have extreme downsides or risks), but this mod still has unreasonably unfair pill effects (which, given how pills work, can't be seen coming) and enemies that will make you tear your hair out. The worst part is probably the attacks that are nigh-impossible to dodge, such as the Gas Flies and Mad Stonies charging at you at hyper speed to blow up in your face or the :3 Babies and Why Fly firing untelegraphed Hitscan lasers at you. Of course, all of the unreasonable difficulty is Played for Laughs.
- Fun with Acronyms: This mod turns "WHY" into a backronym to answer its own question. It stands for "We Hate You".
- Guide Dang It!: Finding the Why Fly is even more difficult than actually fighting it.
- Poison Mushroom: Over half of the new items exist for only one reason: to completely ruin the run of any player unfortunate enough to pick them up or try to use them. These detrimental effects range from barely manageable to You Are Already Dead, with some of the items flat-out killing you, freezing the game, or making further progress impossible. This includes the three letters of WHY that you need to collect to face the Why Fly; even if you know what to do, surviving the journey to the Dark Room is no easy task when every enemy you kill smacks you in the face with a rotating Brimstone beam.
- Sensory Abuse: Several of the new items and enemies cause this. In particular, the aforementioned Mad Stonies and :3 Babies will emit ear-piercing screams as they attack you, and the Tinnitus item will cause a constant ringing noise to play for the entire remainder of your run once you pick it up.
- Superboss/True Final Boss: The Why Fly is a new boss that can only be faced after completing an obscure checklist of conditions within a single run to collect the letters "W", "H", and "Y".note Each of these items causes enemies to have a chance to erupt into a room-sweeping Brimstone laser on death (with all three letters making the sweeping laser guaranteed to happen), and yes, that laser can (and will) damage Isaac. Once triggered by using a Razor consumable in the Dark Room with all three letters, the Why Fly replaces The Lamb for that run. It's basically just an ordinary fly… with ridiculously high HP and speed, as well as attacking with Hitscan lasers. It may not be quite as durable as Hush or Delirium, but it doesn't really need to be when its small size and fast movement makes it challenging to hit and its own attacks are nearly impossible to dodge (and the items that you need to face it will kick the crap out of you throughout your journey to the Dark Room). It does drop some incredibly powerful items if you can manage to take it down… that you won't be able to use since it replaces The Lamb and defeating it ends the run.
