
Isaac's mother then hears "a voice from above", stating her son is corrupted with sin and must be saved. Isaac (a kid) and his mother live in a small home situated on a hill, both peacefully keeping to themselves, with Isaac drawing doodles and playing with his toys while his mother watches Christian broadcasts on the television. The Binding of Isaac's storyline is based off the eponymous Bible story. Each floor of the dungeon ends in a boss room, where the player must defeat the boss before being able to go down to the next floor. Along the way, the player can collect currency to buy items from shops, keys to gain entry into special treasure rooms (as well as special golden chests, libraries that contain book items, and shops), and new weapons and power-ups to increase his chance of surviving.

On each floor of the basement below, the player must fight off monsters before he can go into other rooms.

The video game's gameplay and style are inspired by the dungeons of The Legend of Zelda series, while mixing in randomly procedurally generated floors akin to Roguelikes (like traditional roguelikes, death is permanent and the player is forced to restart with nothing if they die) while doing this is in a simple Legend of Zelda like formula. The Binding of Isaac is a two-dimensional Action-adventure game where the player controls Isaac or six of the unlockable characters as he traverses through the dungeons located underneath his mother's basement.
