Afterbirth ARG
| Afterbirth ARG | |
|---|---|
| An mysterious ARG involving The Binding of Isaac | |
| Type | Official ARG |
| Creator | Edmund McMullen |
| Discovered | 10-30-2015 |
The following article is a rehash of this post by /u/Scutilla. All credit goes to him.
The Afterbirth ARG is an ARG that started with the release of the Afterbirth DLC for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. It ultimately led to the discovery of a new playable character, The Keeper.
Prelude
When The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth was released in November 2014, a super-secret character called The Lost was included, with a complex unlocking mechanism that was designed to be a community scavenger hunt - an ARG of its own. However, dataminers quickly discovered his existence by looking at the game code and The Lost became common knowledge in a few days, much to the disappointment of the game creators.
With the release of the Afterbirth expansion in October 2015, there was a new secret, but this one was not so easily datamined. The final reward (The Keeper) was not patched into the game until the community solved the puzzle, and many puzzle elements were not in the game at all, requiring Twitter, voice mail, and even two real-world expeditions to solve.
Generosity
The new game mode in the Afterbirth expansion, Greed Mode, is a seven-floor challenge with a boss fight against Ultra Greed at the end. On each floor facing waves of enemies rewards the player with money, which can be used to buy upgrades.
When Ultra Greed is defeated, a donation machine appears. Like the shop donation machine from Rebirth, reaching donation milestones unlocks new items and game features for future runs. However, this donation machine "broke" at 109 coins donated, rather than the expected 999.
This was fixed several days after release, allowing the machine to store beyond 109 coins. A new achievement, Generosity, was added for reaching the new cap, 999 coins. The community continued to obsess over the number 109, with such theories as "the Greed machine was fixed 109 hours after release", "the Lost character was datamined only 109 hours after Rebirth's release", and "the item Money = Power is item number 109 in the game code". The number 109 also popped up in various places in messages from Tyrone and Ed.
