The Binding of Isaac: An Adventure of Biblical Proportions (jackonski)

## The Wired World and it's Effect on Literature

In today's "Wired World", anything is possible in the realm of text and literature. A hundred years ago, a text was simply anything that was documented in writing which was usually stories, poems, songs, etc.. Fast forward to now and a text can range anywhere from a book, to a video game, and everything in between all thanks to the advances in technology. These advances in technology not only brought about many new mediums for authors to tell their stories, but an unprecedented era of author-reader interaction as well as interaction between the community of readers of a text. With today's technology you'll see entire internet communities dedicated to a certain text (wikis, subreddits etc.). These communities do everything from formulate theories on the text, to critique the text and discuss their opinions among other readers. In certain cases the author of the text the community is based on is an active member of said community and will discuss these topics with readers as well as confirm or deny their theories, and in extreme cases as you'll see later, send them on an adventure.

## New Frontiers

With this age of technology, the possibilities for a text is almost endless. While in the past, a text could only be written down or spoken, now a text can be recorded in the form of an album, programmed in the form of interactive fiction or a video game, and shot in the form of a movie or a show. There is endless ways for a person to tell the story they want to tell. Of course the classic option of writing it down is still available but you'll see lots of interesting stories told through other methods. Technology has also been great for fans of a text to come together and pool ideas. Now readers of a text can meet and chat with other readers in the comfort of their homes instead of meeting with people face to face. Fans can also remediate the texts in new and creative ways with fan art, fan fiction, and even fan made games, making the possibilities endless.

## Reader-Author Interaction

Before the current advances in technology, you had to know the author of a text to interact with him or her. Now with social media being huge, fans can interact with an author instantly using things like twitter and facebook. A lot of authors use twitter. A good example of an author interacting with his audience on twitter is Edmund McMillen the creator of The Binding of Isaac. He used the social media platform to send his fans on a real life scavenger hunt to unlock content in the game. It's something that wouldn't have been heard of a hundred years ago and is a direct result of the wired world.

## Pooling of Knowledge

Another product of the wired world is how easy it is to access a communities combined knowledge of a text. With things like wikia and reddit and forums fans can come together and pool their knowledge of a text and share it with other readers across the globe. This pooing of knowledge creates a lot of possibilities for a text. A lot of times fans will come together and discuss theories about a certain text and most of the time those theories get confirmed or denied by the author. You could never have done something like that one hundred years ago. But now if you have a question about a certain text you can probably find its wiki or sub reddit within the first fifteen google searches.

## Authorial Intention of Edmund McMillen

Edmund McMillen is the creator of the popular game The Binding of Isaac. In The Binding of Isaac you play the role of Isaac, a boy who lives with his hyper religious mother, the game opens with a scene showing Isaac's mother having a vision from god telling her to kill Isaac (this game has lots of Biblical imagery) and Isaac narrowly escaping into the basement. You go from there and fight horrible things in Isaac's basement using his tears as projectiles. This game has lots of mysteries surrounding it and one of the biggest mysteries had to do with unlocking a new character. Usually to unlock a new character in any game you have to perform a certain task or get a certain amount of points, but the author of this text wanted to have fun with his fan base. To unlock a certain new character, McMillen led his fans on a huge scavenger hunt that had people analyzing bible verses, decoding gps coordinates and even going out and digging in the dirt looking for clues in california. after many days of this scavenger hunt, All the clues were solved and all in all the community behind this game solved a real world puzzle to simply unlock a new playable character. McMillen's authorial intention behind The Binding of Isaac isn't really clear at this point but what the community does know, is that he has a great time interacting with his fan base and many believe that he created this game with fans in mind, knowing he would end up interacting with him as heavily as he does. This interaction is mainly via Twitter and It's very obvious that the community behind this game is a direct result of our Wired World. Back in the 90's you'd have never seen a game creator send his fans on a real life scavenger hunt. McMillen continues to update the game adding even more mysteries to be solved.

## Knowledge Communities

That real life scavenger hunt wouldn't have been solved if it weren't for the many knowledge communities that The Binding of Isaac has. This game has one of the most active communities in gaming I have ever seen. The community consists of an entire Wiki, and a sub reddit. The wiki is where the community goes to pool their knowledge on The Binding of Isaac and add to the ever growing wiki. the subreddit is where the community goes to actively discuss The Binding of Isaac. The wikis is one of the more in depth wikis i've seen with every single character of the game having their own page describing their behavior, origin, and even trivia. The subreddit has many ongoing discussions about the game and it's many secrets and was the headquarters for the real life scavenger hunt. While it was happening users would take to the subreddit to post and discuss their findings and theories. The end result of their discussions and findings was a new character in the game only unlockable by solving the real life puzzle showing just how active and successful the Binding of Isaac Community is.

## References

1. ↑ [1]https://upvoted.com/2015/11/16/binding-of-isaac-creator-sends-fans-on-epic-real-life-scavenger-hunt/