Yesterday I've beaten Mom (Isaac's...) for the first time, I have like 4-5 hours played, am I a baddie? Naturally it was rather fortunate drops, but still. :<

I'm not sure. Beating Mom will become cake the more you play, based on the facts that you'll naturally improve over time and that you'll encounter new and helpful items after unlocking them.

Started playing this recently, mad fun

I'm 13 hours in and havent yet

but im pretty ****ty at games

Yeah, on my next try I've beaten mom as well, I feel I get more bonuses and so on and stuff is easier, maybe I have better use of pills/tarot cards as well

Pill usage is trivial since they're random and you should just try them out every time you encounter a new one in most cases and most of the positive ones should be eaten immediately. Tarot cards are only slightly more skillful (assuming you're using the wiki). I think the bigget strategy skill comes from correctly managing your bombs and keys in the earlier levels when you don't have enough to open everything and then correct spacebar item selection.

But mostly it's all about being good at dodging enemies and shots.

There is loads more content after you beat mom for the first time.

FML I was pretty deep and loaded i.e. 63 coins etc. and then collected the retardo cat thingy that gives you 9 lives but only one heart. Nut low item pickup but at least I unlocked the 55 coin dude

Never gotten xray or spelunker so far, I can only dream how easy it would be with those
The quadshot item is superelite, I got pretty deep with that. I'm pretty bad at the game though.

Not won against mom yet.

Edit: Is there a nice, printable item list or at least the cards or smth. Switching to the wiki kind of sucks. Also gamepad control with the xbox360 is really sloppy so I'm back to keyboard eventhough keyboard+mouse might be better, gotta try that one.

If you think switching to the wiki sucks on windows you should try playing on a mac.

Cmd is locked to bombs in isaac. So if you try to cmd+tab to switch to a window you throw out a bomb then go to your browser.

Can't you just pause the game (P) and then cmd+tab, shouldn't throw a bomb while paused.

Reached mom the first time today...she's pretty hard all right :O
Need one of those superdemage cards I guess

Boom mom beat, 16h playtime.

Steam sale in a very early shop if you happen to have the coins is pretty awesome. Then got map next when I had 8 coins...nice that's nice.

Lasertec+mom's whatever that freezes people on hit is the nuts. Bosses just constantly frozen FTW, also found a midgame grail that helped quite a bit and the Ace of spades gave me some nice cards when I needed them including a lovers when I was at 0.5HP from which I recovered and a Sun for the mom fight

gosh womb is hard

Boom just beat womb. Had bouncy shots+grail but not all that much else...luckboxed by getting bible the second to last level and finding the final boss room after 3 or so rooms

Switched back from Cain to Isaac and first time with Isaac I win..nice that's nice. Also managed to unlock Judas and Samson in that playthrough

Getting yum heart on level one and habit on level two = EZ game.

Dat OPness.

Easily the best $2.74 I've ever spent. I still haven't beaten the entire game yet, and both of my Mom kills were kinda like cheating (bible the first time, and bra + habit the second). I was promptly shat upon in the Womb both times.

Game is hard.

"Mom kills" as tracked by the game mean killing the heart in the Womb, not just "Mom."

This thread inspired me to start playing on my desktop, where it's a much more satisfactory experience. (It was much easier on my laptop because it ran quite slowly.) It's a fun game, even if I do still think the art/theme are lame. It bugs me that as far as I can tell McMillen gets the lion's share of credit for the game when it seems like all he contributes is the stuff I think is stupid. He has somebody else programming the game for him? Yeesh.

It seems like the only times I go far are when I pull a nice item in an early devil room. Brimstone, in particular, works really well for me.