The Binding of Isaac creator Edmund McMillen first teased The Legend of Bum-bo in March 2016 as a "turn-based puzzle RPG thingy that's randomly generated," and this January confirmed it had been delayed to the second half 2018. Today, McMillen and co-creator James Id revealed the first trailer for Bum-bo in a Tumblr post outlining the gist of the game.
The premise is about as simple as you'd expect from a game starring a blob named Bum-bo: a bad guy took Bum-bo's coin, and to get it back, Bum-go has to chase him through some dungeons. More specifically, he has to use a match-four puzzle system to "create offensive and defensive attacks and gain specific types of mana to cast epic spells that range from jagging stuff with a fish hook to summoning mom’s leg to crush all who stand in your path."
"Every dungeon Bum-bo enters will be randomly generated," the announcement post reads, "and much like Isaac feature hoards of monsters, bosses, traps, puzzles and randomly chosen spells, so each run will be totally unique and each successful play through will unlock more items, trinkets, playable characters and more."
The Legend of Bum-bo features a papercraft aesthetic, but its general vibe is reminiscent of The Binding of Isaac. McMillen says these similarities are intentional, and that he considers Bum-bo a prequel to Isaac. However, he says he can't explain the connection without spoiling it, so we'll just have to play it for ourselves to find out. I suspect it has something to do with the spell for "summoning mom's leg."
The Legend of Bum-bo will launch on Steam later this year. Meanwhile, McMillen's other game, the cutesy cat game Mewgenics, is back on track but still a few years away.
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