Achievement Tips

Basic Achievement Tips
For achievements gained by getting a completion mark with a certain character, consult the relevant character and completion mark requirement for strategy tips.

For achievements gained by completing a challenge refer to the challenge's specific page.

Most other achievements involve doing a basic task repeatedly or having a lucky combination of items, and will be gained with natural play.

Super Meat Boy & Super Bandage Girl
See Unlocking Super Meat Boy & Super Bandage Girl.

Obscure Challenge Achievements
These achievements involve performing a specific task without prompting.

Earning the second will ensure earning the first. Win Streaks count all types of ending including Greed mode, but the achievements will not trigger if the final win is Greed or Greedier mode. Intentionally beating Isaac (Boss) or Satan without the item to continue to chapter 6 counts as a win. Beating Mom's Heart (before unlocking It Lives) counts as a win. If enough characters have been unlocked, consider going for this achievement early on in a new save file. Resetting the run in any way will break the streak.
 * 5 Nights at Mom's: Get a 5-win streak, using a different character for each win. 3-win streak, using a different character for each win.


 * ZIP!: Defeat The Lamb in under 20 minutes.

The Dark Room can be quickly reached by hitting the Sacrifice Room spikes 12 times. Consider using for quickly clearing floors, Isaac with  for maximizing chances of a winning item combination, or  for a large source of hearts to sacrifice.

This challenge is only concerned with picking up hearts, coins, and bombs off the ground. Items that directly increase your inventory such as will not break the run. Be very careful around items that spawn pickups onto the ground, and chests. An alternative source of explosions such as is valuable in a run where bombs are rare. is the only character with a certain source of healing, and is recommended for attempting this run with minimal difficulty. This can also be played as a slightly more challenging normal run for for more experienced players. is also a good choice, since his can be used to grab pickups without any downside. The challenge will only be lost if Cain himself grabs any hearts, coins, or bombs.
 * It's the Key: Defeat The Lamb without taking hearts, coins, and bombs through an entire run.

No Damage Achievements
No Damage achievements are some of the most difficult achievements in the game. There are five of these achievements included in Rebirth, with 4 new achievements with similar objectives added in Afterbirth † with Booster Pack 5. The achievements are as follows:

Note that there is no achievement for completing or the  this way.

What Doesn't Count as Taking Damage

 * Using any item that causes self damage (,, or )
 * Using health on a Blood Donation Machine or a Devil Beggar
 * Taking a deal with the Devil
 * Using a Health Down pill
 * Resetting damage with
 * Getting hit while having active

What Counts as Taking Damage

 * Getting hit by:
 * Bombs
 * Enemies
 * Enemy projectiles
 * Spikes (except Sacrifice Room spikes)
 * Other hazards
 * Stepping on Curse Room spikes
 * Using a Bad Trip pill

Items
The lists below assume the player has not taken any damage that causes the player to miss out on the achievements.

Good Items

 * blocks one hit per room, and it doesn't count as damage for these achievements.
 * Any item that increases damage (even temporarily), such as
 * Any item that provides flight
 * Callus, to a lesser extent
 * Any item that provides spectral tears
 * Items that provide invincibility, such as the or
 * kills Mom and Mom's Heart/It Lives instantly when used during those boss fights.
 * grants immunity to all explosions.
 * Orbitals that can block enemy shots
 * can save you trying to find your way to the boss room.
 * The can reroll a useless item into a better item (like the ones mentioned above).
 * Orbitals that can block enemy shots
 * can save you trying to find your way to the boss room.
 * The can reroll a useless item into a better item (like the ones mentioned above).
 * The can reroll a useless item into a better item (like the ones mentioned above).
 * The can reroll a useless item into a better item (like the ones mentioned above).
 * The can reroll a useless item into a better item (like the ones mentioned above).
 * The can reroll a useless item into a better item (like the ones mentioned above).

Neutral Items

 * 's concussive tears cause enemies to move around unpredictably.
 * and can be used as an alternative to bombs to break Tinted Rocks (though they mostly drop Soul Hearts) and possibly find a Crawl Space or Black Market but should be used with great care, as stepping on a Bomb Rock or a bad Mushroom will damage the player and disqualify the achievement.
 * Thunder Thighs is also a speed down and a useless health up.
 * 's explosions can damage you if you are too close.
 * usually drops useless Soul Hearts, but occasionally spawns Blue Spiders or Spiders instead.
 * Mom's Toenail can hurt you.
 * Teleporting items.
 * Teleporting into the I AM ERROR room can cause the player to miss out on a boss item, or even the achievement itself if it is the floor that they would have got it on.
 * generally won't help, as the player would be trying not to take any damage in the first place. However, it can be used in conjunction with self-damaging items, even in / and beyond.

Bad Items

 * Any items that only give health are useless.
 * gives 2 Red Heart containers and heals half a Red Heart but is also a speed down.
 * can cause unpredictable enemy movement, especially with enemies like Dips and Boom Flies.
 * Explosive items such as should be used with extreme care.

Isaac

 * is very advisable once is unlocked; an active item which can be extremely useful to reroll bad items into better items that makes the runs easier.
 * If you have not unlocked, Isaac is less advisable than , who has slightly better base stats as Isaac.

Magdalene

 * is not a very good choice since she starts with 4 health and the . She also has a low base speed, which makes it hard to avoid enemies that run into you.
 * Upon completion of the challenge, Magdalene starts each run holding a Speed Up pill, allowing her speed to be set to 1.0 from the beginning of the run, allowing for easier dodging.
 * She now starts off with a Full Health Pill instead, which forces her to keep her low base speed until a Speed Up Item or pill is found.

Judas

 * is a very advisable character, since he starts with a higher damage multiplier than most characters, and . Being able to deal more damage means less time dealing with enemies and bosses, and clearing rooms faster. His low health is not a drawback in this case, as long as the player is skilled enough to avoid damage.

Samson

 * is less advisable than Isaac, as only increases his damage whenever he takes damage. This leads to a dilemma; Samson must either avoid damage for a higher Devil Room or Angel Room chance, or take damage to take advantage of.

Azazel

 * is extremely advisable, as he starts with flight and a short-ranged version of . Azazel's flight allows Azazel to have increased mobility and hide behind obstacles, which helps counteract his lack of range with on early floors. Azazel's short-ranged  deals significantly more damage than any other character; allowing Azazel to quickly get through early floors.

???

 * has slightly better stats than Isaac, making him an advisable character to play.
 * ??? has some advantages over other characters when picking up certain items, since he cannot gain Red Heart containers. For example, is permanently active for ??? once picked up.

Lazarus

 * is not advisable, as he has low range and starts with a random pill; this makes him slightly worse than non- Isaac.
 * If Lazarus dies, he resurrects as Lazarus Risen - starting with increased stats and the effect of, which negates his low range. However, Lazarus cannot get the current chapter's achievement if he takes damage to kill himself.
 * After beating the challenge, Lazarus now begins with, making his stats roughly equal to Isaac's.

Eden

 * is inadvisable due to his randomness and the fact that Mom's Heart/It Lives need to be killed several times to play as Eden for several runs; if Eden starts with a poor set of items, then the player will have to waste another Eden Token.

The Lost

 * has no health (although internally he has half a Soul Heart), which can be used to encourage the player to get these achievements, as he can't take damage without dying. He also has flight and can take any Devil deals for free. However, strategies such as using Blood Donation Machines won't work with him unless he has extra lives.
 * The Lost begins with after donating 879 coins to the Greed Donation Machine, allowing him to take one hit on rooms without dying.

Lilith

 * is not recommended for these achievements, as she relies on to deal damage, and is Blindfolded, which can leave her open to damage if the player isn't careful.

Keeper

 * is not recommended for these achievements, as he is the slowest character in the game (tied with ), and has a tear delay of 28, the slowest fire rate besides . The combination of these two factors will have Keeper open to attack much of the time, which is made worse by his slow speed, making it harder to dodge.

Apollyon

 * is recommended for these achievements, as he starts with average stats and, an item which absorbs other items. Void gives stat increases to Apollyon when passive items are absorbed, and uses the effects of any absorbed active items every time Void is used.

Strategies

 * If possible, maximize the number of times you get to use.
 * Use bombs to escape rooms that you don't think you can handle.
 * Do not risk going over spikes, if you don't have flight.
 * A very easy way to achieve the Dark Boy/Mama's Boy is to obtain while holding . This can be used to skip the final floor of the / entirely.
 * This is even more effective if the floor is affected by Curse of the Labyrinth.
 * Picking up and holding the  and  in combination with the  is also a viable strategy, although  has a small chance of spawning a door to a Crawl Space instead.
 * Note that you gain the achievement after you defeat the second boss of a chapter, not after you go down to the next floor. This means, after getting the related achievement, you can go visit the rest of the floor (including the curse room if you have enough health) and obtain pickups that could help you get the later achievements.

Tainted Cain/Clicker Strategy For Collecting Completion Marks For Other Characters
starts the game with which can be used to create almost any item in the game if you can find a recipe for it. Most importantly, it can be used to craft, which can then be used to become any Tainted character. By crafting or and then dying, then Clicker can be used to become any non-Tainted character. If you carefully choose what items to craft to make a powerful combination and then use Clicker to become a different character, this can be a good way to get completion marks and their achievements for some of the most challenging characters in the game.

Strategy

 * Restarting the game until a Library is next to the starting room can produce more pickups for crafting on the first level.
 * Leaving pickups on the floor until all rooms are cleared (except in Depths II, unless you want to use The Fool to escape the room) can help take careful inventory of the available pickups to ensure you can craft as many useful items as possible.
 * Collecting a couple keys in every floor instead of crafting with them allows you to enter the Treasure Room and the Shop for more pickups.
 * Pills and cards can be purchased in the Shop and then dropped for crafting, but this doesn't work with other pickups like bombs and hearts.
 * Keep in mind that it may take a number of uses of Clicker to find the character you want to play as, and each use will remove your most recently collected item. So, after you have crafted all the items you want to keep, you may want to craft multiple passive items you don't care about to act as fuel.
 * Crafting in this way tends to be very slow, which means you probably won't reach the time limit for Hush or Boss Rush, but these can still be reached by crafting the alternate items to reach them (see item list below).
 * You can craft familiars multiple times to have multiple copies of that familiar.
 * Crafting Gnawed Leaf with other items to clear rooms easily not only makes overall success more likely, but the lack of damage also makes Angel Rooms more likely to spawn, which allows you fight the angels to eventually gain access to Mega Satan without having to take up an active item slot for the alternate entry methods.
 * If pursuing the Mother achievement, it may be best to avoid using clicking until after beating the boss of Mausoleum/Gehenna, because Siren can steal all of your familiars.
 * You can get completion marks for a number of different characters in the same run, so if none of the remaining completion marks for your current character are needed, you can always switch again.

Especially Useful Items

 * : One of the more versatile familiars, in combination with . Simple to craft if you can find an eternal heart.
 * : Easily crafted if you can find many hearts, such as in a Super Secret room with hearts, and is a useful aggressive familiar. Crafting three of them produces the Beelzebub transformation which makes you fly, making you immune to spikes and creep and allowing you to reach items behind rocks and behind holes.
 * : Can allow the to be used twice in quick succession, which can be helpful if want to change characters again and wouldn't have enough rooms to charge it.
 * : This is the most important item to this strategy, of course, as that is how you are going to change characters.
 * : Allows access to Mega Satan if you don't have the key familiars.
 * : If Dead Cat was the last item to be crafted, the will remove individual lives instead of the entire item, meaning much fewer items will need to be crafted for the  to remove before getting to the desired character. However, since Dead Cat takes priority over items that revive you as a non-tainted character, this item is only worth crafting for completing tainted character completion marks. On the other hand, if Dead Cat is found naturally as a pedastal item it can be useful to revive as a non-tainted character and then take Dead Cat before using the.
 * : Can be used to get the same completion marks with more than one character on the same run by restarting the floor.
 * : In combination with familiars that attack without Isaac's input or items that cause damage on touch or using auras, can be powerful choice to getting even the most difficult completion marks.
 * : Allows Boss Rush and Hush achievements to be reached without being under the time limit.
 * : Allows access to Mega Satan if you don't have the key familiars.
 * : Once you reach the end of the completion marks you can restart all of the levels to start over again with the same items. (Keep in mind that The Beast fight goes to cut scene immediately aftering winning, and Mega Satan sometimes does, in which case you will not have the opportunity to use the item)
 * : If crafted after, provides a substantial and permanent damage increase.
 * : A useful item in many respects, but is especially useful when using the, because you keep the best stats of every character you become. This also allows you to keep improved stats from items even if they are removed.
 * : Can quickly destroy bosses that chase you, as well as the beams reaching far enemies when triggered.
 * : Allows more than one active item to be carried at once, which is important if using the alternate items to reach different completion marks.
 * : If collected after allows a very high tear rate without lowering damage.  Best to craft this after damage increasing items like  because of the low damage multiplier will result in higher damage in this order.  If you remove this item with  but still have Rock Bottom, you will keep the higher tear rate and also lose the low tear multiplier that would otherwise make it hard to increase damage.
 * : Allows access for the Mother completion mark without having to collect and.
 * : Allows you to enter all the secret rooms, destroy key blocks, find side entrances to Boss Challenge rooms and Curse Rooms. Collecting items in special rooms always provides one of the pickups necessary for crafting items from that room's item pool, so entrance to those rooms opens up a lot of recipe possibilities.

Character Notes

 * : Items are split randomly between Jacob and Esau, meaning several copies of should be crafted to have a reasonably high chance of both characters getting the item when using the  strategy.
 * : does not grant immunity from Dark Esau.
 * : Becoming Dead Tainted Lazarus will grant all of the items to Dead Tainted Lazarus, so you will be without all of the crafted items every other room.
 * : This strategy allows Tainted Lost to hold and use many useful items that he can otherwise never find.

Force Quit and File Manipulation
As a last resort, force quitting the game may help net achievements that remain elusive due to lack of skills and/or luck. A save game is generated whenever one exits a game to the menu or at the start of a new level. If one wishes to go back to the last save game, force quit the game (Force Quit on OS X, End Task on Windows, home button and then close the app on consoles) and then restart the game. The continue option will light up and then your last save game will be restored. Aside from helping with Achievements, this is useful if you want to reverse negative pill effects, exploit coin donation, find the quickest way through the level after doing a "test run", etc...
 * The method is also capable of reversing a player's death. After death, the game will erase the save game. However, if you pause the game right after you are killed and before the next menu pops up, you may then force quit and restore your last save game in the run. This was the only way less skilled players were able to finish the game with The Lost.


 * Of course, this method when abused does take away the charm and fun from the game, not to mention significantly extending the real-time it takes to get through a run. A half-hour game may easily extend to several hours if one tries to Force Quit repeatedly.

In Afterbirth, the Force Quit method has been partially patched. It still works as in Rebirth except after a player's death. If you attempt to Force Quit after death, the continue option is not selectable, and you have to start a new game. Alternatively on OS X and Windows, one may disable cloud saving and copy / restore certain save files after quitting the game. This is capable of reversing a player death and allow less skilled players to finish The Lost and Keeper runs. However, this is risky and careless copy and pasting may result in permanently lost in-game achievements and secrets. One does not need to force quit either and may close the app normally. BACK UP YOUR SAVE FILES before attempting the following. This can also work on the 3DS by pausing just as you die and pressing the home button, then closing The Binding of Isaac. Reopening the game and hitting continue will respawn you on the floor you died on. This will reset your progress for that floor. This can be repeated as much as needed; however, there is a bug. If used on the first floor, and the character that dies spawned with any active items - such as Isaac's D6, The Lost's D4, or Judas' Book of Belial - the items will be removed. This can be fixed simply by quitting and continuing whilst still alive.
 * Having extra lives used to allow the Force Quit method to work after death. There was no need to immediately pause the game after a death in this case. Force quitting after the extra life starts would still restore the last save game. This has since also been patched.
 * Go to The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth folder. Find options.ini and open in a text editor. Change the SteamCloud value from 1 to 0. Save the change to options.ini.
 * When SteamCloud is disabled, the local save file will not reflect your latest cloud save file. The game will look like you're starting from scratch. You can use your last local copy of the cloud save file as the new local save file. The cloud save has format [YearMonthDate].ab_persistentgamedata[Slot#].dat. Rename this file (and overwrite) to persistentgamedata[Slot#].dat. For example, if using slot 1, rename 20160331.ab_persistentgamedata1.dat (and overwrite) to persistentgamedata1.dat. Now your local save file will reflect your last cloud save file.
 * Play the game and reach a point where you want to save. Pause and exit to the menu to generate a save file (alternatively, starting a new level will generate one). Look in the Binding of Isaac Afterbirth folder for 2 specific files with the following formats: gamestate[Slot#].dat and persistentgamedata[Slot#].dat. Copy these files to another folder on your hard drive. For example, if using slot 1, copy gamestate1.dat and persistentgamedata1.dat to another folder.
 * Since you are using this method and are going to screw up, you may exit the app normally after your character dies instead of force quitting. You'll notice that gamestate[Slot#].dat has disappeared from the Isaac folder. Restore the gamestate[Slot#].dat and (overwrite) persistentgamedata[Slot#].dat files from your other folder.
 * Restart the app. You'll notice that the continue option is now available. You may resume your failed run.
 * In-game and Steam achievements will still unlock with this method.
 * Once you are done manipulating files and want to go back to Steam cloud saving, go back to options.ini in the Isaac folder and change SteamCloud value back to 1.
 * However, once you do this, your cloud save is the old one. To update your cloud save with your current local save, copy the persistentgamedata[Slot#].dat file from the Isaac folder to the remote folder. Rename (and overwrite) to ab_persistentgamedata[Slot#].dat. For example, if using slot 1, copy persistentgamedata1.dat from the Isaac folder and rename/overwrite to ab_persistentgamedata1.dat in the Remote folder.