Red Redemption

 

Challenge Number
44

Starting Items
Dad's Key
Red Key

Available Rooms
: yes          : yes

Goal

Unlocks
The Hermit

Unlock Method

Use the Red Key or Cracked Key in Home as Jacob and Esau

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Red Redemption is challenge #44. The goal is to defeat Mother. This challenge is unlocked by unlocking Tainted Jacob.

Level generation in this challenge works very differently than normal. Tainted Jacob starts in a starting room without doors, and other rooms are generated in small clusters that are disconnected from each other. Each floor generates with several Boss, Shop, and Treasure rooms, and these rooms can spawn connected to two or more rooms. All rooms may be from any floor in the current chapter (for example, in Chapter 1, rooms may be from the The Basement, The Cellar, Burning Basement, Downpour, or Dross). This applies to both pre-generated rooms and new rooms made using the Red Key.

The Red Key also works differently than normal. It starts in Jacob's pill/rune/card slot, and can be used any number of times with no recharge. The Red Key can not be used to create a door to the I AM ERROR room.

After using the Red Key 20 times in a single floor, Dark Esau will spawn. The Red Key's charge bar displays how many uses it has left until this happens, rather than the item's actual charge. Another Dark Esau will spawn every 5 additional uses of the Red Key.

Strategy

Try to avoid depleting Red Key's charge.

This challenge is like Blackjack, as it's preferable to visit as many rooms as possible, as they give you consumables may give you extra items, while making sure you don't go over the allotted amount of uses of the Red Key given per floor before Dark Esau spawns.

Most of special rooms have at least one normal room next to them that are free to go into. All mapping is going to show you location of all these rooms. Knowing the location of both boss rooms and item rooms which allows you to minimize aimless wandering and potential Dark Esau encounters.

Satanic Bible is a challenge-winning item. Not only does it give you black hearts, but it also guarantees one Devil Deal after each boss fight. This means that there is a chance for the Dead Cat to appear as a deal after the boss fight, which allows much safer exploration even if you deplete the Red Key charges. Remember to use it at the end of previous floor if you don't have red hearts as quickly found bosses can give you health buffs.

Alternatively, if you're comfortable playing as Tainted Lost, you can keep using the Red Key once the first Dark Esau has spawned. More Dark Esaus will spawn each five uses of the Red Key, and they will actively damage each other until one of their health reaches zero, at which point they will all die simultaneously. Once this point is reached, you'll be stuck as Dead Tainted Jacob for the rest of the floor, but Dark Esau will not spawn anymore, leaving you free to explore every room.

You do not need to fight Mother to finish this challenge, it is enough to fight any boss on the last floor.

Do not transform into other characters during this challenge, as this will remove the Red Key and eventually make you unable to progress through floors.

Unlockable achievements

• 

  The Hermit - Complete Red Redemption (challenge #44).