When clearing a room, the game has a chance of rewarding a pickup or trinket. This based on many things, including your current luck and whether you have some particular items.
Process
First, the game generates a random number using this formula:
(RandomFloat * Luck * 0.1) + pickupPercent
- RandomFloat and pickupPercent are random numbers between 0 and 1
- Luck is clamped to 0 if Isaac’s luck is less than 0 and 10 if Isaac’s luck is greater than 10
- This chance is modified by the following items/trinkets:
- Lucky Foot multiplies RandomFloat and pickupPercent by 0.9, then adds 0.1 to both of them.
- Lucky Toe multiplies pickupPercent by 0.98, then adds 0.02 to it.
That number is then used to determine the reward given after clearing the room, using the following index:
- Nothing (< 0.22, base 22% chance)
- A tarot card, pill, or trinket (0.22 - 0.3, base 8% chance)
- All three possibilities are equally likely to be chosen, giving them individual base 2.66% chances.
- A coin (0.3 - 0.45, base 15% chance)
- The range increases to 0.3 - 0.5 (base 20%) if Isaac has Rib of Greed
- A heart (0.45 - 0.6, base 15% chance)
- The range decreases to 0.5 - 0.6 (base 10%) if Isaac has Rib of Greed
- If Isaac has Daemon's Tail, the heart has an 80% chance of being replaced with a key.
- A key (0.6 - 0.8, base 20% chance)
- A bomb (0.8 - 0.95, base 15% chance)
- A chest (> 0.95, base 5% chance)
- If Isaac has positive luck, the chance for a chest increases and all other chances decrease.
- Lucky Foot/Toe decrease the chance of getting nothing, but do not themselves increase the chance for chests to spawn.
- If Isaac has positive luck, the chance for a chest increases and all other chances decrease.
The reward then has a chance to be replaced/modified by the following, in order:
- A lil' battery (3.33% chance if Isaac has Watch Battery)
- A sack (2% chance, always in effect)
- A tarot card (10% chance if Isaac has Ace of Spades)
- A pill (10% chance if Isaac has Safety Cap)
- A bomb (10% chance if Isaac has Match Stick)
- A heart (10% chance if Isaac has Child's Heart)
- A key (10% chance if Isaac has Rusted Key)
- A trinket (2% chance if Isaac has Smelter)
- If Isaac has multiple of these, the first one to activate is the one that replaces the room reward
- Guppy's Tail has a 33% chance to replace the reward with a chest (either gray or locked with equal chances) and a 33% chance to replace it with nothing.
- Contract From Below causes an extra copy of the reward to spawn, but has a 33% chance to replace it with nothing.
- Each extra contract Isaac has causes another copy of the reward to spawn and halves the chance the reward becomes nothing.
- If playing on Hard Mode, heart rewards have a 66% chance to be replaced with nothing.
- Broken Modem has a 25% chance to create an additional copy of the reward if it’s a key, coin, heart, bomb, or sack.
Pseudo-code
The full logic is contained within the following pseudo-code:
local room = Game():GetLevel():GetCurrentRoom() local awardSeed = room.AwardSeed local player = Game():GetPlayer(0) local difficulty = Game().Difficulty local rng = RNG() rng:SetSeed(awardSeed, 35) --5, 9, 7 local pickupPercent = rng:RandomFloat() if (player:HasCollectible(COLLECTIBLE_LUCKYFOOT)) then pickupPercent = (pickupPercent * 0.9) + 0.1 end local luck = math.max(math.min(player.Luck, 10), 0) --Clamp to 0-10 --Max luck increases the pickupPercent range from 0-1 to 0-2 --That means the more luck you have, the more likely you are to get chests. pickupPercent = rng:RandomFloat() * luck * 0.1 + pickupPercent if (player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_LUCKY_TOE)) then if (player:HasCollectible(COLLECTIBLE_LUCKYFOOT) and luck > 0) then pickupPercent = (pickupPercent * 0.98) + 0.02 else pickupPercent = (pickupPercent * 0.9) + 0.1 end end local pickupAward = COLLECTIBLE_NULL local pickupCount = 1 if (pickupPercent > 0.22) then if (pickupPercent < 0.3) then if (rng:RandomInt(3) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_TAROTCARD elseif (rng:RandomInt(2) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_TRINKET else pickupAward = PICKUP_PILL end elseif (pickupPercent < 0.45) then pickupAward = PICKUP_COIN elseif (pickupPercent < 0.5 and player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_RIB_OF_GREED)) then pickupAward = PICKUP_COIN elseif (pickupPercent < 0.6 and (not player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_DAEMONS_TAIL) or rng:RandomInt(5) == 0)) then pickupAward = PICKUP_HEART elseif (pickupPercent < 0.8) then pickupAward = PICKUP_KEY elseif (pickupPercent < 0.95) then pickupAward = PICKUP_BOMB else pickupAward = PICKUP_CHEST end if (rng:RandomInt(20) == 0 or (rng:RandomInt(15) == 0 and player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_WATCH_BATTERY))) then pickupAward = PICKUP_LIL_BATTERY end if (rng:RandomInt(50) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_GRAB_BAG end if (player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_ACE_SPADES) and rng:RandomInt(10) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_TAROTCARD elseif (player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_SAFETY_CAP) and rng:RandomInt(10) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_PILL elseif (player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_MATCH_STICK) and rng:RandomInt(10) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_BOMB elseif (player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_CHILDS_HEART) and rng:RandomInt(10) == 0 and (not player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_DAEMONS_TAIL) or rng:RandomInt(5) == 0)) then pickupAward = PICKUP_HEART elseif (player:HasTrinket(TRINKET_RUSTED_KEY) and rng:RandomInt(10) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_KEY end if (player:HasCollectible(COLLECTIBLE_SMELTER) and rng:RandomInt(50) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_TRINKET end end if (player:HasCollectible(COLLECTIBLE_GUPPYS_TAIL)) then if (rng:RandomInt(3) != 0) then if (rng:RandomInt(3) == 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_NULL end else if (rng:RandomInt(2) != 0) then pickupAward = PICKUP_LOCKEDCHEST else pickupAward = PICKUP_CHEST end end end if (player:HasCollectible(COLLECTIBLE_CONTRACT_FROM_BELOW) and pickupAward != PICKUP_TRINKET) then pickupCount = player:GetCollectibleNum(COLLECTIBLE_CONTRACT_FROM_BELOW) + 1 --The chance of getting nothing goes down with each contract exponentially local nothingChance = math.pow(0.666, pickupCount - 1) if (nothingChance * 0.5 > rng:NextFloat()) then pickupCount = 0 end end if (difficulty == 1 and pickupAward == PICKUP_HEART) then if rng:RandomInt(100) >= 35 then pickupAward = PICKUP_NULL end end if (player:HasCollectible(COLLECTIBLE_BROKEN_MODEM) and rng:RandomInt(4) == 0 and pickupCount >= 1 and (pickupAward == PICKUP_COIN or pickupAward == PICKUP_HEART or pickupAward == PICKUP_KEY or pickupAward == PICKUP_GRAB_BAG or pickupAward == PICKUP_BOMB) then pickupCount = pickupCount + 1 end if (pickupCount > 0 and pickupAward != PICKUP_NULL) then local subType = 0 for i=1, pickupCount do local ent = Game():Spawn(ENTITY_PICKUP, pickupAward, nearCenter, Vector(0, 0), 0, subtype, rng:Next()) subType = ent.SubType end end
Notes
This pseudo-code is taken from Blade's GitHub Gist. (Blade is also known as blcd / Will.) He reverse engineered the game using a disassembler in order to create this pseudo-code.