Rooms

Each floor of the game is made up of a number of Rooms. The number of Rooms on each floor generally increases as the game progresses.

Normal Rooms[ | ]

Normal Rooms make up the majority of the Rooms on a floor. These Rooms typically contain enemies and may drop a pickup or chest after all enemies are killed. Many Rooms also contain various pickups, chests, items, and obstacles.

Isaac cannot leave a Room with enemies until they are all killed or until a door is opened with an explosion. If Isaac is currently holding an active item, completing a Room with enemies will add one charge.

Rooms can come in various sizes; while normal-sized Rooms are the most common, double and quadruple-sized Rooms can also appear.

L-shaped triple-sized Rooms, narrow hallways, and tiny Rooms can also appear. Additionally, completing a quadruple-sized Room or an L-shaped Room will add two charges to Isaac's active item.

The last wave of Boss Rush adds only one charge.

Sometimes rooms can be "flooded" with water, blood, or lava, depending on the Chapter. Flooded rooms allow for unique interactions with some Items, such as Jacob's Ladder, and enemies.

Normal rooms have occurrence weight assigned to them. Some rooms occur very rarely. Usually, those rooms contain numerous or rare pickups or chests — sometimes even items.

Closets[ | ]

Closets are rare, small, dead end Normal Rooms. They will often contain a unique arrangement of items, objects, or pickups.

Special Rooms[ | ]

Boss Rooms[ | ]

Boss Rooms contain one of the many Bosses, with victory granting Isaac an item from the Boss pool, hearts (depending on difficulty), and a trap door leading to the next level. It always spawns in the room that's as far from the starting room as possible.

Mini-Boss Room[ | ]

Mini-Boss Rooms are identical in appearance to normal Rooms and contain one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Mini-Boss Rooms are iron barred shut upon entering and are unable to be escaped and opened, even by explosions, until the Mini-Boss is defeated.
Mini-Boss Rooms have a map icon but don't have a special door.
- The map icon is only revealed once the room is entered, or if Isaac has an item that reveals map icons like The Compass.

Treasure Rooms[ | ]

Normal/Golden Treasure Rooms[ | ]

A Treasure Room, or Item Room, is guaranteed to appear on all floors from Basement 1 to Depths 2. From Basement 2 and on, this Room requires a key to enter. The Room contains one item from the Treasure Room item pool. Various obstacles may be present, and occasionally Flies or Greed Gapers/ Bulbs will be present. This Room has a small chance to contain two items from the treasure pool that can both be collected, and a very small chance of containing no item pedestal at all, instead containing one poop pile, 3 Attack Flies, and various pickups, including one trinket.

On Downpour / Dross, Mines / Ashpit, and Mausoleum / Gehenna, Treasure Rooms will always contain at least two items, with one of them being hidden, similar to Curse of the Blind.

Golden Treasure Rooms always require one key to open in Greed Mode.

Golden Treasure Rooms appear in Greedier mode as well, acting the same way and requiring a key to open.

Golden Treasure Rooms can generate in the Womb/Utero if the Bloody Crown trinket is equipped when the floor is generated.

Golden Treasure Rooms can generate in Sheol with the Wicked Crown trinket equipped, and can generate in the Cathedral with the Holy Crown trinket equipped.

Silver Treasure Rooms[ | ]

Silver Treasure Rooms are Rooms found in Greed Mode. They always contain one item from the Greed "Boss" Item Pool, and require no keys to open, being open from the start of the floor.

Appears in Greedier Mode as well, acting exactly the same way.

Devil Treasure Rooms[ | ]

When carrying the Devil's Crown trinket, any newly found or not walked into Treasure Room becomes a Red Treasure Room, which contain items from the Devil Room pool for the price of heart containers. The prices are the same as normally required in regular Devil Deals.

Planetariums[ | ]

Planetariums are similar to Treasure Rooms, but only contain one powerful celestial item belonging to the Planetarium (Item Pool), items exclusive to Planetarium Rooms. Planetariums have an additive and higher chance of spawning if the player avoids walking into Treasure Rooms.

Shops[ | ]

Shops require a key to open. They sell various items and pickups in exchange for coins. Shops start at level 0 and only sell 2 things, but Shops at higher levels sell more things. They can be upgraded through the Donation Machine, which can be commonly found in the Shops and sometimes in an Arcade.
Shops also have a chance of being replaced by a miniboss Room containing Greed or Super Greed.

Shops can generate in the Womb/Utero if the Silver Dollar trinket is equipped when the floor is generated.

The Shop spawned on the first floor is free to enter.

Shops can generate in Sheol with the Wicked Crown trinket equipped, and can generate in the Cathedral with the Holy Crown trinket equipped.

Has a new Door, no longer sharing a Door with Libraries.

Arcades[ | ]

These Rooms are locked and require one coin to be opened. Arcades can only spawn on even floors (Basement II, Caves II, Depths II, Womb II, etc) if the previous floor was completed with 5 or more coins. Arcades can contain machines, beggars, and other objects.

Arcades will spawn on the first floor of the alternate chapters (Downpour I, Mines I, Mausoleum I, Corpse I).

Challenge Rooms[ | ]

Normal Challenge Room[ | ]

Challenge Rooms will only generate if Isaac has full health upon entering the first floor of a Chapter. Challenge Rooms can only be entered if Isaac's total health (red, black, and soul hearts) is equal to or greater than his number of heart containers. Upon picking up its contents, Isaac has to fight three waves of enemies.

Boss Challenge Room[ | ]

Boss Challenge Rooms will only generate if Isaac has full health upon entering the second floor of a Chapter. They also can only be entered if Isaac has one or less red heart. Its contents are similar to the Normal Challenge Room, but upon picking up its contents, Isaac has to fight two waves of Bosses instead of normal monsters.

Boss Challenge Rooms now can only be entered normally if Isaac's total health (red, black, and soul hearts) is equal to or less than 1 full heart, but now always contain an item from the Boss Item Pool.

Curse Rooms[ | ]

Curse Rooms are special rooms with spikes on the door that hurt Isaac when entering and exiting the Room. Curse Rooms can contain various things, ranging from enemies, red chests, to even pedestal items from the Curse Room Item Pool. However, Isaac doesn't take damage upon entering the room if he has flight (still takes damage upon exiting).

Sacrifice Rooms[ | ]

Sacrifice Rooms are special rooms that have a chance to spawn a Chest or other preset rewards after Isaac damages himself on the spikes featured at the center of the Room. Sacrifice Rooms have a higher chance to spawn if Isaac has more health to sacrifice (if Isaac's total health (red, black, and soul hearts) is equal to or greater than his number of heart containers).

Sacrifice Rooms now can pay with a much wider variety of rewards.

Has a new bloody door, replacing its old, generic one.

Secret Rooms[ | ]

Secret Rooms must be bombed into, and are usually surrounded by 3 or 4 Rooms. Secret Rooms usually contain Shopkeepers and various pickups.

Super Secret Rooms[ | ]

Super Secret Rooms must be bombed into, and are only located next to one other non-special Room. They tend to spawn closer to the Boss Room. Super Secret Rooms can contain a variety of pickups.

Ultra Secret Rooms[ | ]

Ultra Secret Rooms are very secret rooms, found when venturing one Red Room outside the normal map using the Red Key, Crystal Key, Cracked Key, Soul of Cain, or by teleporting to it with XVIII - The Moon?. These map-expanding items allow you to create Red Rooms, and if correctly found, one of those new Red Rooms will have a Secret Room passageway to the Ultra Secret Room already opened. The Ultra Secret Room itself contains Keys, key blocks, and/or Shopkeepers, and one item from the Ultra Secret Room item pool for its pedestal rewards.

Libraries[ | ]

Libraries require a key to be entered and can contain book items, cards, runes, and trinkets.

Has a new Door, no longer sharing a door with Shops.

Devil Rooms[ | ]

These Rooms allow the player to make deals with the Devil by trading health for items. Devil Rooms can also contain Red Chests, Black Hearts, spikes, or monsters along with its signature devil statue. They may also have Fire Places or Red Fire Places which have a chance to drop Coins, Red Hearts, and more when extinguished.

Devil Rooms have a chance to contain Krampus rather than any items, if Krampus is unlocked.

Angel Rooms[ | ]

Angel Rooms contain an angel statue and one or more items to choose from, Soul Hearts, or Eternal Hearts. The Angel Room has a chance to replace the Devil Room if certain conditions are met. They may also have Blue Fire Places or Purple Fire Places, which have a chance to drop Soul Hearts when extinguished.

Can now have a Confessional in them.

Vaults[ | ]

Vaults require two keys to open and can contain various things, ranging from items to Donation Machines.

Has a new Door, no longer sharing a Door with Dice Rooms.

Dice Rooms[ | ]

Dice Rooms require two keys to open. Depending on the number of pips imprinted on the face of the large red die embedded in the floor, stepping onto the center of the die activates an effect.

Dice Rooms, when spawning, replace a sacrifice room that also could have spawned on the floor. They have a higher chance of spawning over a sacrifice room spawn if you have 2 or more keys.
Dice Rooms now have a small image in the corner of the large red die that also tells the effect of stepping on it.
Has a new Door, no longer sharing a Door with Vaults.

Clean Bedrooms and Dirty Bedrooms[ | ]

Bedrooms require two bombs to open. Bedrooms contain a bed that can be used once to restore all of the player's health, or if they have no red hearts, they give you 3 soul hearts and add one charge to their active item.

Depending on if the Bedroom is Clean or Dirty (the main difference being the state of the bed and wall color), bombing the center of the carpet will reveal a crawl space (Clean) or a trapdoor (Dirty) leading to the next floor.

Crawl Spaces[ | ]

These Rooms are entered through Trapdoors with ladders in them. They can rarely be found under destroyed rocks. They can also be found using We Need To Go Deeper!, Rune of Ehwaz, or under a Clean Bedroom's rug. These Rooms are viewed from the side, rather than the top like the rest of the Rooms in the game. Crawl Spaces usually contain an item or various pickups. Rarely, the Crawl Space will lead to a Black Market.

Black Markets[ | ]

Black markets are accessed through Rare Crawl Spaces. These Rooms are 2 Rooms wide and have shop items that can all be bought for 1 heart container, like devil deals. Black Markets also have a trapdoor to the next floor and various machines or beggars.

Angel Room Shops[ | ]

Angel Room Shops are special holy shops, accessed if Isaac has The Stairway. The Stairway will spawn a ladder in the starting room of each floor that leads to each floor's Angel Room shop, a Shop that sells Angel deal items, has angel-related pickups, sometimes includes a coin beggar or a Confessional, and always includes an angel statue. This ladder disappears upon leaving the room.

Secret Shops[ | ]

Secret shops are accessed by buying a Member Card, opening up a 'special' Shop Trapdoor that leads to the floor's underground shop. Secret shops have a wider variety of items and pickups, sold at various expensive prices.

Red Rooms[ | ]

Red Rooms are special rooms created when using the Red Key (and Red Key wisps spawned with Book of Virtues), Crystal Key, Cracked Key, or the Soul of Cain. The Red Key Rooms don't open without these items, and are spawned into existence at the closest red outline door when the item is used. The new Red Room can be a normal Room on this floor, or any special Room, aside from extra Ultra Secret Rooms and Boss Rooms. Red Rooms can't spawn where there aren't 4 connections out of the Room, not spawning if a touching room contains a bottomless pit on one wall, already is a secret room, or is a thin closet/hallway room. While inside a Red Room, the music of the floor will be slightly distorted.

Red rooms can only be spawned in an 13x13 radius from the the center room of the map, or six rooms from the center room in any direction; any farther will lead to entering an I AM ERROR Room.

I AM ERROR Rooms[ | ]

I AM ERROR Rooms have a small chance of being reached upon using Telepills, and can be reached with other items such as Undefined and Red Key. Every I AM ERROR Room contains a trapdoor to the next floor along with various pickups or items. The only way out of an I AM ERROR Room is through the trapdoor or by teleporting out.

Using Teleport 2.0 when all other rooms have been explored guarantees to be teleported in an I AM ERROR room.

The I AM ERROR Room is a running gag within games that is a reference to the "I AM ERROR" easter egg in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)

Boss Rush[ | ]

If the player manages to beat Mom in under 20 minutes from the start of the run (visually indicated by the clock icon that appears during the cutscene between floors), a crack will open in the wall of the Boss Room upon defeating her, allowing entry to a large Room with 2 or 4 item pedestals in the center or the corners, often blocked by rocks or spikes. Taking one of the presented items will destroy the others and begin the Boss Rush.

Mama Mega! can be used to open the Boss Rush entrance in the Mom Boss Room even after the 20 minute deadline, allowing access to the Boss Rush Room.
The Broken Shovel opens the Boss Rush Room, even after the 20 minute deadline. The Trapdoor to the next Floor is also closed until Boss Rush is completed.
Mausoleum Mom also spawns the Boss Rush Room if defeated within 25 minutes.

Mega Satan Arena[ | ]

This long Room is only found in the starting Room of Chest and Dark Room. Opening this door requires an item such as Dad's Key or the two key pieces from Angels. Once the Room is entered, Isaac will have to face off against Mega Satan.

??? Entrance[ | ]

If the player manages to beat Mom's Heart or It Lives in under 30 minutes (visually indicated by the clock icon that appears during the cutscene between floors), a crack will open in the wall of the Boss Room upon defeating it, containing a room with a Trapdoor to ???.

Mother Arena[ | ]

Mother's arena is accessible by a large pit in the ground in the Boss Room of Corpse II. Dropping down into the pit leads to Mother's unique transforming boss room.

Greed Exit Rooms[ | ]

Exit Rooms are Rooms with the defining feature of having a Trapdoor/exit to the next Floor.

Greed Exit Rooms start metal barred and unbombable, like miniboss rooms, but will be unbarred and accessible once ten waves of enemies are defeated.

Greed Exit Rooms have a special door, having a special black exit doorway in the main greed room, but having a normal floor colored doorframe when in the room itself.

Exit Rooms may contain pickups, chests, and enemies.

Greedier Exit Rooms[ | ]

Greedier Exit Rooms are almost exactly the same as the Greed Mode Exit Room, except they take 11 rounds to open.

Alternate Path Exit Rooms[ | ]

When unlocked, these Rooms appear attached to a Main Path Boss Room once the Boss is defeated (or appear at the end of Alternate Path Chapter). These Rooms contain an entrance to the Alternate Path Floors. These Rooms have different requirements to open them, based on the Chapter they are barring entrance to:

In floors 1-2, the door requires a key to unlock the entrance to Downpour or Dross.
In floors 3-4, the door requires two bombs to unlock the entrance to Mines or Ashpit.
In floors 5-6, the door requires sacrificing two hearts to unlock the entrance to Mausoleum or Gehenna (except on Depths II and its variants, where this door doesn't appear).

A Strange Door Exit Room[ | ]

When unlocked, this room appears above the starting room of the second floor of Chapter 3, containing a trapdoor leading to a special version of the second floor of Chapter 3.5. This door can only be opened by obtaining and sacrificing either The Polaroid, The Negative, or Faded Polaroid.

Grave Rooms[ | ]

Grave Rooms are Rooms that appear in the Dark Room which only contain 1-3 Dirt Patches. The Forgotten is unlocked by reaching this room and digging with Mom's Shovel.

Mirror Room[ | ]

The Mirror Room is a single special room found on the second floor of Chapter 1.5, containing a single mirror on either the left or right doorway location. This mirror can be broken by explosions, but also can be entered to explore the Mirrored World, a replica of the current floor, to find Knife Piece 1. The mirror can only be entered by The Lost, Tainted Lost, Tainted Forgotten, and Tainted Jacob's ghost form. All other characters must touch the white fire which always generates on the second floor of Chapter 1.5 in order to temporarily become The Lost if they want to enter the mirror.

Mine Cart Room[ | ]

The Mine Cart Room is a single special room found on the second floor of Chapter 2.5 only if Isaac already has Knife Piece 1. It contains a Yellow Button, a single minecart, a blocked door at the top of the room and occasionally some enemies.

There are 2 other Yellow Buttons located randomly on the same floor and pressing all 3 repairs the minecart's track allowing access through the blocked door. Alternatively having Flight and 2 bombs also allows access through the door. The area past the blocked door contains Knife Piece 2 and a chase sequence with Mother's Shadow. The door is permanently blocked after leaving the sub-area.

Notes[ | ]

In regular Rooms with unreachable enemies, the doors will automatically open after a while to prevent Isaac from becoming unable to progress. See here for the specific details.
- This will not occur if Isaac has flight or if there is a boss or miniboss in the Room.
- This will not occur in Rooms with Pressure Plates that do not have enemies or only have indestructible enemies such as Wall Huggers or Stone Grimaces.
Rooms that have obstacles in the middle covered by pits can often drop the room reward in the place of the destroyed obstacle. Because of that, it is advised avoiding touching that obstacle if you really need consumables/pickups.

Gallery[ | ]

The original concept art for "Octorock," an early model of Isaac, and gameplay features. Interestingly enough, XL Rooms and L-shaped Room layouts were shown but never implemented until Rebirth and its first DLC, Afterbirth, respectively.
Afterbirth Room layout concepts on the upper left side by Edmund McMillen.