Unfair? Yes. Painful? Very. Fun? Absolutely.Noitais a magic-castingroguelikecreated by Finnish developer Nolla Games. True to its genre, Noita expects you to fail and will do everything in its power to make it happen. One of its unique features is simulating all pixels on screen at any moment.
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Problem is: most of those pixels are dangerous. Acid, toxic rock, freezing vapor, fire (so much fire) — all of it can end a run in seconds. You will die a lot in this game, but here are a few tips to help you stay alive as you start your mission to complete the great work.
5Get A Water Flask & Use It
Every Noita run will begin by giving you two starting wands and a potion. Most of the time, that potion will be water. If it isn’t, you may get some by jumping into any body of water while you have an empty flask equipped. One of the biggest threats to the player is fire. No matter how much health you gain, it will cause damage over time proportional to your max HP. Other hazards, such as toxic sludge, do the same. Both these common hazards can be ended by water.
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Hopping into a puddle may be your first instinct, but what if there is no water to be found? Simply equip your trusty water flask and spray some water on yourself to remove those harmful burns. A few more benefits are that you can use it to harden lava, so it won’t melt you, and you can purify toxic sludge by pouring some water in and mixing it around. Water is key to your survival in Noita. Having a way to create it on demand will help you save some health where once you would have lost it.
4Stop Causing Fires
While useful, fire is very dangerous, and there is plenty of it to go around. Between burning enemies, fire spells, and the game’s natural tendency to combust for no reason, there is fireeverywhere.Unless you are lucky enough to gain fire immunity by a perk, it’s always a threat. No matter how much health you have, fire deals a set percentage of it as damage.
It can be useful to take out groups of enemies, but they quickly burn out of control. Worst of all, you won’t be able to collect the gold from your fallen foes without taking damage. Spreading fire can be effective — and fun — but remember: it has no loyalty.
3Understand Stains & How They Can Help
Stains are essentially status effects in Noita. As you move through liquids, they coat your witch’s robe and can help or hinder your progress. Three of the most common stains are water, blood, and toxic sludge. Water makes you wet, making you temporarily fireproof. It also comes with the downside of making you very weak to electricity. Blood stains increase the critical hit chance of your spells. Criticals in Noita deal 5 times your standard damage, so you want to land them as often as possible. A little bloodbath can do exactly that.
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Toxic sludge is the first hazardous stain most new players will run into. It coats your robe, inflicting damage over time until it’s cleared, which can be a long time depending on how soaked you are. Stains will replace each other as you find different liquids. Once again, the water flask can save you from harmful conditions by washing them off. There are many more stains in the game, almost as many as there are liquids, but the key to all of them is to understand they affect enemies the same way they affect you. Beware a bloodstained foe.
Spells are everything in Noita. If you understand how they work, you’re able to break the game with your wand and have a thrilling run. This only happens if you read them, though. Remember: Noita wants you dead, and some spells are built to do just that. Spell descriptions give details that are far from intuitive. A giant saw blade, for example, seems very effective at cutting apart enemies, until you find out it rebounds towards where it was cast, potentially right back at you.
The explosion spell causes an explosion, not where the enemy is, or where your cursor is pointing, but at the tip of your wand. This poses a number of problems, first among them: death. By reading spell traits, you can find some that act as triggers: a means of moving those dangerous effects away from you and toward your enemies. Experimenting with spells will help you master building wands. There arehundreds of spellsin Noita, so be sure you know what you’re casting.
1Take Your Time
In some roguelikes rushing for the end is a viable strategy to limit your exposure to danger. In Noita, that strategy will hinder more than help you later on. Every area in Noita has its own unique threats. Taking your time to learn how enemies attack and how to avoid their threats will keep you alive longer. Its worth the time to fight, die, and learn. The only thing you can improve in Noita is your knowledge.
The second part to this is gold. Your enemies drop it, and you need it. Without gold, you won’t be able to buy better wands and spells from the shop in between levels. If your wands can’t keep up with the threats you’re facing, you will fail. Every level has secrets, health pickups, and wands for you to find. Taking your time to search for them only improves your chances. All that said, if your health is low, fleeing to safety is your best option, so remember discretion is the better part of valor.
Even with all the advice in the world, Noita will usually still get you in the end. The best thing any player can do is learn from their mistakes. Noita is ahard game, but it’s also a fun game. There is a lot of depth to its mechanics. The best tip of all is to persevere.
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