Deep in Noita, in one of the rest stops between the hellish biome and biome, I absently purchased a spell modifier that I didn't quite understand. One of the core elements of this wonderfully maddening roguelike is the ability to modify the magic wand in a variety of ways. With some clever minimal-maxing and a bit of exploratory luck, you can become a true master of arcane feats. But there is no safety net in case that experiment doesn't work or you're not careful. So I attached this particular modifier to my cane, which shoots out a comically large spiral razor blade. I pointed and clicked at the far wall. The razor blade shot out toward the brick, immediately made a U-turn, and plowed full speed into my wizard, killing me instantly.

Upon further research, the modifier I put on that wand is called a "boomerang," and according to the larger Noita community, it is almost useless unless combined with various healing spells. That's the thing about Noita: in Noita, even power-up items are plotting to kill you.

I once found a wand in an ice cave with an ability called "Unstable Crystal." As soon as I pulled the trigger, it exploded and it was game over again. I have accidentally polymorphed more times than I can count. I've self-destructed, I've detonated a barrel of explosives that I didn't realize I had until it was too late, and I've nearly drowned in a vat of whiskey. But despite those mishaps, I think Noita is one of the best roguelikes of the year (the year of Spelunky 2 and Hades). It is not an easy game, nor is it fair, balanced, or well polished. But it is absurd and wonderfully fun, as long as you are prepared to endure the tumultuous deaths along the way.

Every new Noita species begins with your character (a robed, dementor-like wizard) standing on the precipice of a cave that stretches out before your feet. As with many roguelikes, the structure of the world is consistent each time. If you decide to traverse downwards (and that's not the only direction you're restricted to), the wizard will first encounter mines, then coal mines, frozen abysses, steel alien strongholds, toxic jungles, etc. What sets Noita apart from games like Hades and Spelunky What sets Noita apart from games like Hades and Spelunky is that there is no meta-progression. There is no gradual increase in your strength or attack power each time you start running, and there is no talent tree to bail you out. Instead, every game in Noita is a self-contained universe, right down to the moment when the warlock on the screen inevitably meets an untimely death. Freedom here can only come from getting good at it.

If we know anything about Noita, it is probably that every pixel in the game is perfectly simulated. The game made a big splash during Early Access, and what that really means is that there is nothing static in the environment, and objects and enemies tend to chain together like dominoes stacked on top of each other. Shoot a lantern with your cane and watch the flames lazily snake through the moss and trees below, individually rendered balls of smoke pressing against the cave walls. Throw a bomb into the bottom of a subterranean lake and watch as bedrock is destroyed and new waterfalls cascade down the shattered earth. Use freezing magic on any liquid substance, and you'll see jagged blocks of ice float to the top.

One of Noita's most creative uses of this 2D physics simulation was to equip the wizard with a flask to capture any fluid reagent in the game. The flask could be used as a magic potion, which, if drunk with ambrosia, would make the user temporarily immortal. But otherwise, they can be used to solve problems with mortal mediocrity. A seemingly impassable hole in the lava at the east end of the mine. Let's try to splash a canteen of water in there. This entire system gives Noita a shimmy and granularity not found in other games of the genre.

As mentioned before, during each biome the wizard encounters a resting place. It is called Holy Mountain, and when they arrive, they can recover fully, recharge all their depleted spell ammo, and buy a few new augments with gold nuggets picked up from corpses. (You can also buy some new augments with the gold nuggets you pick up from the corpse. (You can also buy some new augments with gold nuggets from corpses, for example, which will prevent you from taking fire damage for the rest of your life.)

The Sacred Mountain is where most of the character building in Noita takes place. At the top of the screen is an action bar, where players can save the various magical abilities and enhancements they find during their journey. Holy Mountain allows them to be dragged down into slots on equipped wands, where they can be used to unleash deadly or self-destructive combos. A wand that generates a black hole, a wand that generates a piercing vertical beam of light, and a wand that generates a rain cloud that fills the screen ....... Noita trusts you to try these combinations without guaranteeing which combinations will be effective.

The closest comparison I can think of is "Terraria". Both games encourage you to manipulate the forces of nature and find synergies whenever possible, and each has a thick compendium of spells, enemies, relationships, easter eggs, status effects, locations, etc. Like "Terraria," time with Noita is spent with the corresponding wiki in hand. I spend a lot of time with him. The game has benefited greatly from an extended Early Access period on Steam. The community has already turned over many stones, which comes in handy when you're getting your feet wet. For example, there are two alchemical combinations that produce ridiculously powerful solutions, but the ingredients are randomly assigned per run and kept completely secret from players unless you go to the fan-made website and enter your seed number. As a complete novice, I would not have known this existed if it were not for the solid brainpower surrounding the game.

There are many more examples of this in Noita. If we move upward, we can pass through many levels of enemies before landing on the moon. There are pyramids in the far west and ridiculously deep bodies of water in the east. If you want to add to the intrigue, there are a number of mysterious jewels hidden in the land. Collect them and take them to the right place, and without spoiling anything, you can significantly alter the integrity of reality.

Most beginners will not even scratch the surface of Noita's underworld. This is a punishing game and you will die in profoundly stupid ways. The difficulty curve takes a sharp turn to hell, especially when you enter the third biome. Typical main battles include a mass of poisonous spitballs, flaming fireballs, reckless explosions, and snipers in the distance with laser sights on the wizard's hooded head. (Yes, there is a sniper in this game. Noita plays quite quickly and loosely with various inspirations.)

It seems odd to complain like this, since Roguelikes is traditionally an uncompromising game, but I wish I could get a better sense of how much better Noita is becoming. The longer you stay in the cave, the more you can do what Spelunky does: get used to the interaction of the world. (Pro tip: water dilutes poison.) But when you're in the middle of a whirlpool of chaos, equipped with a dickens' staff and staring at dozens of different enemies coming with a vengeance, it can be hard to know how to succeed. Indeed, that is a problem that has long been dispelled by the game's most loyal followers. They have found the best perks, the best spells, and the best routing strategies, making such worries trivial. But entry-level players who arrive with the release of 1.0 will marvel at the dizzying anarchy of Noita and be a bit overwhelmed by the chaos.

Few games, however, can create as much mayhem as Noita. You are in a firefight with a shock trooper when your spell grazes over his head and hits a pile of gunpowder lurking in the shadows. Suddenly, both of you are trapped in a burning chasm, and a wooden vat containing a metric ton of oil begins to deteriorate in the flames. Noita desperately tries to show you what that little box of horrors is capable of.