History VideoGame / Noita

''Noita'' is a roguelike action platformer with heavy simulation aspects, developed created by Helsinki-based Nolla Games, a team comprising three members who have each made a notable indie game in UsefulNotes/TheNewTens- specifically, ''Crayon Physics Deluxe'', ''VideoGame/TheSwapper'', and ''Videogame/BabaIsYou''. The word "noita" comes from the Finnish word for "Witch", though in practice it's probably closer to "Shaman" or "Medicine-man". The game entered Early Access on September 24, 2019 and was released on October 15, 2020.

** Freezing Aura freezes any liquid around the Noita, including lava, making it an ideal perk if the player intends to enter [[spoiler:Hell]]. However the liquid always freezes in place, more often than not trapping the Noita in a mesh of ice pixels which must be shot to get free. Taking this perk will result in the Noita frequently getting stuck in their own frozen blood whenever they take damage.

* QuadDamage: Berserkium can empower characters and increase the effectiveness of their attacks. If you are under its effect, your spells deal much more damage, and the radius of explosions will be increased.

** Freezing Aura freezes any liquid around the Noita, including lava, making it an ideal perk if the player intends to enter [[spoiler:Hell]]. However the liquid always freezes in place, more often than not trapping the Noita in a mesh of ice pixels which must be shot to get free.

* AnimateInanimateObject: Possessed wands are a possibly enemy in Magical Temple biome. They wield the wand as any other enemy would, but the wand itself is considered the target and they can fly. They're rather fast, and are prone to get up in your face quickly, especially if you don't have a way to see through the innate darkness of the biome.

* BlackoutBasement: Some areas have little to no lighting, forcing the Noita to use spells or eat certain materials that grant night vision. While some areas have this effect by default, others can have it randomly added as a modifier. The worst is the Dark Cave, which is pitch black permanently.

* GeoEffects: Each of the main biomes has a chance of spawning with a modifier. Effects include changing the types and rarity of enemies, adding new materials, changes to material behavior, and more esoteric effects like enemies sometimes receiving ghostly helpers. Some zones also have modifiers by default, like the Desert which has a Hot modifier that causes water to evaporate.

** Sauvojen Tuntija appears when players collect the Orb east of the lava sea and try to leave. While its health is relatively low, its default attack is a homing projectile that will polymorph the player into a sheep with a second attack while transformed being lethal. It also retaliates against any attack by casting the spells back at the player.

* BrutalBonusLevel: The Tower is a bonus area accessed through the Temple of the Art, though the portal is out of the way. This section is a marathon level revisiting all the biomes and a random assortment of all enemies from the game, with the added challenge that the player has to travel up instead of down. Going around the levels isn't possible as the entire Tower is encased in Cursed Stone. As a reward at the top are three incredibly powerful wands.

** The enemies are split into different "factions" which will fight enemies from different factions on meeting. Taking the More Hatred perk increases the fighting by splitting up the existing factions so that formerly friendly enemies now fight one another. Conversely the Less Hatred perk reduces the infighting by merging factions.

* DifficultButAwesome: Many of the more powerful spells, such as the Nuke, are incredibly powerful but also very difficult to use without dying. Doing so requires collecting the right combination of perks, wands, and spell modifiers.

* YetAnotherStupidDeath: The game's simulation engine provides a multitude of ways to kill yourself via your own stupidity. Some highlights include:

** The Matkija ("A Mimic" in Finnish) is a monster that looks like a treasure chest. It remains motionless until you attempt to move next to or stand atop it, at which point you'll find it has no collision and will attempt to bite you. The rare Pahan muisto (Memory of Evil) and Valhe (Lie) are monsters that look like a health boost and spell refresh respectively, but otherwise behaves similarly.

** The Tentacle spells which fire a large, long tentacle from the wand. Aside from attacking they can also draw items such as nuggets to the Noita. The Revenge Tentacles perk will cause a tentacle to attack anything that damages the Noita.

** The Matkija ("A Mimic" in Finnish) is a monster that looks like a treasure chest. It remains motionless until you attempt to move next to or stand atop it, at which point you'll find it has no collision and will attempt to bite you. The rare "Pahan muisto" is a monster that looks like a health boost, but otherwise behaves similarly.

* PressXToDie: Thanks to diverse spells and its effects, the game sometimes generates wands that are very dangerous or outright suicidal to use, like ones that generate a fiery explosion in front of your face, or shoot ''nukes'' in six different directions. They are not entirely useless because you can take spells from the wands and use them for creating safer wands.

** The Urine liquid can spawn in a unique jar container, causes the "Jarate" stain effect, and on August 24th there is a chance for Snipuhiisi to throw multiple jars of Urine rather than shoot. All of this is in reference to the Jarate ability of Scouts in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''.

* ChestMonster: The Matkija ("A Mimic" in Finnish) is a monster that looks like a treasure chest, along with its Leggy variant. The rare "Pahan muisto" is a monster that looks like a health boost.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Sauvojen Tuntija has the ability to copy projectiles used against it and turn them on you, but can't copy the synergies in the wand that fired it. Simply fire something that causes self-damage with zero range like a Plasma Beam and watch the boss chew itself into giblets.

* PowerCopying: The palauttajamestari can copy spells being used in its vicinity, including yours! This makes them a particularly dangerous foe to go up against with high-powered spells. The mini-boss Sauvojen Tuntija has a similar ability. However, they have some drawbacks; they can only replicate the basic projectile instead of the precise function of your wand, they can't copy any status effects applied to you such as berserk, and spells that are dangerous to the user such as Plasma Beams are just as likely to kill them as you.

** Freezing Aura freezes any liquid around the Noita which includes lava, making it an ideal perk if the player intends to enter [[spoiler:Hell]]. However the liquid always freezes in place, more often than not trapping the Noita in a mesh of ice pixels which must be shot to get free.

* RecoilBoost: High recoil wands, especially with perks and a recoil boosting spell, can be used as an alternative and often faster mode of flight.

** The Ground to Sand modifier causes a projectile to reduce any solid, non-living material within a short radius of the projectile to be converted into powdery sand. This works regardless of the toughness of the material. It's a great digging tool is the limited charges can be bypassed.

* ShockAndAwe: There are a variety of spells that use lightning damage, from the basic Lightning Bolt to a modifier that creates arcs of electricity between multiple projectiles. There is also an enemy mage who attacks with giant bolts of lightning.

** The Matkija is a mimic that looks identical to a treasure chest, and waits for players to get close before going in for the attack. However, if one is in water, the game will mark it with the "wet" status, which gives away the fact that it's a monster; it also floats if the water is sufficiently deep rather than sinking. Also, hovering the cursor over a mimic won't display a "Treasure Chest" identifier.

* StuffBlowingUp: Oh good gosh ''yes''. Throughout the caverns there are massive pools of flammable liquids, explosive containers, piles of gunpowder, and more. With the right spells and positioning you can blow surprisingly huge chunks out of the levels.

** Sauvojen Tuntija appears when players collect the Orb east of the lava sea. While its health is relatively low, its default attack is a homing projectile that will polymorph the player into a sheep with a second attack while transformed being lethal. It also retaliates against any attack by casting the spells back at the player.

* SuperNotDrowningSkills: The Breathless perk removes the Noita's oxygen meter while swimming. Combining this with Faster Swimming makes simply flooding the levels and drowning all the monsters a viable tactic.

* ThisIsADrill: Digging Bolt and Digging Blast are drill-type spells that are intended for mining. They can dig through all but the hardest materials, have a radius as large as the Noita, and reduce recharge time (but slightly increase cast time, unlike the Chainsaw). They even use drills as their icons.

* MoneySpider: All enemies drop gold when slain, be they wild animals, magical monsters or robots.

** Wands with low Cast Delay or/and Recharge Time stat can cast spells very fast, so you can shoot projectiles rapidly. Although casting spells fast tends to consume your Mana quickly, it can be mitigated by using spells with low Mana cost like Spark Bolt.
*** Pairing one of these wands with three Chainsaws, a multi-cast spell, and a projectile effectively turns the wand into a machine gun.

** With the Formation Hexagon multicast spell, you can fire projectiles in six directions. You can use two or more Formation Hexagon spells to fire projectiles in even more directions, but you will need wands with very high Capacity stat.

** Wand Refresh forces a wand to reset regardless of any spells placed after it. This can be used to turn a large capacity wand into storage for spells you want but don't have inventory space to carry without rendering it useless.

** The game's ending is based on the number of [[spoiler:Orbs of True Knowledge]] the player has acquired during the run. Most are located in hard-to-reach locations so a player might be tempted to take the easier ones from the Minus Worlds. However, they also ''damage'' the player while also giving the typical health boost.

** The game has an Alchemy system where the various liquids can interact with other materials and each other to create different substances. While most of these are logical in nature (poison + oil = toxic sludge), there are three magical substances which can be created: The Lively Concoction, Alechmical Precursor, and the Draught of Midas. The recipes for these substances are randomized with each world.

** Freezing Aura freezes any liquid around the Noita which includes lava, making it an ideal perk if the player intends to enter [[spoiler:Hell]]. However the liquid always freezes in place, more often than not trapping the Noita in a mesh of ice pixels which must be shot to get free. And Toxic Ice causes damage on contact even if the player has Toxic Sludge Immunity.

** Item description for a bottle of rainbow (yes, that is a thing that exists) is lyrics from ''[[Music/{{Erasure}} Erasure's]]'' "Always". Associating that with rainbows also doubles are a reference to ''VideoGame/RobotUnicornAttack''.

* ShortRangeShotgun:
** The Haulikkohiisi wields a shotgun that fires multiple rounds per shot. These tend to have some spread so the Noita is more likely to take more damage at close range.
** Wands can replicate this if they have high spread and fire multiple spells per cast. The effect is reinforced if the spells used have shorter ranges.

** On Vappu, the Finnish celebration of Walpurgis night, all potions have a 20% chance of being replaced with Sima, a mild alcohol traditionally enjoyed for the holiday.

* UnrealisticBlackHole: The basic Black Hole spell creates a slow moving black hole that can burrow through any substance before dispersing, but won't hurt enemies. The Giga variant creates a larger, stationary singularity which will suck anything nearby into it, destroying anything that reaches its core. The Omega variant is even larger and more destructive.