
Noita – roguelite where every pixel is simulated - ducaale
https://noitagame.com/
======
omnibrain
Reminds me of the game Clonk, a german Indie game before there even was the
term "Indie game". It also had a pixel based engine, explosions, liquid etc.
You could dig tunnels, mine for ressources and have you (or your enemies)
tunnels flodded by rain or oil (which in turn could be ignited).

Sadly the developers never had a real breaktrhrough and stopped working on new
versions some time before the whole indie game craze (Minecraft, Terraria,
Steam Greenlight, etc.) started.

If you want to have a look: [http://clonk.de/?lng=en](http://clonk.de/?lng=en)

~~~
npteljes
Some further development happened on it in the project called OpenClonk.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenClonk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenClonk)

~~~
Artsub
There is also LegacyClonk project which improves the original Clonk Rage. I
myself don't enjoy OpenClonk at all even though I've spent probably over
thousand hours with clonk starting from Clonk Planet

------
errantspark
I've definitely got my money's worth from this one, there are a lot of
interesting emergent qualities in the game and the map has a lot of secrets
scattered around it for you to discover. This game took up my evening for a
few weeks when I first got it, so well worth the money in my book. I still
come back to it from time to time as it's under pretty active development.

I really enjoyed testing the limits of the engine and using the wand system to
craft interesting physics things.

~~~
dx87
The secrets were my favorite part, it made it me feel like a kid again. There
are parts of the game that you'll never see if you don't explore off the easy
path. I kind of wish they told you ahead of time that those areas exist,
though, even if they don't tell you how to get to them. I'm so accustomed to
modern games having one path from start to finish, that I didn't bother
exploring until I happened to read a comment talking about the secret areas. I
probably doubled my amount of play time after I started exploring, and trying
to access all the optional areas. Unfortunately, some areas seem to only be
reachable if you are lucky enough to get certain wands, or the procedurally
generated terrain is in a favorable layout.

~~~
trenchgun
What would be an example of such an area?

~~~
pyhtel
One I remember: Going off to the far right of the map of the first level,
you'll hit a lava lake, followed by a deep pit. If you jump down the pit, it's
a shortcut to the second level. There's also a bunch of rewards for exploring
to overworld (you start at a cave entrance and are generally expected to go
underground immediately)

~~~
yxhuvud
No, it is a shortcut to the third level, and generally I'd not recommend it as
you need better wands to survive. It is more a way back _up_ if you get good
enough gear to get to the overworld.

Also I'd recommend going _over_ the pit instead of down it.

~~~
moomin
I think these days shortcuts are often for experienced players who are happy
with the difficulty ramp being a cliff.

e.g. in Bloodborne you can rush the Cleric Beast, spend the echoes to open the
gate and go straight to Amelia. Something that using the standard progression
route you'll do much, much, later. If you're good enough, this is great.

------
bexsella
When the trailers to this came out, I was impressed, but remembered that I'd
played a small game, maybe even a prototype, of similar tech about a decade
beforehand called Bloody Zombies[1] by Petri Purho. Turns out, Nolla Games has
Petri on the team, and they must've been as impressed by Bloody Zombies as I
was at the time.

[1][https://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/bloody](https://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/bloody)

~~~
Kiro
Yeah, he talks about the progression from Bloody Zombies to Noita in the GDC
talk linked in the sibling comment.

It's a true indie studio btw with just three guys who all had some independent
success with their previous solo efforts.

------
obl
If you're interested the dev had a cool GDC talk going over the design :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXuyMCgbTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXuyMCgbTc)

~~~
adsjhdashkj
Appreciate it! As a backend engineer _(not game dev)_ but lacking in math and
proper computer science backgrounds, what areas might i want to focus on
learning to implement a simulation game similar to this?

~~~
Bekwnn
The quickest path is to just start writing real time simulations of stuff and
reference how other similar simulations went about implementation; terrains
and erosion, cloth, fluid, etc.

It's easier if you have a bunch of random linear algebra and calculus
knowledge lying around in your head, but trying to study that stuff isn't the
most direct route.

~~~
cpeterso
I don’t have a good reference to share, but also read up on game tick loops
and clock time. Processor speeds vary and thread scheduling is
nondeterministic, so a stimulation code must be written carefully to produce a
deterministic result.

~~~
galkk
I don't think that you even need to produce deterministic result in game

~~~
setr
Same-machine determinism is probably not too bad, and would greatly aid
debugging; cross-machine determinism is mainly really useful for lockstep
multiplayer I think.

But yeah it wouldn't really matter in-game unless you're trying roll time
backwards/forwards as a game mechanic.

Also of note, all games can be considered simulations, with varying complexity
and rules (and players given a way to interact with the system) -- from that
perspective, the only requirements to implementing a game simulation is
whatever is required to implement any game.

~~~
suby
This is correct. If you want to create a multiplayer game, you can go about it
by running the simulation on everyone's computer, and sending only the inputs
to the simulation across machines (Lockstep networking). This requires the
simulations to be deterministic which can be tricky to get right due to
differences across architectures / compilers.

This is the approach used in a lot of RTS games. Starcraft 1 and 2 both work
this way. I believe the original doom used this method as well.

You can get away with not having deterministic simulations via having the
server run the simulation, and sending the data required for clients to render
the state of the world that they can see. This requires a lot more bandwidth
and complicates the network code quite a bit (or at least demands a certain
architecture for the code). You still need to run some of the simulation on
the client just for having acceptable visuals due to how long it takes for
data to travel from server to client (level collision might also be simulated
on client for example), but this client side simulation is just for visuals.
Still though it's perhaps easier to get a reliable solution working like this
due to how hard it is to get deterministic simulations.

The big downside to lockstep, beside it being hard to get deterministic
simulations running across machines, is that it opens you up to certain types
of hacks. Because the simulation is running on everyone's machine, this allows
malicious players to hack the code to do things like let them see through
walls or reveal the entire map.

Some games like (some) fighting games use an approach where they just let the
simulation run on the client, predicting what they think the inputs will be,
and if they get data from the server which doesn't agree with the predicted
inputs, the game will revert to the last known good state, and just re-run the
simulation with the correct inputs. This sounds insane but if for example a
player is holding down W to move forward, it's more likely that W will
continue to be held down rather than being released on any given frame.

~~~
MereInterest
Regarding the fighting game approach, that would be an interesting application
of machine learning. Given a player's previous performance in a fight, predict
what they will do and use that as a better heuristic in the absence of
additional input. The downside is that lag would be much less identifiable as
such, because things that require volition (e.g. an attack) might be predicted
and shown to an opponent even if they never happen.

------
hypertexthero
It’s a wonderful video game to play a quick few minutes or hours!

It has mod support, excellent music, and is still an early-access labor of
love by the developers with new things added often (I just discovered a ’Moon
Stone’ for the first time which is a little moon with a gravitational field
that you can throw and see how it affects the environment!)

Here is a stream of a recent version played last week:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geRWwycLCO8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geRWwycLCO8)

------
smcleod
Looks really neat, shame it’s windows only though, hopefully a macOS, Linux or
PS release at some point?

~~~
forrestthewoods
Consoles seems likely after early access.

macOS and Linux represent less that 1% of lifetime revenue most games. They
unfortunately aren’t worth the opportunity cost or support tickets.

~~~
millstone
Maybe iPad? The premium game market seems viable on iPads.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Premium iOS for mobile-first / mobile-only titles is deader than dead.

Some really good games do get ported. I think premium mobile is probably a
distant 5th after PC / PS4 / Switch / Xbox for most games. But it’s probably a
nice revenue bonus for multi-million unit sellers.

------
poisonarena
I bought it on steam, played it a while, it is fun to play around with the
system/environment, in the way powdergame is, but the actual game part is
lacking.. I hope it is developed further it make it more of an acual fun game,
rather than a tech demo(perhaps not the right term)

~~~
Jarwain
It does appear to be early access, so it looks like they plan on taking it
further

------
Hammershaft
I was pretty disappointment by Noita

I had been looking forward to this game for years before it was released, but
it ended up being quite a different game then I had intuited from the
trailers. I expected an environmental sandbox where you would have to combine
quick thinking with the manipulation of interacting environmental elements
(water + electricity, or fire + coal) to survive, similar to my favorite
roguelike Brogue. When the game came out, I realized it was designed more in
the style of Binding of Isaac or Risk of Rain, emphasizing combining
slotmachine-esque random weapon modifiers into hideously overpowered weapons
that for the most part did not meaningfully interact with the environmental
simulation in a meaningful way.

It is still an interesting experience, the weapon combination system is a
strong source of emergent play, but that emergent weapon design does not
meaningfully influence the player's strategy in how he/she approaches the game
across runs.

I think there is a better game trapped inside of the pixel simulation of
Noita, waiting to be unearthed.

~~~
brundolf
It's incredibly hard to design a game around an emergent physical system where
that system not only allows the gameplay to remain fun, but actually
contributes to the fun in a meaningful way. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the
Wild did an astoundingly good job of this, but it's one of the only examples I
can think of where it really worked at all. Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts is
the other, though most people probably haven't heard of that one.

~~~
com2kid
Nuts and Bolts is a tragically underrated game.

The physics simulation is on just the right side of fun/realism, insane
contraptions work but the system is flexible enough that players jury rigged
turrets.

Lots of games in a similar vein have followed, but I haven't found any to be
as easy to play and as fun.

~~~
brundolf
It still blows my mind the kinds of things I was able to make, and the kind of
ingenuity that was sometimes (successfully!) required of me to solve the
problems presented.

My favorite creation was the "wall-driving car". You could just make a car,
and put a propeller on top pointed upward, and it would press you against
whatever surface you were on so you could drive on walls or even the ceiling.
That _worked_. And I'm almost certain the devs never imagined it.

I also made a working pod-racer by putting tiny propellers underneath a pair
of jet engines (and under the seat), and connecting them to the seat using
those flexible coupling-beams. And it _drove like a pod-racer_. It looked
exactly like something out of the film, the way it moved. It was amazing.

Maybe I need to boot that game back up :)

~~~
ethbr0
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46#Brabham_BT46B_%...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46#Brabham_BT46B_%E2%80%93_the_fan_car)

~~~
joshu
the 2J did it first...

------
manjana
This game seems really awesome, I've had a few looks at it at Steam so far. I
am a bit curious what does it mean that each and every pixel is 'simulated'?
They use the statement many times, but I'm really not sure what that statement
implies.

~~~
ewired
Each in-game particle ('pixel') has its own physics and interactions with
other particles. There are other games which did this before Noita, but none
of them have the same depth or gameplay. The other major "falling sand" games
are just sandboxes.

One of the earliest games (a Java applet) was somehow made to work in HTML5:
[https://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust2/](https://dan-
ball.jp/en/javagame/dust2/)

This is the most feature-rich falling sand sandbox game with built-in Lua
scripting: [https://powdertoy.co.uk](https://powdertoy.co.uk) (their website
appears to be down)

~~~
ent
There was actually a whole genre of action games in the Finnish indie game
scene in the 90's, cave flying games (luolalentelypelit) that usually had
similar physics from which Noita (Finnish for witch) clearly draws inspiration
from.

Although most of the cave flying games were from the dos era, probably the
most famous one, wings, had a "new" version [1] made that runs on windows and
linux.

[1] [http://www.wings2.net/](http://www.wings2.net/)

~~~
httpsterio
And now akumusa is playing in my head, kiitti vaan.

------
glaberficken
Noita was yet another tech-demo/game-engine looking for a gameplay idea. The
outcome is usually a good-enough but unremarkable game.

~~~
breakfastduck
That may be true for you, but every game like this goes down with me as one of
my favorite games ever.

Cortex Command is another perfect example of this kind of effect.

Any game that makes cool physics possible is a win for me.

Others interested in this topic should check out Teardown

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfeWtv7Iww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfeWtv7Iww)

------
CydeWeys
From the brief gameplay footage I saw, this seems a lot like Lemmings/Worms in
that every pixel on the screen can be destroyed (but more advanced).

~~~
baby
More like liero

~~~
ehnto
That's what I had in mind as well! There's an online version now:
[https://www.webliero.com/](https://www.webliero.com/)

Official site with a few options including an open source version
[https://www.liero.be/](https://www.liero.be/)

------
smabie
This is a really fun, totally crazy and chaotic game. Highly recommended.

~~~
joshu
This review is, if anything, understated.

~~~
Chris2048
Very true. I had to stop playing b/c it's such a time-sink.

I'd also mention that development is pretty fast, new stuff is added all the
time.

------
cdiamand
I had a lot of fun modding this game. The files were in LUA (I think) and you
could easily give your character whatever starting equipment you want. Oil
wand + fire was a good time.

~~~
artificialLimbs
This editing extended my gameplay by weeks.

Can't remember how, but I went through and manually found all the variables
for powerups using the default mods so I could have a mega wand on game start.

------
rob74
A side-scrolling game with accurate physics simulation where you fly around in
a cave system fighting alien monsters, finding secrets and solving puzzles?
Reminds me of Exile
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rbjU8sCP0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rbjU8sCP0)),
a sadly overlooked Amiga classic which I enjoyed very much back in the day. Of
course, Exile didn't have every pixel simulated (not doable at the time) and
had more of a science fiction look, but I think I'll still try Noita out when
I have some time... one big difference however is that while in Noita "death
is permanent", in Exile death simply was not possible - each time your energy
got low enough, you were simply teleported to a spot you had marked previously
or, if you forgot to do that, back to your spaceship. Which did make things
less frustrating, because the game was pretty tough...

------
nsajko
Windows-only.

~~~
butz
But works on Linux too:
[https://www.protondb.com/app/881100](https://www.protondb.com/app/881100)

~~~
baby
Unfortunately I have none of these platforms. I’m hopping it comes out on the
switch

------
atum47
I have written two effects that does "pixel simulation".

    
    
        https://github.com/victorqribeiro/fireEffect
        https://github.com/victorqribeiro/rippleEffect
    

I know of a sandbox game that does something similar, a different rule for
every "element", but never see this being used as an actual game. Seems very
interesting.

------
royletron
This game is everything. I played about 90 minutes during 'lunch' (yay WFH),
and it's so good. That soundtrack is so much better than it needs to be, the
art looks insane. One slight thing is the combat is a little clunky (it feels
like the same blind panic of Terraria), anyone else suffered? Maybe I just
need to get in the game more.

------
VectorLock
This game is fun but more table flipping and swear inducing than almost
anything I can think of, including Nethack.

~~~
Fordec
I love the game, but mods are a hard requirement. The base game has some
balancing issues that unquestionably needs ironing out. Like health
regeneration (vampirism), health refresh and a playthrough without the ability
to edit wands on the fly is a recipe for failure.

~~~
VectorLock
Which mods do you suggest?

I figured that editing wands outside of the Holy Mountain was what the game
designer intended. I can agree that maybe the game designers conception of an
acceptable difficultly level doesn't mesh with what many (including myself)
think is acceptable difficulty.

~~~
Fordec
"Vampirism+" to buff regen rate from drinking blood and "Hearts Heal You" to
start with anyway.

If in the first section, for example, you get hit with a shotgun blast, taking
the health damage is fine. But there should be an opportunity to heal and get
back up to a safe level, even if it requires careful, patient searching and
back tracing to do so. At the moment, a few early game missteps spells
probable disaster for that entire playthrough way more than midgame mistakes.
Difficulty should ramp up rather than down in my book

I also made myself a custom mod that enables a few extra quality of life
tweaks such as editing wands everywhere, starting with vampirism enabled,
poly-morph potion immunity (in mid to late game it's basically the most deadly
thing and frustratingly uncounterable in events where if you're holding an
electric charged item in my book) and an extra flask of water starting off to
deal with early game toxicity and fire but I haven't figured how to get it up
to the workshop yet.

------
bartwe
Really love the game, i did have to install a respawn mod to get anywhere
however.

------
mmaunder
I’m not a gamer. Can someone take the trouble to tl;dr me the significance of
this?

------
neiman
You know I'm old cuz it still annoys me that (almost) all game nowadays come
via Steam.

~~~
_def
It's also available at several other stores

~~~
neiman
You're right. My rant was about the fact that I need to use a 3rd party store
in order to have a game.

~~~
VectorLock
As opposed to buying directly from the developer?

~~~
neiman
Yes, or an Internet store that would let me download the game instead of
installing a piece of software on my computer.

I'm super spoiled:-)

~~~
dividuum
You can purchase the game on
[https://www.gog.com/game/noita](https://www.gog.com/game/noita), and download
a DRM free installer for Noita. Their own launcher (GOG Galaxy) is purely
optional. All games purchased on GOG can be downloaded that way.

~~~
neiman
Thanks! I didn't know that! :)

------
JohnHaugeland
Honestly, I get really tired of seeing games that aren't like Rogue calling
themselves Roguelikes in the effort to make money

That word was well defined long before the people who will soon inevitably
whine at me were born

~~~
bmn__
Roguelite, not roguelike.

------
SideburnsOfDoom
> every pixel is simulated

That statement, on its own, is meaningless buzzzwords to me. What would it
mean for it not to be true: where does one find _unsimulated_ pixels? Surely
all pixels are digital simulations by their nature?

What is seems to mean is that the pixels are the output of some physics engine
rather than being hand-drawn art.

~~~
monsieurbanana
I understood from the get-go what they meant.

> What is seems to mean is that the pixels are the output of some physics
> engine rather than being hand-drawn art.

... whereas I wouldn't understand your description if I didn't knew what you
were trying to say already.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Ok, so what to you differentiates, in general, a "real" pixel from a
"simulated" pixel? It's not clear.

Is this a term of art that games industry insiders know?

I understand what weather forecasters mean when they talk about "hurricanes"
vs. "simulated hurricanes" . So how does that apply to pixels?

I apologize if I came across as dismissive of the headline, but there is a
genuine comprehension gap here. OK, you understand it just fine, but that
reply doesn't help me close the gap.

~~~
magicalhippo
In regular 2D games most pixels are simply drawn, based on a sprite or
texture. Think Super Mario, each block of ground is a sprite, each coin box is
a sprite.

The sprites might be drawn based on more or less involved simulation, think
the mushrooms that move and change direction when they hit an obstacle. But
the pixels making up the mushroom is just drawn based on the mushrooms
location, same as always.

In Noita you can think of each pixel on screen as being a 1x1 sprite. Each one
simulated.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> In Noita you can think of each pixel on screen as being a 1x1 sprite. Each
> one simulated.

So we're talking about "every pixel is _individually_ simulated", as opposed
to "pixels simulated in groups"?

~~~
magicalhippo
Well in say Super Mario, most of the sprites aren't simulated at all. They're
sitting at fixed locations in the world. The viewpoint changes, but the
sprites (tiles) stay where they are.

In this respect Noita is like Minecraft, in that each pixel (block) can
change. However in Minecraft the state of each block in the world changes
while its position is fixed. In Noita each 1x1 sprite (pixel) can move around
on its own.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> in say Super Mario, most of the sprites aren't simulated at all

That's not a statement that I find a lot of meaning in. The sprites are not
imitation sprites? The sprites are not fake? ( [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/simulated](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/simulated) ) Do you use a different definition? What
words would you use as synonyms of "simulated" here? "Animated" ?
"Interactive" ? "run through the physics engine" ? it does seem to be a term
of art here.

~~~
magicalhippo
I think the key behind simulation is that it's dynamic. The way the coin box
bounces up and down in Super Mario doesn't change in a dynamic way. Once
triggered it goes through a predetermined motion.

This is unlike say the turtle shells which bounce around depending on what it
hits. Its motion is dynamic and dictated by what the player did and the
environment it's in.

The distinction between animation and simulation can be a bit fuzzy, but for
me an animation is typically a predetermined motion while simulation is
dynamic and reactive. However, especially in modern games, animation is
blended with simulation to increase realism making this distinction less
clear, see for example
[https://youtu.be/yTniZCOCY7o](https://youtu.be/yTniZCOCY7o)

So coming back to Noita, think of every 1x1 sprite in the game world as a
Super Mario turtle. They can change state and motion in a dynamic and reactive
way.

