Noita

Nolla Games is a three-person Finnish studio formed by Petri Purho (Crayon Physics Deluxe), Olli Harjola (The Swapper), and Arvi Teikari, who publishes as Hempuli and is best known for Baba Is You. Together they built Noita, a side-scrolling action roguelite that released on October 15, 2020, after a period in early access.

The defining technical fact about Noita is that every pixel in its world is individually simulated. Liquids flow, fire spreads, materials combust or freeze based on physical interaction rather than scripted triggers. A miscast spell can ignite a pool of oil that floods a cavern with flame, drown the player in acid, or detonate a chain reaction that collapses the terrain entirely. This simulation is not decorative; it is the primary source of both death and improvised solutions.

Runs proceed downward through procedurally generated biomes, from coal mines into stranger and more hostile environments. The player character is a witch who carries wands rather than conventional weapons. Wands are not fixed items: they are programmable slots that accept spell components, and the game’s depth comes almost entirely from learning how to combine those components. Spells can be chained, modified by triggers and timers, and stacked into configurations that fire differently depending on cast order. A wand that works brilliantly in one context can backfire fatally in another, and death is permanent.

There is no between-run unlock structure in the conventional sense. Knowledge accumulated across deaths — of spell interactions, of biome hazards, of hidden areas — is the only thing that carries forward. The game rewards players willing to read the simulation carefully and experiment with combinations that have no in-game explanation.

Noita entered early access before its October 2020 release, and the update arc since then has been substantial. An Epilogue update arrived in April 2021, with hotfixes issued across multiple days suggesting significant new content. A second Epilogue update followed in April 2024, marking a continued expansion of the game’s lore and endgame. Nolla Games shared mod showcases in mid-2023, reflecting an active community building on the simulation. Maintenance patches have continued into early 2025. The full soundtrack was made available separately in early 2022. The wand editor remains the mechanical center of the game: a single correctly assembled wand can turn a run, and understanding why it works takes longer than assembling it.