Noita is an extremely unforgiving game. So much so that new player will often give up before they really start to enjoy the game.
At least in my experience, the real fun of the game starts when you have a good understanding of the game mechanics, and also of the sheer amount of content that there is hidden away.
This is a guide for complete beginners of the game, so if you have a lot of hours then you probably won’t learn anything new.
World Structure
The first thing I want to cover is the structure of the main area. There are 7 biomes to go through before you defeat the final boss.
These worlds are procedurally generated every time, though the biomes are always in the same place. On the left and right sides of these biomes, there are sometimes hidden areas or special areas to discover, and they all have secret uses.
Besides the main path, the world is actually huge. Without spoiling it, the main path is only just a tiny section of the world.
At the end of each biome, there’s a portal that leads to a safe zone between each area called a Holy Mountain. In the Holy Mountain, you can actually edit your wands, which I’ll go more into detail about later.
At the start of the Holy Mountain, there’s a heart pickup that refills your health and a green pickup that will refresh all consumable spells.
Next, there’s a shop where you can either buy spells or wands, and it’s random every time. Lastly, there’s a perk pickup with a reroll machine. The perks are random and rerolling costs gold, and that gold cost doubles with each reroll.
If you manage to not defeat any enemies in the biome above, a pacifist chest will spawn that either gives gold or wands.
Also, if anything destroys a part of the Holy Mountain, the gods will be angered and they’ll spawn in there. The gods are extremely strong but they aren’t impossible to beat. For a new player though, they’ll most likely be a run ender.
Liquids and Potions
Next I want to cover how liquids and potions work. If you step in any sort of liquid, that liquid will stain your character and you’ll see the icon above your head. Every liquid has a different effect. Water doesn’t do anything except washing away other stains, oil makes you slippery and more flammable, blood makes you do more critical hits, and anything toxic will harm you.
Fire also acts as a status effect, but it can be put out by spraying another liquid on you, preferably water.
You always start with a random flask of liquid, though you really should try to pour it out and find water to put in it. You can right-click a flask in your inventory to drink it, aim your mouse and left click to pour it out, and aim and right-click to throw the whole flask.
Liquids can be mixed with other liquids to create new liquids that are either more useful or more dangerous, so always be careful before jumping into giant pools filled with unknown substances.
Enemies
The most dangerous thing to worry about is always the enemies. Every enemy has its own attack patterns, and the best thing is simply to learn the way they attack so you can dodge is better.
A lot of times, running away is simply the best thing to do. It’s not worth endangering a long run to run into a horde of enemies for some gold. Fighting is not always the best option, especially with difficult enemies.
The last thing I want to mention for general tips is called trick kills. All physics objects in the game can cause damage, especially the green tablets found around the map. If you defeat enemies by throwing it at them, it’s called a trick kill, and you get double the gold.
This is super useful both for defeating hard enemies and farming gold for buying items and rerolling the perks.
Wand Stats
Now I’m gonna get into the harder topic which is wand building. The key to winning runs in Noita is knowing how to make better wands and find better spells.
The first important stat to know about is the shuffle stat. If a wand says No Shuffle, it’ll cast the spells on the wand from left to right. If a wand says Yes on the Shuffle stat, it’ll cast spells at random until all the spells on the wand have been used, and then it resets and casts them in another random order.
Having a wand that shuffles is not good for wand building. Sometimes you can find a good combination, but you should never put anything dangerous on a Shuffle wand. Having a non-shuffle wand is the basis for making wands do exactly what you want.
Some wands will cast more than one spell at a time, which is indicated by spells per cast. Cast delay is the time it’ll take to cast per one click. Once all the spells in the wand have been cast, the wand will recharge, which is indicated by the recharge time stat.
Every spell has a mana cost, and every wand has a different mana max and recharge speed. If you ever find a wand that has a higher mana charge speed than max mana, it’ll most likely be a decent wand to use.
The further you go in the world, the more likely you are to find wands with low recharge speeds and high mana. If a wand can’t handle the mana cost of the spells you have, it simply won’t cast them.
Spells and Modifiers
The chainsaw spell is one of the most useful spells in the game since it has a low mana cost and it completely removes cast delay and reduces the recharge time. Combining a chainsaw spell with another long-range spell can great some amazing rapid-fire wands.
There’s a rare modifier that can be found called always cast, which means a spell will always cast a spell regardless of how much mana it has. Sometimes you can find some crazy always cast wands like healing spells, and finding those are very beneficial.
If you’re ever confused as to what spells are being cast, you can look above the shop and it’ll show you exactly what’s happening. Also, a great way to test your wand damage is to shoot the statues in the Holy Mountain, but be careful when using any destructive spells in there.
Unlocking New Spells
The last thing I want to talk about is unlocking new spells. By default, there are close to 400 spells that need to be unlocked. Every spell is unlocked by a different method, but the easiest way to get a few is to find the hidden orbs around the world. The easiest orb to get is on a floating mountain right above the starting location.
One thing to note is that every orb you get during a run will power up the final boss, so the more orbs you have the harder he’ll be to beat.
There are also a ton of hidden quests to do that will unlock multiple spells each when you finish them. They’re hidden extremely well though, so if you don’t mind spoilers then you should look up how to do them on either the wiki or on YouTube.
Conclusion
And that’s how you play Noita in 5 minutes or less. I know that this was extremely basic, but eventually, I want to make a long video on wand building and more advanced strategies. There are a couple of other Noita guides I made in the past, so you should definitely check those out if you want to learn more.
