Fast and loose, or tight and controlled? That’s the question I ask myself at the start of any run in a game with permadeath – that is, a game that sends me back to the beginning upon death. On this particular life, am I going to try my hardest, and aim for deliberate progress toward a specific goal, or am I going to throw caution to the wind, leg it as fast and as far as I can, and see what I learn from the chaos?

When it comes to chaos, no game does it better than Noita.

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Come, one and all, to mess with every last lovely little pixel in the excellent action roguelite, Noita, which leaves early access today. Nolla Games’ witchy adventure will take you through procedurally-generated levels in which every pixel is part of a simulation. It really is a wonder watching all your spells alter and, let’s be honest, destroy the landscape. The full release comes with a big update, adding even more spells with which to demolish levels. Excellent.

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Ah, October, the spook month. What better time for the witchy roguelike, Noita, to leave early access? On October 15th, Nolla Games’ spellcasting platformer in which every pixel is physically simulated will be released in full. It’s getting a big update to go with it, too, adding new enemies, perks, music, and lotsa spells, as well as a bunch of quality of life improvements.

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Hubbish bubbish, rhymes are rubbish, eye of newt and blah blah blah. Gosh, magic is a chore. If only we had a catalyst to… Oh, hello reader, what are you doing here? Well, as it happens, yes, you can help me out. Just stand over here while I scratch these runes around you. I’m trying to summon the 9 best magic spells in PC games, you see. Stand still, please. You won’t feel a thing.

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Every pixel is simulated in Noita. That means it can be dull or deadly, and react like its real-world counterpart (or, you know, its unreal-world counterpart). Throw in the OTT spells of your wizard, and the burning, electrified, or weird counter-spells of the enemies, and you have a perfect platform for mods.

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Disappointingly, there’s not too much munching going on in the trailer for Noita‘s Feast update. Unless, of course, developers Nolla Games are serving up a banquet of roast witch. But rather than sausages or salads, Noita’s platter is a deadly one. Released this week, Feast adds a bounty of spells, artefacts, environmental overhauls and more to the procedurally destructive dungeon-delver.

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2019 was a great year for PC games – aren’t they all? – but you might not yet know what the very best> PC games of 2019 were. Let us help you.

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Noita‘s having a cold spell. Fifteen, in fact, all wrapped up in last night’s update to the pixel-physics-powered roguelike. You can summon boxes of death now. Or cast a chain zap. Or chuck eggs with spells in them. Mucking about with new spells is one of the main draws of Noita so it’s nice to have even more of them. Even if those eggs are a bit crap.

We’ve also got a coupla new monsters, new weather effects, new magic materials, and a new game plus mode. How any of you have reached the end of the normal game is beyond me.

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Are y’all ready for some deals? With Black Friday almost upon us and only a few weeks since the last big Steam sale, of course it’s time for some deals. Steam’s Autumn Sale kicked off today, dealing out discounts and delights until the shutters close next Tuesday. You can check out the full list of discounted games on Steam here. Blimey, there’s a few of them. Over 13,000 of them.

Tell you what, I’ll give you a couple of recommendations to get started.

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In Noita, you can destroy every pixel. Walls, lakes of blood, rock mass, bodies, piles of gold, wooden piles, minecarts – if it s there, you can mess it up. But there s one place where you probably shouldn t do that.

The Holy Mountain is a moment of respite on your journey downwards in this very physical take on the dungeon-delver. It s somewhere where you can recoup your health, buy new wands and spells, and prepare yourself for the next area on your journey into the depths. But if this sanctified place should become damaged, you ve just angered the gods.

I d point out that angering the gods is probably one of the things that people don t like about the game, developer Petri Purho tells me. The problem, you see, is the worms. But there are many reasons why angering the gods exists in Noita, reasons which tap into the very bedrock of how the game works.

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