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Noita – roguelite where every pixel is simulated
- obl 6y agoIf 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 6y agoAppreciate 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 6y agoThe 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 6y agoI 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 6y agoI don't think that you even need to produce deterministic result in game
- setr 6y agoSame-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 6y agoThis 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.
- lioeters 6y agoI found the following book insightful, in understanding some of the concepts involved in simulating physics and "life-like" behaviors. The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing - Daniel Shiffman You can read the entire book online here: https://natureofcode.com/book/ https://natureofcode.com/book/
- adsjhdashkj 6y agoCool looking book, thanks :)
- zubspace 6y agoVery interesting talk. My favorite takeaways: 1) The basic physics of sand, water and gases is quite simple. I was impressed by the fact, that he implemented most of it in Q-Basic way back. Thinking about this a bit more, Q-Basic looks like the perfect environment to play around with such pixel simulations, albeit a bit slow I guess. 2) The hard part is mixing rigidbody simulation and pixel simulation. Also updating the world using multiple threads. 3) Procedural world generation uses something called Herringbone Wang Tiles [1]. It reduces visible seams and the algorithm itself does not look too complicated. [1] https://nothings.org/gamedev/herringbone/herringbone_tiles.html https://nothings.org/gamedev/herringbone/herringbone_tiles.h...
- smabie 6y agoThis is a really fun, totally crazy and chaotic game. Highly recommended.
- manjana 6y agoThis 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.
- azhenley 6y agoThere is a short description on another page that refers to the physics: "Pixel-based physics: Every pixel in the world is simulated. Burn, explode or melt anything. Swim in the blood of your foes!"
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wgjordan 6y agoScroll down and the answer is right there: > Q: What does "every pixel is simulated" mean? > A: Basically every pixel in Noita is made of some material. The different materials are simulated. E.g. Water will behave like a liquid, gasses will rise, sand will pile up, rigid bodies will rigid body... In addition to that we run simplified simulations of various chemical reactions, electricity, thermodynamics and so on.
- schoen 6y agoMaybe this is similar to https://sandspiel.club/ https://sandspiel.club/
- ewired 6y agoEach 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)
- poisonarena 6y agoI 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 6y agoIt does appear to be early access, so it looks like they plan on taking it further
- mywittyname 6y agoThere are mods to address some of the shortcomings of the game.
- CydeWeys 6y agoFrom 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 6y agoMore like liero
- ehnto 6y agoThat'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/
- qznc 6y agoI was thinking about Clonk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonk
- Tajnymag 6y agoIt reminds me more of Cortex Command, as it also has physics simulation and similar goals, unlike Worms
- CydeWeys 6y agoWorms does have the full range of physics simulation, with ballistics, solid body physics, particle/fluid simulations (for stuff like the napalm weapons), gas simulation, wind, etc. It's just that it doesn't apply to the level environments.
- errantspark 6y agoI'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 6y agoThe 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 6y agoWhat would be an example of such an area?
- pyhtel 6y agoOne 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 6y agoNo, 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.
- nsajko 6y agoWindows-only.
- butz 6y agoBut works on Linux too: https://www.protondb.com/app/881100 https://www.protondb.com/app/881100
- baby 6y agoUnfortunately I have none of these platforms. I’m hopping it comes out on the switch
- anonydsfsfs 6y agoWorks perfectly for me on Linux using Proton. I've played 36 hours and haven't experienced a single issue.
- artificialLimbs 6y agoI played on Wine, but it was quite a bit more performant on Windows.
- Hammershaft 6y agoI 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.
- baby 6y agoOh no :( still haven’t played it but I had a lot of hopes since it seems like it was inspired by liero
- enraged_camel 6y agoMy biggest gripe is that the randomness of the weapons you find plays way too big of a role in your success. Instead of different weapons requiring different gameplay skills, you either get crazy good stuff (combo'd with perks that have synergies) and effortlessly destroy anything in your path, or end up so weak that even simple mobs give you trouble. I think some of this could be solved, or at least mitigated, if there was "meta" progression, like in Dead Cells. That way, even bad runs could result in something worthwhile, rather than a total waste of time.
- LegitShady 6y agoI think the randomness leading to overpowered rounds and weak rounds is sort of true for every rogue lite I've played.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
- cdiamand 6y agoI 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 6y agoThis 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.
- bexsella 6y agoWhen 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 6y agoYeah, 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.
- neiman 6y agoYou know I'm old cuz it still annoys me that (almost) all game nowadays come via Steam.
- _def 6y agoIt's also available at several other stores
- neiman 6y agoYou're right. My rant was about the fact that I need to use a 3rd party store in order to have a game.
- VectorLock 6y agoAs opposed to buying directly from the developer?
- Gabriel_Martin 6y agoor a publisher I suppose
- TylerE 6y agoI've been burned way too many times by developers selling direct, e.g. giving out download links that only work for very limited amounts of time, with no re-downloads after that period.
- neiman 6y agoYes, 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:-)
- timwaagh 6y agoi think this would make it necessary to include a lot of anti-piracy code that would not normally be necessary. otherwise it will be up on pirate bay right after release.
- atum47 6y agoI 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.
- glaberficken 6y agoNoita was yet another tech-demo/game-engine looking for a gameplay idea. The outcome is usually a good-enough but unremarkable game.
- breakfastduck 6y agoThat 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
- VectorLock 6y agoThis game is fun but more table flipping and swear inducing than almost anything I can think of, including Nethack.
- Fordec 6y agoI 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 6y agoWhich 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 6y ago"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.
- mmaunder 6y agoI’m not a gamer. Can someone take the trouble to tl;dr me the significance of this?
- omnibrain 6y agoReminds 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
- flgr 6y agoIf you have fond memories of Clonk give this a quick try: http://webclonk.flgr.me/ http://webclonk.flgr.me/ (WASD + Mouse) Sadly I never got around to implementing more of it though.
- fruffy 6y agoThis is great, thank you for sharing. I really treasure this game.
- npteljes 6y agoSome further development happened on it in the project called OpenClonk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenClonk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenClonk
- Artsub 6y agoThere 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
- WA 6y agoI spent hundreds of hours with this game back in the 90s. I even went to a local internet shop to download mods, vehicles, maps and other stuff to floppy disks. Good times.
- hypertexthero 6y agoIt’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 6y agoLooks really neat, shame it’s windows only though, hopefully a macOS, Linux or PS release at some point?
- forrestthewoods 6y agoConsoles 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 6y agoMaybe iPad? The premium game market seems viable on iPads.
- ido 6y agoCan you find any (recent) sources on that?
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoWhat makes you think that? Honestly Apple has done nothing in years to try and help any of their platforms to be a better place for game developers.
- forrestthewoods 6y agoPremium 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.
- sydd 6y agoit would need lots of performance finetuning, the current game lags on big explosions on my i7 7700 CPU. Simulating lots of pixels at once is very CPU heavy.
- swebs 6y ago
- JohnHaugeland 6y agoHonestly, 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__ 6y agoRoguelite, not roguelike.
- JohnHaugeland 6y agoYes, I'm sure you think that's a highly important distinction "Roguelite" is what a bad game developer calls their game when they're sick of Roguelike people saying "this isn't a roguelike, fuck off" There is literally no definition to Roguelite other than "we're not allowed to call this a roguelike anymore" It's a complete fucking grab bag of shit games, mostly sidescrollers, which have any one random feature (usually permadeath) which can be found in nine million games but also rogue so fuck it let's ruin the entire genre so that steam fans will give us twelve dollars
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago> 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 6y agoI 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 6y agoOk, 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 6y agoIn 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 6y ago
- bartwe 6y agoReally love the game, i did have to install a respawn mod to get anywhere however.
- drisr3f 6y agoReminds me of https://sandspiel.club/ https://sandspiel.club/ Don't play it, it's addictive.
- rob74 6y agoA 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...
- royletron 6y agoThis 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.