Twenty bucks. Eighteen hundred hours (and counting).

Rogue-like platformer sandbox. Fiendishly difficult. Fiendishly addicting.

Any time you think you've found a limit, boundary, or edge, you are probably wrong. You can find a way to get past and go farther, or higher, or lower, or hit harder. Fight monsters, and die. Experiment with wands, and die. Explore, and die.

Patience and knowledge are how to succeed. You can expect hundreds of deaths before you complete the easiest ending, but keep learning, and you start counting how many times you can win in a row, or perhaps you discover that winning is no longer the point, and you just want to become supremely powerful, or find something, or do something you haven't done before.

But eventually, no matter how powerful you get, on the next run you are back to two simple spells and a potion of water, wondering
'What can I do this time?'.

----------

Addendum:

Since people liked my review, I'm going to take a few minutes to write about the game mechanics, so people can decide if the game might be a good fit for them.

There are a lot of discrete elements that come together in this game, that make it's play pretty unique.

At first glance, you might think the game is using retro 8-bit graphics, but that isn't really the case. The heart of the game is that every pixel is simulated and has material properties. Water flows. Wood burns. Soil can be dug through. This means that the terrain is fully interactive and destructible.

Noita is a side view, multi-directional scrolling platformer. You can run, fall, and fly (for a brief duration). You use the mouse to aim in 360 degrees. With platformers, getting the movement just right is really important to the game's feel, and Noita does this well. Navigating the map has a comfortable, familiar feel.

Over the course of the game, you collect wands and spells. The magic system is simple enough, but surprisingly deep. Learning the tricks to crafting effective wands with the pieces you find is critical to succeeding at the game. Spells can be very powerful. Often, you are the greatest danger to yourself at any particular moment. Many spells can damage you, and since wands are randomly built, firing one without carefully determining what it does, or rebuilding it can lead to a fiery (sparkly, explosive, corrosive, freezing, etc...) end to your run.

In addition to starting with two basic wands, you start with a potion, usually water. Mixing some liquids with others can change them. Experimenting to learn more about this is another skill that will serve you well.

Another way you get more powerful in the game is picking up perks. At the bottom of each level, there is a 'Holy Mountain', where you will find three to choose from. Some are excellent, some are mediocre, some are terrible. You can spend gold to reroll your selections, but this cost doubles every time you use it.

Each level has areas with similar terrain and monsters, but the maps are randomly generated.

The game has story and lore, but you have to really explore to begin to find it. It is this depth, and the enjoyable replay value, that might convince you to spend many hours seeing what secrets and power you can uncover before you die.