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Alchemy and Pixel Physics

Every pixel in Noita is physically simulated. Materials mix, react, burn, melt, and freeze based on their properties. Mastering these interactions is just as important as building a good wand.

Stains and Status Effects​

Walking through liquids or getting sprayed by enemies leaves a "stain" on your character, shown by a percentage icon on the right side of the screen.

  • Water: Protects you from catching fire and washes away other stains.
  • Toxic Sludge: Slowly damages you. Washes off with water.
  • Blood: Increases your critical hit chance.
  • Oil: Makes you highly flammable and slippery.

Your priority is managing these stains. Always carry a water flask to quickly wash off toxic sludge or extinguish fire.

Basic Material Reactions​

Many materials react when they touch each other. Learning these reactions can save your life or open up new paths:

  • Water + Toxic Sludge = Water. Water converts toxic sludge into more water via a cellular automata process. It is not instant. Pouring water directly on top creates a slow conversion. To accelerate this, introduce kinetic energy by firing a low-damage projectile into the pool to scatter the water pixels and increase the boundary surface area.
  • Water + Lava = Rock. This creates a safe bridge over lava pools.
  • Fire + Wood/Coal = Fire. Fire spreads quickly. Do not stand near flammable materials when explosions happen.

Toxic Sludge vs. Acid​

A common and fatal mistake is confusing Toxic Sludge (bright neon green) with Acid (dark olive green). The engine treats them as fundamentally different materials:

  • Toxic Sludge: Applies a temporary stain that damages over time. Can be purified with water.
  • Acid: Deals immediate, massive structural and health damage. It consumes solid pixels.

Do not attempt to wash off Acid with a water flask. Acid reacts violently with water, converting into highly dangerous Flammable Green Gas.

Fungal Shifts​

Eating a large amount of weird fungus causes a "Fungal Shift." This permanently replaces one material in the world with another material.

Fungal shifts are highly deterministic and pre-calculated based on your specific world seed.

If you hold a valid flask, there is exactly a 75% chance that the engine will use the primary material inside the flask in the shift equation (either as the origin or the destination). There remains a 25% chance the flask is ignored entirely.

In-Flask Alchemy: You can mix materials safely inside a flask. However, be extremely careful when initiating a Fungal Shift. If stray pixels of a different liquid react inside your flask right as the shift occurs, the engine might read the transitional material instead of your intended liquid.

Broken Shift Chains: The engine tracks the original base identity of a material. If you shift Water to Sludge, and later shift Sludge to Diamond, the original Water remains Sludge.

danger

Fungal shifts are permanent for the current run. Turning all water into acid or lava will quickly end your game.