One of my favorite comments I've seen was last time one of these surveys were posted and a Finn responded "It's not that we're happier than everyone else, it's just that the world is going to hell and we were already used to it".
I'm also slowly getting into it. Just got a run yesterday where I got a super good wand in the hisi base. I was shooting these blue bubbles at high speed with homing. It had so much knockback that I could use only that to fly. It was the first time where I got to level 5,6 and even 7 and I was still breezing through. But I still died. I used a wand with lots of slots as storage for spells and it killed me immediately. Can't describe how terrible I felt after that...
Noita is really interesting, but I feel like the base game's balance is janky. You can play really well and just get utterly fucked on wands. They have this amazingly nuanced magic system but it feels like you rarely get the chance to harness it or experiment and death is very easy.
Don't get me wrong, I highly recommend it if you like side scrolling rogue-lites. Plus the game's a LOT bigger than it first appears.
After playing for hundreds of hours, I decided that being fucked so often and so arbitrarily is the secret sauce that makes god-runs the fantastic dopamine rush that they are. Eventually, you attain equanimity with death; only then are you ready to ascend.
I played a lot and once had a really good run and got really far. After that I didn't want to play any more because it felt it would take too long to ever get beyond that run.
Some kind of checkpoint from which you could start when you die would probably work better for me.
Are you not a Linux fan, or is it just cropping up a bit too much for you?
I've been using Linux as a daily driver for over half my life, so seeing Linux everywhere is just normal to me. I can understand how it must feel weird to someone who hasn't or doesn't want to get involved with it though.
Haven't played Baba is You, but ULTRAKILL is 10/10. I love it, I just can't play it. There's a certain boss fight I've gotten stuck on and can't get past because the game's pacing and music sends my heart rate through the roof and my ability to control my fine motor functions and ability to be patient and wait for attack patterns just kinda regresses to that of a 5yr old (music can have a very strong affect on me, Ultrakill's music is extremely fast).