So far the mod works, but I need to sit down and confirm that mod is the one that freezes up the engine. I’m mostly playing with Fury’s mod collection, but maybe it’s the few extra ones that are tripping it up.

Dying can definitely be pretty painful in Noita, but the game’s real joy is in exploiting all the knowledge you’ve gained for subsequent attempts. It’s actually a fairly short game when just making an attempt on the boss without going for any extra content, so it’s not difficult to get back to where you were once you know how to get there. There’s also no meta-progression (with very limited exceptions) besides the knowledge you gain, which is how I prefer my roguelikes. Going in blind without any knowledge of what to expect or how the spells interact with each other and the environment is definitely going to take longer to get the first clear, but if that’s not your style you can learn a lot from just watching and learning from streams of the game. DunkOrSlam was the one who really sold me on it.

My own advice would be to seriously consider running the game vanilla until you get at least your first win. But ultimately its your own experience! Do whatever you need in order to make it enjoyable. :)