Dustforce is the eco-friendly love child of Meatboy and N. Like Meatboy and N, Dustforce is a platformer that requires strict timing and some great muscle memory. The protagonists in Dustforce are just three Janitors and a Maid, except they all seem to be part-time ninja.
The controls are simple enough with only four buttons: a dash, a jump, and two attack buttons. Each character will run up walls or across ceilings when you hold Up, and they will slide down hills if you hold Down. Also available is an air-dash (you can dash Left, Right, and Down) and a double jump.
The point of the game is to clean up the levels! You do so by running over leaves/dirt/chemicals or by attacking enemies (who are typically normal animals that went mad when they were covered in dirt). You also have the option of doing a speed run in each level, where you do not worry about cleaning. Most of the levels have special shortcuts that are only used for speed runs. The normal cleaning runs and the speed runs have separate leaderboards. There are four characters to choose from. Each character has slightly different attributes, but they aren’t listed in-game. This omission is one of the few things in Dustforce that is truly annoying.
There are forty-eight levels, plus a Tutorial stage and a Final stage. Of the forty-eight levels, sixteen are Easy, sixteen are Medium, and sixteen are Difficult. All of the Easy levels are available after the completion of the Tutorial stage. In order to unlock a Medium stage, you have to earn a key by ranking a double S on an Easy stage. In order to unlock a Difficult stage, you have to earn a key by ranking a double S on a Medium stage. To unlock the Final stage, you have to earn keys by ranking a double S on all the Difficult stages.
The two videos should give you an idea of how the game plays.
Downhill – The first Easy stage
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Night Temple – The first Difficult stage
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A Level Editor will be out soon! There is also two multiplayer modes, King of the Hill and Deathmatch. Each mode has plenty of maps, but currently only Local multiplayer is available. The Devs are looking into adding Online multiplayer, but they are not certain they will be able to implement it. Apparently, the Devs didn’t realize that people would actually want to play the multiplayer modes, and multiplayer was just added in as an extra in the last month of development.
The game is currently available on Steam for $9.99 (right now it is actually on sale for $8.99).
Here is a Multiplayer match from the Devs. It is King of the Hill mode. You have to stand on the platform with the silver ball until it completely turns your color and pops (which gives you a point), then the silver ball teleports to a new location. On a side note, there are four littering characters that are only used for multiplayer mode. They don’t seem to be anywhere else in the game.
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The other Multiplayer mode is called Survival, but it is really a Deathmatch. The idea is to kill your opponent 4 times before you die 4 times. The levels are built with spikes and holes so that you can use them to kill your opponent.
SOUNDTRACK
Soundtrack is for sale NOW! Includes three bonus tracks if you buy the full album!