“You missed a spot”

A cleaner’s job is never done. Day after day, week after week, year after year, you scrub, scrape, spit and polish. Your joints creak and your back aches and yet you still just keep on cleaning. But no matter what, there’s always that one guy who pipes up at the worst of times.

“Uh, I think you missed a spot…”

Argh! Can you do nothing right? If you’re a Dustforce contractor, then no. Absolutely not. No matter how well you performed that wall run, that light-footed twirl that took you perfectly from a tumultuous fall in to a momentum-fuelled slide, or that backwards flip into a ceiling run, according to Dustforce, you’re never good enough.

As a member of the Dustforce, your aim in life is simple enough: to clean. The catch? You must dust, sweep and vacuum each level as artfully and quickly as possible. The cleaning itself is automatic – run over any dust covered surface and you’ll sweep like mad.

The challenge comes from connecting your cleaning into as big a combo as you can manage, all the while progressing through the level as stylishly as possible. Like an Olympic performance before the harshest judge on the panel, you’re scored on both speed and finesse.

Practice is the key to Dustforce. While you have the option of simply flipping through levels from a menu, the game’s overworld provides the perfect playground for you to ply your trade in.

The simple act of moving from one level to another gives you that much needed practice and time to acclimatise to exactly how all of those pieces fit together, as you continue to improve.

You’ll need to improve a lot if you’re hoping to make much progress in Dustforce. To even advance past its opening stages, the game requires complete perfection on its existing levels. Not a “pass” time. Not a “You did good kid”. In the game of Dustforce, it’s winners and losers. There’s no in-between.

An initial reaction is to feel upset by this. Why is the game locking away content? What did you ever do to deserve this? Take a deep breath before you post hate comments on forums over your “wasted money”, as this wall between you and later levels actually makes sense.

Subsequent levels see a large ramp up in difficulty, so if you’re not having much luck at the start, throwing you to the Dustforce wolves would only lead to frustration. It’s a sensible way to measure your progress. On one hand, punishment, and on the other, incentive.

Overall, it’s a system that has your wellbeing at heart. Dustforce is always cruel to be kind, constantly demanding that you try again, apply what you’ve learnt, and progress.

And once you finally Double S-Rank a stage and have that sweet reward of “You received a key!” popping up on your screen, you’ll be thanking the game more than hating it. You couldn’t have gotten where you are without it.

At its heart, it’s far more than just punitive. There’s smarts behind Dustforce’s beautifully animated facade of constant practice and failed attempts. Even the dust and dirt you’re cleaning are more than just your worst enemy and obstacle to a perfect run.

Strip the dirt out and you’re still left with a solid platformer, yet what this collecting mechanic does is allow the game to effortlessly guide you through its levels. With none of the second-guessing that comes from having no idea where you’re going next.

It’s the same principle that governs every breadcrumb trail we see in games now, even down to its inspiration, Mirrors Edge, with its stark colour highlights for where you need to go. It’s implemented here as an impressive, satisfying pathway through each level. You don’t even notice you’re being guided…you’re too busy hating all those leaves!

The moments that Dustforce does let you have – where you actually think it may finally be caring for you – are fleeting. As if to hammer home that constant feeling of never being good enough, the game’s leaderboards are always front and centre, taunting you with their unobtainable goals.

Every time you feel as if you’ve had a successful run, each time you think you’ve given everything you could to a single cleaning performance, the leaderboards pop up to let you know that your masterpiece was actually only the 891st best.

At the touch of a button you can immediately watch what you thought was impossible. You can absorb replay upon replay of superior runs, which is both maddening and inspiring.

It’s that dichotomy between performance and perfection that Dustforce balances so well. At the start, it’s accessible enough to draw you in. Once you’ve passed that hurdle, it’s just difficult enough to keep pulling you along – sometimes belatedly so – to taste more of its content.

And once that hurdle has passed? It’s just you and your own hunt for perfection versus everyone else that’ll decide how much longer you hold your cleaners’ badge.

If there’s even a hint of obsessive compulsion about you, or the need for perfection, I doubt you’ll be hearing much else than the following for the rest of your playtime.

“You missed a spot”