Brooming Marvellous: Dustforce

You know what I've always wanted to do in a game? Have a bit of a sweep. It really appeals to my domestic side, like feeding the cat. And when you do ever get to feed cats in games? Never. It's a damned shame.

Dustforce is an acrobatic platformer and it satisfies at least one of the above urges (I'll let you guess which one). Created by Hitbox Team and due for release later this year, they dropped a prototype demo off at indiePub about a year ago which allows you to sample its dust-busting ways first hand.

It is strange how cathartic sweeping up those 2D planes actually is - in spite of the frantic and death-defying platform thrill.

I've played the demo through now and it's a promising piece of work. It's also worth noting that since the release of this teaser the team have recreated the game entirely in an updated engine, with reworked art assets and an altered control code (which was a little unresponsive in the preview build) so there's little reason not to be looking forward to this. Although I guess it still remains to be seen whether it'll take the Meat Boy route of reducing players to fist-chewing levels of anger.

I'll cross my fingers and hope. In the meantime, watch this:


Who ever said computer games never taught kids anything, eh? You, boy! Tidy your room! And don't you dare forget to brush the ceiling!