On paper, Dustforce may sound a little strange. You're an acrobatic janitor that travels from level to level running, jumping, sliding, sweeping and cleaning. If we're being reductive, that's pretty much all Dustforce is. But that wouldn't be fair to the beautiful landscape and flowing platformer that Hitbox Team has managed to create. So what is it about this dustbusting game that keeps me coming back over and over?

What is Dustforce?

Dustforce is a beautiful 2D side-scrolling platformer with a grippingly immersive world. Every level has the same objective: rid the world of debris as fast and efficiently as possible. Upon finishing a level, you're graded on your Completion and Finesse. Your Completion grade is based on what percentage of the debris you cleaned up while playing the level. The Finesse is a little harder to explain. As you glide through a level, you have a running combo score that ticks up as you clean and fight in a continuous flow. If you happen to pause too long between sweeping up dirt, or attacking trash-covered bad guys, your combo drops off. Your Finesse is based on how well you keep that combo up.

As a nimble janitor, you can run up walls, slide along ceilings, double jump in mid-air, dash on the ground or in the air, and attack dusty books and floating leaf men with your character's debris-fighting weapon of choice. Doing any one of these things in isolation is easy, but putting them all together in a harmony of movement is rather tricky.

Each level is very carefully designed to have a certain flow to it. The trails of dirt and enemies will help guide you on your way to the finish. It takes awhile to gain mastery of the controls needed to really make your character glide, but once you do, it's a thing of beauty. I can't even begin to describe how addictive it is try and pull off a perfect run, or how deliciously maddening it is to have your 15th attempt ruined at the last second by some stupid flying book, to which you reply by happily restarting the level and trying again.

Speaking of perfect runs, the only way to open up more challenges from the initial set of 20 or so available to you is to get through one with a perfect score. If you do manage to receive the coveted 'SS', you'll get a key that opens a more difficult, silver level. Do it on a silver level, and you'll get a key that opens a level of the toughest difficulty tier, gold. Completing a gold run is difficult enough, but they've made even reaching one in the hub world an achievement in its own right.

If you're having trouble perfecting a level and moving on in the game, you can watch how your fellow janitors at the top of the leaderboard played through it. When you've completed a pass, a video of your playthrough is uploaded so other players can watch it. I think this might be my favorite feature that Hitbox put in to this game. Instead of having to go to Youtube to figure out how the hell to get through a tough level, you can just watch the person at the top of the leaderboard's video. Brilliant!

Moves like Jagger?

You can either play with a keyboard, or the game offers native support for a gamepad. I tried both ways and vastly preferred my Xbox 360 controller over the keyboard. However, mapping the controls is a little akward. It took me some time to figure out how to do it, but I'm a smart one and eventually got it.

Once I had my controller all setup, the game controlled very well and was quite responsive. I don't think I once screamed the words "The game is cheating!" like I normally do when playing a difficult platformer. Very similar to Super Meat Boy, when I messed up, it almost always was my fault. I say almost, because when I played the game on my aging Macbook running Bootcamp, I had the occasional framerate hiccup that would sometimes cause my timing to get messed up. I didn't have those problems when I ran the game on a desktop PC with a two-year old graphics card.

The visual and sonic waves

The clean and simple art style combined with the fluid and carefully crafted animations add up to a gorgeous assault on your eyeballs. Each area of levels has its own aesthetic that is unique and defining. Simply put, the game is very pleasant to look at.

The soundtrack is also fantastic. It has a nice and relaxed, mellow tone throughout that meshes together really well with the warm visuals.

Multiplayer

The game ships with a King of the Hill type multiplayer that supports up to four local players. I only got a chance to play a couple rounds with a friend who had never played the game before I shoved the controller in his hand. Needless to say, it was kind of a one-sided match.

It seemed fun, but it's unfortunate that you can't play it online right now. Without the ability to play with friends over the internet, I probably won't be coming back to the multiplayer anytime soon.

Summary

I really think that Hitbox has got quite a little indie hit on its hands. Right now, the game is only available on Steam for PC, but Hitbox says they will be releasing a Mac version in the next couple of weeks as well. There's no word on an XBLA or PSN version, but I'm really hoping that this game ends up on those platforms eventually because I think it could really shine on a console.

Anyway, if fun and platformers are your thing, then go ahead and give this indie title a chance, I'm sure it'll sweep you off your feet.