#Dustforce dx box art update#

In addition to this, we've broken up the tutorial into 3 separate maps. We noticed that even the easy levels were quite hard for new players, so we made a new tier of easier levels that unlock the old easy levels. Lastly, we've added 16 new levels to the game. This helps in two ways: it keeps new players away from levels they aren't ready for yet, and it serves as a teaching tool for more advanced techniques that are required in the tougher levels. The hardest doors have even tougher entry requirements.

We gated off the medium and hard doors by making them reachable only by a difficult jump or technique. To reinforce this, we made it harder to reach the tougher levels. How do you get up there? Once you figure it out, you will be ready for the levels up there. In the following graph, you can see what percentage of players have completed a certain number of levels. We gathered some data over the past two years from the Dustforce leaderboards. However, we've finally found some time, and now we've made some changes that will hopefully make the game friendlier to new players. We've always wanted to redesign the structure of the game to ease new players into the harder levels, but we've been too busy working on our next game, Spire, to make it happen.

The learning curve to the game is quite steep - you're given a tutorial, then thrown into the deep end. Ideally, we should be converting normal players into hardcore players. We realized we were just filtering out all but the most hardcore players. However, as we watched more new players pick up the game, it was sad to see them get stuck early on and give up. We're still constantly in amazement when we see top players pull off amazing runs. It was our intention from the beginning to push the skill ceiling sky high, so we can see just how much players push themselves to be masters at the game. A friendlier start to sweepingĭustforce is a tough game.

#Dustforce dx box art update#

The final big update is that we have made the game a bit more accessible to new players.