Welcome fellow janitors, in this guide we'll feature out some of the basic stuff that I missed when first playing, to ensure people avoid some lame mistakes and get the difficult curve right. Won't be explaining advanced stuffs because I can't perform em' well either. In fact, I don't even completed Giga difficult yet, mostly because the golden levels kicked my a-- before I could unlock it.

For people SS'ing silver/gold tier, this guide will most likely only be Captain Obvious stuff, but I wish captain was here when I was complaining about the controller not working.


It's one of the hidden "red" levels, also known as the plague of humanity and mankind as we know it. They are locked away at the top of the main nexus, behind 16 high-tech red locks, which translates to SS in all gold levels, so... yeah.

As of any platformer, is essential that the controllers feel right and tight, the game is do-able on keyboard but the spacebar jumping is sorta clumsy for Dustforce, rebinding jump to a letter, or something on numpad will do the trick.
Also, be sure that 'Dash' is somewhere easy to spam, cause you will.

Thankfully, Dustforce is quite friendly in controller compatibility, often people think the controller isn't working because the game, most likely because of local multiplayer, won't auto bind the keys, so you'll need to do clean up that mess yourself. Got it? clean up! Okay... moving on.
Analog sticks are also on the clumsy list, so if possible choose something with a nice d-pad.

For basemaking sake, here's my bindings:



LB1 for up? the truck is that?

That's a alternate idea, for pesky wall-celling combos that will ruin your run at the first sign of wrong diagonal use, especially helpful if you're using a budget Dualshock2 rip-off like mine, give it a spin and check if it sticks.


Yep, once you rebind the directional's to your controller, you'll need to use it at the menus. This can be quite maddening if you overlook the Game settings tab:



Bind "Quick restart button" to the joypad you're using, so you don't have to press "ESC" at the keyboard and then press down at the joypad in order to restart. Trust me, it gets maddening in the long run.

Also, Disable checkpoints is very helpful when used to the level and going for SS.

After completing the forest lockless, and a few bronze, one may wonder where to go next.
I followed a post that said to fully clear forest before moving on... Don't. Seriously, don't. Going to Silver levels without the proper training is quite unhealthy, and diving on Gold levels after half-cleaning silvers is nothing but ask for punishment.
Difficult-wise the lock level is way more important than the area where the door is.

That said, most doors are protected by a mechanic that will be used at the level, so when choosing what to unlock with your first silver/gold keys, avoid using in something that was too hard to reach. "Fight levels" like Wild Den and Alleyway are a exception to this.

Some movement quirks:

• It's possible to dash down for some extra falling speed, especially useful for getting extra speed from slopes. Dashing down won't count as double-jump.
  
  
• You can dash off walls just like jumping out of it, also without wasting the valuable double jump, often useful in dusty shafts.
  
  
• Guide update: If you jump just as reaching a corner while wallclimbing to ceeling, you'll get an extra momentum boost, once again, idependent of the double jump count. Finally I can get up there without using Dustkid.
  

Also, a few tips to help up.

• If the third tutorial is the reason why you ended up here, feel free to skip it, the first levels are quite a lot easier than it, I'd go as far as saying that Hitbox split the tutorial in 3 at the DX update specially for this reason. Just remeber to come back for it after a few keys.
  
  
• Each rank on completion and finesse will give 10% of a key: 10% for each D, 20% for each C, up to 50% for S, therefore, an SD will give 60%, and a SS 100%.
  All levels of the previous tier should be SS in order to unlock all doors of the next.
  
  
• DustKid is a double edged blade, the triple jump will cover a slightly longer distance and give you more control overall, but as the levels are designed for DustMan, the lower individual-jump distance will sometimes backfire. (More depth on the matter at the character guides.)
  
  
• Always check 200th or below replays, and don't take everything there for granted, as they will often do overcomplicated moves to save time. On the simpliest example, most replays will use only heavy hits when facing floating critters, which is faster, but is generally safer to just light attack the cra...leaves, out of it. Less trouble if you miss the first hit.
  
  
• A controversial tip. Slow and steady might be the key for SS some times, the finesse meter don't seems to bother with the time as long you don't lose your combo. So, left that piece of dust behind on the wall? No need to restart, back up asap and clean it off, whack it off with an attack if needed, then move back on track.
  Of course, higher tier levels won't let you get away with that, but then again, this is a newbie guide.
  
  
• Update 2: Quite cheesy but I must add. Don't give up. It's quite eazy to get overwelmed by the difficulty when you're stuck a Silver or below level, with all those videos of the "Difficults" floating around. But it's all a matter of having the right push and some practice time. Do have got the S+ acheivo now, but Ascent was a pain in the rear back when I first cleared it.

Hope this helps smoothing your early-game on Dustforce and gets you up to speed to check more advanced guides and videos.

Speaking of them, here's a couple of favourites:


"New Nexus - How to reach all doors"
By Wis76
How to reach all doors, with some cool moves to try to learn while trying to do so.






But... I found the jump for the silver castle levels trickier than some levels that are up there, so I and Dustkid decided to take an alternate route.







"Dustforce - Advanced Technique Tutorial"
By Ponifex
Three advanced moves with a detailed how to.







- That's all for this guide folks, of course, feel free to share some basic info I may have overlooked. Now, let's get those leaves cleaned and some doors unlocked, and clock some practice time while doing it, see ya at the golden-tier!