Advanced Moves

[Steven]

I was playing chapter 4-5 today, and when I went inside the bank and jumped over one of the thugs they ran into each other! That was so cool! I laughed so hard!

I've been playing this game for awhile, and didn't know you could do that. I looked at the hint sheet that was mentioned in another thread, and discovered that the game has lots of other fun moves like that. Maybe you could add some hints in the game that explained these "advanced" moves...? Or are they supposed to be secret moves?

[TroyHepfner]

Yeah, that was a dilemma we had when we designed these moves. They're not secret, but we wanted them to be unexpected and funny when they happened, like you discovered. I originally thought it better not to put a hint folder in the game that explained how to do it, because then that takes some of the humor out of it. The problem is that a lot of users never seem to discover these moves, as you noticed - they just throw the grenades. I wasn't sure how to make these cartoony moves more discoverable without making them less funny. In fact, I still haven't solved this problem. But I'm open to suggestions.

In the meantime, I put some hints in the Instructions screens within the game, as well as the Hint sheet itself.

[Steven]

I see what you mean. Now that I know these moves are here, I can see how you set up certain situations in some of the levels to try to help players find these moves. But like you said it is easier to throw grenades. If I hadn't jumped instead of throwing a grenade, I wouldn't have discovered it. But maybe now that you have these forums, people will read this thread and discover these cool moves. It's a hoot tricking the thugs into running into stuff or running off of platforms!

[Thurmond]

I discovered early on that you could drop crates onto bad guys to knock them out. But I didn't know about these other moves either. Funny!

I love the way the bad guys go flying when the mining carts hit 'em!

[AlleyCat]

Neato!!! Now I wanna play thru the whole game again to see what I missed!

[Duchess]

When (not if!) you do a Dirk Dashing sequel, I would like to have more ways to build up extra lives in the game....I can't seem to make it to the final chapter! Can't wait to see what adventure is next!!

[TroyHepfner]

The trick here is remembering to save your game often, so that when you lose a life, you can resume your previous save game and not have to go back too far.

We are planning to make future sequels to Dirk Dashing, and one of the changes to the basic gameplay formula that we're considering is the addition of a health system. The health system would allow you to withstand one or two hits before dying, and of course, there will be ways to replenish your health. This will make the game a bit more forgiving.

[Thurmond]

I like that idea. Lots of other platformers do that too, and it helps.

[AlleyCat]

I love the way the bad guys go flying when the mining carts hit 'em!

I just found out that the little orange construction robot does the same thing! Very funny!

[Steven]

In level 2-3, I dropped a hay bale on a rat. So apparently you can drop objects onto other characters besides the red shirt thugs.