Dust Buddies

Dust Buddies is a 4-player and duel minigame that features in Mario Party DS. It is a chaotic, auto-scrolling survival minigame where the characters rush away from a household vacuum cleaner.

Setting
The minigame takes place within a house corridor where the shrunk characters casually walk around until they are encountered by a vacuum cleaner that tries to suck them up, prompting them to flee across a messy corridor filled with a multitude of obstacles such as buttons, film and ribbon strips, and marble balls.

Gameplay
The aim of the game is clear from the start: flee! Use the control pad to keep running and to steer around obstacles, and the A button for jumping on opponents where the opportunity arises. The game auto-scrolls vertically across both screens, so you need to keep moving forwards constantly.

There are a variety of obstacles scattered upon the floor. Films and ribbons can be ran upon but they will be sucked up instantly by the vacuum within contact, so take caution and jump away when this happens.

Occasionally marble balls will be encountered on the course - they obviously can't be sucked up, so instead the vacuum will push them away at a random angle. Watch out for those, as they roll very speedily. The vacuum itself will sometimes accelerate upwards to suck up any characters lagging behind, so watch out for that too.

This is a survival minigame which ends if three players get sucked up. If though multiple players manage to make it to the end of the course, the characters will jump upon a chest drawer where they're safe.