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Cuphead coming to GOG.com

Coreda

Coreda

Member
Sweet, the soundtrack is up for pre-order as well. With a lossless version to boot.

Guessing the 'To Play This Item You Also Need' bit is just because GOG doesn't differentiate game DLC from OSTs?

Wowfunhappy said:
I'm still pissed at GoG for secretly including Galaxy in their "standalone" installers, but this is good news overall.
Click to expand...

They do provide the non-Galaxy installers but would be nice for them to save the user preference for sure.
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Obviously, I'm a GOG fan. I dunno how much I actually care about Cuphead at this point, but it's cool that they got it.
 
A

Artanisix

Member
Teeth said:
I told you it was soon!
Click to expand...

hey teeth, had a question about Cuphead. I heard there is an unlockable hard mode after you beat the game (on regular?). Does the hard mode include new boss phases (like easy->regular does) or is it just increased bullet-hell/boss HP?
 
M

mas8705

Member
I can't believe we are less than a month away from Cuphead!

Don't know how often Teeth will be browsing in this thread, but wanted to wish him and his team the best and most successful launch they can have and hope that they get some good recognition for the full game when it comes out at the end of the month. ^_^

It is great that the game will be more widely available, but I'll admit that I'm getting it on Xbox One. Can't wait! :D
 
C

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
Game truly looks like they poured their hearts into it, the audiovisual aspect is gorgeous. Such committment has to be rewarded so I will buy on PC, even though it's not exactly my genre
 
T

Teeth

Member
Artanisix said:
hey teeth, had a question about Cuphead. I heard there is an unlockable hard mode after you beat the game (on regular?). Does the hard mode include new boss phases (like easy->regular does) or is it just increased bullet-hell/boss HP?
Click to expand...

So...to get into some inside baseball here, this is sort of what happened while balancing the game.

1) We made up some patterns/attacks/etc and balanced the game how we liked it. Challenging, but not impossible.
2) People outside of the dev team started playtesting it and the common consensus was: "this is the hardest game we've ever played". Like, "i'm dying 30 times on the first phase of the first boss" type of hard.
3) We didn't really want to make a game that so hard that NO ONE could enjoy it but the best of the best, so the idea was to keep that difficulty as "expert" and then tone down the bosses for an easier mode we would call "Normal". Because of the way Cuphead is designed, (discrete health, multiple boss phases with pattern timing and sequencing) we couldn't just give the bosses more health and do more damage. That would just make the bosses take longer, not actually be harder (think of something like a Mario level with tough jumps. You can't just give Mario more health to get past it, you have to redesign the jumps to be easier). So, we started clawing back some of the phases, changing the obstacle patterns, reducing the sequencing a bit, that sort of thing. We called this "Normal".
4) Well, people started playing Normal and said that it was still hard. But we didn't want to make Normal any easier. We were pretty convinced that any dedicated person could beat normal by paying attention and persevering. We had enough play testing to factor it being "Dark Souls"-hard or "Ori"-hard, once people got down the cadence of a run and gun game (which most people haven't played that much, so it takes a bit to get into -- hold that shoot button!). But, some people don't come to games to be challenged. Their base expectation is to be able to beat something their first try. Modern games have conditioned people to be that way and that's totally fine. It's just not the type of game we wanted to make. We also figured there would be people who would just want to take in the art or fiddle around. Phil Spencer himself said that it would be in our best interests to put in an Easy mode. So we did. It claws back even more boss attacks, slows down patterns, re-sequenced stuff again, and for most bosses, just chops off the end of the fight.
5) So all that is fine. But as we continued to refine, we found that we could fit ALL of the boss patterns into Normal with some tweaks. So we did. Because honestly, as a dev, you kind of want people to see your stuff. You want people to play the breadth of the content you created for your game, you don't just want to relegate so much of it to the best of the best. We also know that something like 95% of players play on Normal and that's it. So all of the attack animations (in the broadest sense) are in Normal now. They are retuned and re-timed to fit with that difficulty, but they are all there and are fun. It did make the game a hint harder (and we re-sorted the boss order so the harder ones are nearer the end), but we feel it's worth it.
6) So in the most explicit sense, Expert mode bosses no longer have "new" attacks. But they are differently sequenced, sped, timed, and bullet patterns are different. In general, on Expert, there are more things to keep track of simultaneously.

Being successful at Cuphead comes down to...well, it follows similarly to kinda playing fighting games. It's about reducing your mental stack. Most people when they first play are just OVERWHELMED with what's happening and they panic. But your actual decision matrix can be reduced a ton with some on the fly thinking.

Cuphead was made to be reaction based rather than memory based. Aside from knowing the general form of attacks and what they look like, there's not a whole lot to memorize. It's not bullet hell, where you find the "safe spots" and weave your way through an impossible maze of bullets out of attrition. There's too much player-targeted and random-sequenced attacks for that (though I'm sure there'll be speed runners who will find that stuff eventually).

Anyway, I'm interested to see how it goes when it gets into a lot of people's hands.


mas8705 said:
I can't believe we are less than a month away from Cuphead!

Don't know how often Teeth will be browsing in this thread, but wanted to wish him and his team the best and most successful launch they can have and hope that they get some good recognition for the full game when it comes out at the end of the month. ^_^

It is great that the game will be more widely available, but I'll admit that I'm getting it on Xbox One. Can't wait! :D
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
J

jholmes

Member
Also pre-ordered! Thanks Teeth and everyone else involved for pricing this very reasonably at $22 CAD. I knew you wouldn't let the country down!
 
D

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
I can't check this atm, can you guys post the min/rec specs? Wonder if my ancient laptop could play it
 
Ultimadrago

Ultimadrago

Member
Teeth said:
So...to get into some inside baseball here, this is sort of what happened while balancing the game.

1) We made up some patterns/attacks/etc and balanced the game how we liked it. Challenging, but not impossible.
2) People outside of the dev team started playtesting it and the common consensus was: "this is the hardest game we've ever played". Like, "i'm dying 30 times on the first phase of the first boss" type of hard.
3) We didn't really want to make a game that so hard that NO ONE could enjoy it but the best of the best, so the idea was to keep that difficulty as "expert" and then tone down the bosses for an easier mode we would call "Normal". Because of the way Cuphead is designed, (discrete health, multiple boss phases with pattern timing and sequencing) we couldn't just give the bosses more health and do more damage. That would just make the bosses take longer, not actually be harder (think of something like a Mario level with tough jumps. You can't just give Mario more health to get past it, you have to redesign the jumps to be easier). So, we started clawing back some of the phases, changing the obstacle patterns, reducing the sequencing a bit, that sort of thing. We called this "Normal".
4) Well, people started playing Normal and said that it was still hard. But we didn't want to make Normal any easier. We were pretty convinced that any dedicated person could beat normal by paying attention and persevering. We had enough play testing to factor it being "Dark Souls"-hard or "Ori"-hard, once people got down the cadence of a run and gun game (which most people haven't played that much, so it takes a bit to get into -- hold that shoot button!). But, some people don't come to games to be challenged. Their base expectation is to be able to beat something their first try. Modern games have conditioned people to be that way and that's totally fine. It's just not the type of game we wanted to make. We also figured there would be people who would just want to take in the art or fiddle around. Phil Spencer himself said that it would be in our best interests to put in an Easy mode. So we did. It claws back even more boss attacks, slows down patterns, re-sequenced stuff again, and for most bosses, just chops off the end of the fight.
5) So all that is fine. But as we continued to refine, we found that we could fit ALL of the boss patterns into Normal with some tweaks. So we did. Because honestly, as a dev, you kind of want people to see your stuff. You want people to play the breadth of the content you created for your game, you don't just want to relegate so much of it to the best of the best. We also know that something like 95% of players play on Normal and that's it. So all of the attack animations (in the broadest sense) are in Normal now. They are retuned and re-timed to fit with that difficulty, but they are all there and are fun. It did make the game a hint harder (and we re-sorted the boss order so the harder ones are nearer the end), but we feel it's worth it.
6) So in the most explicit sense, Expert mode bosses no longer have "new" attacks. But they are differently sequenced, sped, timed, and bullet patterns are different. In general, on Expert, there are more things to keep track of simultaneously.
Click to expand...

This makes me excited and anxious to play! There's someone I'll be playing Co-op with the entire time and we're both anticipating just how bad the game is going to beat us down. From the sounds of it, I may choose Normal since I'm not that confident in my skills despite years of playing games.

I'm relieved to hear that Normal will keep all of the animations because if I heard Expert had different ones, I'd have to force us to play it. I don't want to miss a thing.
 
Y

Yukinari

Member
Teeth said:
So...to get into some inside baseball here, this is sort of what happened while balancing the game.

1) We made up some patterns/attacks/etc and balanced the game how we liked it. Challenging, but not impossible.
2) People outside of the dev team started playtesting it and the common consensus was: "this is the hardest game we've ever played". Like, "i'm dying 30 times on the first phase of the first boss" type of hard.
3) We didn't really want to make a game that so hard that NO ONE could enjoy it but the best of the best, so the idea was to keep that difficulty as "expert" and then tone down the bosses for an easier mode we would call "Normal". Because of the way Cuphead is designed, (discrete health, multiple boss phases with pattern timing and sequencing) we couldn't just give the bosses more health and do more damage. That would just make the bosses take longer, not actually be harder (think of something like a Mario level with tough jumps. You can't just give Mario more health to get past it, you have to redesign the jumps to be easier). So, we started clawing back some of the phases, changing the obstacle patterns, reducing the sequencing a bit, that sort of thing. We called this "Normal".
4) Well, people started playing Normal and said that it was still hard. But we didn't want to make Normal any easier. We were pretty convinced that any dedicated person could beat normal by paying attention and persevering. We had enough play testing to factor it being "Dark Souls"-hard or "Ori"-hard, once people got down the cadence of a run and gun game (which most people haven't played that much, so it takes a bit to get into -- hold that shoot button!). But, some people don't come to games to be challenged. Their base expectation is to be able to beat something their first try. Modern games have conditioned people to be that way and that's totally fine. It's just not the type of game we wanted to make. We also figured there would be people who would just want to take in the art or fiddle around. Phil Spencer himself said that it would be in our best interests to put in an Easy mode. So we did. It claws back even more boss attacks, slows down patterns, re-sequenced stuff again, and for most bosses, just chops off the end of the fight.
5) So all that is fine. But as we continued to refine, we found that we could fit ALL of the boss patterns into Normal with some tweaks. So we did. Because honestly, as a dev, you kind of want people to see your stuff. You want people to play the breadth of the content you created for your game, you don't just want to relegate so much of it to the best of the best. We also know that something like 95% of players play on Normal and that's it. So all of the attack animations (in the broadest sense) are in Normal now. They are retuned and re-timed to fit with that difficulty, but they are all there and are fun. It did make the game a hint harder (and we re-sorted the boss order so the harder ones are nearer the end), but we feel it's worth it.
6) So in the most explicit sense, Expert mode bosses no longer have "new" attacks. But they are differently sequenced, sped, timed, and bullet patterns are different. In general, on Expert, there are more things to keep track of simultaneously.

Being successful at Cuphead comes down to...well, it follows similarly to kinda playing fighting games. It's about reducing your mental stack. Most people when they first play are just OVERWHELMED with what's happening and they panic. But your actual decision matrix can be reduced a ton with some on the fly thinking.

Cuphead was made to be reaction based rather than memory based. Aside from knowing the general form of attacks and what they look like, there's not a whole lot to memorize. It's not bullet hell, where you find the "safe spots" and weave your way through an impossible maze of bullets out of attrition. There's too much player-targeted and random-sequenced attacks for that (though I'm sure there'll be speed runners who will find that stuff eventually).

Anyway, I'm interested to see how it goes when it gets into a lot of people's hands.




Thanks!
Click to expand...

I pray that this game sells for the sake of your team and ambition. I want to get it day one.

Already know a few people who wont buy it because its local co-op only but i dont know very many sidescrolling shooters with online.
 
1

1upsuper

Member
Teeth said:
So...to get into some inside baseball here, this is sort of what happened while balancing the game.

1) We made up some patterns/attacks/etc and balanced the game how we liked it. Challenging, but not impossible.
2) People outside of the dev team started playtesting it and the common consensus was: "this is the hardest game we've ever played". Like, "i'm dying 30 times on the first phase of the first boss" type of hard.
3) We didn't really want to make a game that so hard that NO ONE could enjoy it but the best of the best, so the idea was to keep that difficulty as "expert" and then tone down the bosses for an easier mode we would call "Normal". Because of the way Cuphead is designed, (discrete health, multiple boss phases with pattern timing and sequencing) we couldn't just give the bosses more health and do more damage. That would just make the bosses take longer, not actually be harder (think of something like a Mario level with tough jumps. You can't just give Mario more health to get past it, you have to redesign the jumps to be easier). So, we started clawing back some of the phases, changing the obstacle patterns, reducing the sequencing a bit, that sort of thing. We called this "Normal".
4) Well, people started playing Normal and said that it was still hard. But we didn't want to make Normal any easier. We were pretty convinced that any dedicated person could beat normal by paying attention and persevering. We had enough play testing to factor it being "Dark Souls"-hard or "Ori"-hard, once people got down the cadence of a run and gun game (which most people haven't played that much, so it takes a bit to get into -- hold that shoot button!). But, some people don't come to games to be challenged. Their base expectation is to be able to beat something their first try. Modern games have conditioned people to be that way and that's totally fine. It's just not the type of game we wanted to make. We also figured there would be people who would just want to take in the art or fiddle around. Phil Spencer himself said that it would be in our best interests to put in an Easy mode. So we did. It claws back even more boss attacks, slows down patterns, re-sequenced stuff again, and for most bosses, just chops off the end of the fight.
5) So all that is fine. But as we continued to refine, we found that we could fit ALL of the boss patterns into Normal with some tweaks. So we did. Because honestly, as a dev, you kind of want people to see your stuff. You want people to play the breadth of the content you created for your game, you don't just want to relegate so much of it to the best of the best. We also know that something like 95% of players play on Normal and that's it. So all of the attack animations (in the broadest sense) are in Normal now. They are retuned and re-timed to fit with that difficulty, but they are all there and are fun. It did make the game a hint harder (and we re-sorted the boss order so the harder ones are nearer the end), but we feel it's worth it.
6) So in the most explicit sense, Expert mode bosses no longer have "new" attacks. But they are differently sequenced, sped, timed, and bullet patterns are different. In general, on Expert, there are more things to keep track of simultaneously.

Being successful at Cuphead comes down to...well, it follows similarly to kinda playing fighting games. It's about reducing your mental stack. Most people when they first play are just OVERWHELMED with what's happening and they panic. But your actual decision matrix can be reduced a ton with some on the fly thinking.

Cuphead was made to be reaction based rather than memory based. Aside from knowing the general form of attacks and what they look like, there's not a whole lot to memorize. It's not bullet hell, where you find the "safe spots" and weave your way through an impossible maze of bullets out of attrition. There's too much player-targeted and random-sequenced attacks for that (though I'm sure there'll be speed runners who will find that stuff eventually).

Anyway, I'm interested to see how it goes when it gets into a lot of people's hands.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this in-depth explanation. Is it true that Expert is going to be locked behind completion of Normal? I would personally like to start with Expert from the sounds of things but regardless I anticipate playing through the game many times.
 
T

Teeth

Member
1upsuper said:
Thank you for this in-depth explanation. Is it true that Expert is going to be locked behind completion of Normal? I would personally like to start with Expert from the sounds of things but regardless I anticipate playing through the game many times.
Click to expand...

At the moment, yeah, you have to beat the game on Normal before Expert is unlocked.
 
A

AlStrong

Member
would be cute if easy mode put a lid on the cup. :p (although I suppose it'd be a ton of work given how assets are drawn)
 
B

Belch64

Neo Member
Teeth said:
So...to get into some inside baseball here, this is sort of what happened while balancing the game.

1) We made up some patterns/attacks/etc and balanced the game how we liked it. Challenging, but not impossible.
2) People outside of the dev team started playtesting it and the common consensus was: "this is the hardest game we've ever played". Like, "i'm dying 30 times on the first phase of the first boss" type of hard.
3) We didn't really want to make a game that so hard that NO ONE could enjoy it but the best of the best, so the idea was to keep that difficulty as "expert" and then tone down the bosses for an easier mode we would call "Normal". Because of the way Cuphead is designed, (discrete health, multiple boss phases with pattern timing and sequencing) we couldn't just give the bosses more health and do more damage. That would just make the bosses take longer, not actually be harder (think of something like a Mario level with tough jumps. You can't just give Mario more health to get past it, you have to redesign the jumps to be easier). So, we started clawing back some of the phases, changing the obstacle patterns, reducing the sequencing a bit, that sort of thing. We called this "Normal".
4) Well, people started playing Normal and said that it was still hard. But we didn't want to make Normal any easier. We were pretty convinced that any dedicated person could beat normal by paying attention and persevering. We had enough play testing to factor it being "Dark Souls"-hard or "Ori"-hard, once people got down the cadence of a run and gun game (which most people haven't played that much, so it takes a bit to get into -- hold that shoot button!). But, some people don't come to games to be challenged. Their base expectation is to be able to beat something their first try. Modern games have conditioned people to be that way and that's totally fine. It's just not the type of game we wanted to make. We also figured there would be people who would just want to take in the art or fiddle around. Phil Spencer himself said that it would be in our best interests to put in an Easy mode. So we did. It claws back even more boss attacks, slows down patterns, re-sequenced stuff again, and for most bosses, just chops off the end of the fight.
5) So all that is fine. But as we continued to refine, we found that we could fit ALL of the boss patterns into Normal with some tweaks. So we did. Because honestly, as a dev, you kind of want people to see your stuff. You want people to play the breadth of the content you created for your game, you don't just want to relegate so much of it to the best of the best. We also know that something like 95% of players play on Normal and that's it. So all of the attack animations (in the broadest sense) are in Normal now. They are retuned and re-timed to fit with that difficulty, but they are all there and are fun. It did make the game a hint harder (and we re-sorted the boss order so the harder ones are nearer the end), but we feel it's worth it.
6) So in the most explicit sense, Expert mode bosses no longer have "new" attacks. But they are differently sequenced, sped, timed, and bullet patterns are different. In general, on Expert, there are more things to keep track of simultaneously.

Being successful at Cuphead comes down to...well, it follows similarly to kinda playing fighting games. It's about reducing your mental stack. Most people when they first play are just OVERWHELMED with what's happening and they panic. But your actual decision matrix can be reduced a ton with some on the fly thinking.

Cuphead was made to be reaction based rather than memory based. Aside from knowing the general form of attacks and what they look like, there's not a whole lot to memorize. It's not bullet hell, where you find the "safe spots" and weave your way through an impossible maze of bullets out of attrition. There's too much player-targeted and random-sequenced attacks for that (though I'm sure there'll be speed runners who will find that stuff eventually).

Anyway, I'm interested to see how it goes when it gets into a lot of people's hands.




Thanks!
Click to expand...


That sounds really interesting actually.

So the only difference between expert and normal is the patterns themselves? Did you guys change up the final boss at all? (Some games will have a new or slightly different final boss for the hardest mode)

Are there any optional or secret bosses to unlock/find?
 
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