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Cuphead - GDC Gameplay/Art Director Interview

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I just want to remind everyone that port begging is bannable. In case anyone forgot.

OT, I've never played, or at least can't remember playing, a boss rush before so I'm pretty excited about this. Also, the art is gorgeous! Really hits me in the childhood feels.
 
I never got into many of the classic run-and-gun games, but I've loved Cuphead from the moment I saw it.

I'm really curious to learn more about the plane levels:
cuphead-bird.png
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And the other abilities, like whatever this is:
cuphead-07-05-14-1.jpg
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VlaudTheImpaler said:
I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I just want to remind everyone that port begging is bannable. In case anyone forgot.

OT, I've never played, or at least can't remember playing, a boss rush before so I'm pretty excited about this. Also, the art is gorgeous! Really hits me in the childhood feels.
Click to expand...

I may be wrong, but I don't think discussing possibility of a port is a problem.
 
Teeth said:
Trust me when I say that you will want the infinite lives.

That said, there will likely be an optional tower challenge mode of all of the fights (or something like that) that you have to progress through without dying for the ultra-hardcore people.

The way it is now, with the difficulty, it would be incredibly alienating to people if you had to start from square one after a certain amount of deaths. Think of it like Super Meat Boy: infinite lives, still pretty hard.
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Would you say it's a harder game in ways than Alien Soldier? Because some folks can 1CC that with practice, and I'm working on a balls-hard STG this Spring Break (Fantasy Zone Arcade). I don't feel the need for infinite lives if that can be avoided via a survival mode-type workaround, so hopefully that's in. Agreed that games like this are bound to put most off because they deny seeing new content if skills aren't good enough, but the developers themselves say this game's expecting better reactions than better memorization from target players.
 
I'm fascinated by this game, I hope it's my cup of tea (har har).

I'm only slightly disappointed that it's only boss battles.

But I imagine it's a scope issue.
 
wow this is crazy.. i was born in the 80s but grew up watching a lot of 30s cartoons that my parents had on vhs.. i love this
 
Dragoon En Regalia said:
Would you say it's a harder game in ways than Alien Soldier? Because some folks can 1CC that with practice, and I'm working on a balls-hard STG this Spring Break (Fantasy Zone Arcade). I don't feel the need for infinite lives if that can be avoided via a survival mode-type workaround, so hopefully that's in. Agreed that games like this are bound to put most off because they deny seeing new content if skills aren't good enough, but the developers themselves say this game's expecting better reactions than better memorization from target players.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I couldn't quite say if it's harder or not than Alien Soldier, as it's nowhere near final tuning yet. At the moment, no one has beaten a single boss first try (or second or third), even the ones that were intentionally made to be what was thought to be very easy.

I mean, I've only beaten the frogs once myself and Jared (lead design) thought that fight was fairly "average" difficulty.

Here's the way I look at it: I really hate being forced to play through parts of a game that I've already mastered over and over and over again just to play the part that I'm having trouble with. Some people like that, it forces mastery. But at a certain point, no matter how skilled you are, there's a cap at how fast you can beat any challenge. So if, hypothetically speaking, I'm being challenged pretty bad by the tenth boss, but find bosses one through 5 fairly easy at that point in my personal skill progression, I don't want to have to fight those 5 fights over and over just so that I get 3 chances to fight the bosses I'm actually challenged by.

Some people like that, I personally find that tedious.

I mean, you can blow through Contra 3 in 30 minutes. Having to play the first bunch of levels isn't really tedious because the game is so short. Cuphead should be quite a bit longer than that (in a straight content sense...counting all the deaths and retries, I couldn't surmise how long it would take an actual new player).

Plus, it's got a Mario style world map and a couple of secrets and a very basic progression (weapon and super acquisition). Is that really the type of thing you would want to not be able to save in?

And if you can save, you might as well put in infinite lives, it's basically the same thing with save scumming and whatnot.

That said, for people like you, there will be the challenge tower where you have to do everything in one shot. I've been putting pressure on the leads to put some sort of code in the game to allow hardcore people access to it right off the start (rather than in NG+). I think that can satisfy most crowds.
 
You can beat Contra 3 faster than that!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdgJG_QifDY

He's not human, i can't believe it. Not a TAS either!!

This Swederun of Contra III is my first speedrun. For some unknown reason, I still don't hate this game. The last one and a half week (505 attempts) prior to completing this run was the only time when I kept track of how many attempts I made. So when I'm mentioning statistics of any kind, I'm only considering those last 505 attempts.
Click to expand...

More info at:

http://speeddemosarchive.com/Contra3.html


/derail thread
 
So what do they mean by mostly boss fight focus?

Do they mean that in an Alien Soldier way where the game is essentially a bunch of boss fights string together but with two minute regular shooting/platform stages dividing them up? Or is this essentially a boss rush game?
 
zero shift said:
So what do they mean by mostly boss fight focus?

Do they mean that in an Alien Soldier way where the game is essentially a bunch of boss fights string together but with two minute regular shooting/platform stages dividing them up? Or is this essentially a boss rush game?
Click to expand...

It could also be like Contra Hard Corps that's mostly about boss fights but there are segments where you fight waves of enemies.
 
The game looks absolutely gorgeous but I am still kinda worried about the boss rush approach. The bosses need to be varied and really well designed for a game like that to not get stale quickly.
 
I'm only very interested in this because of the artstyle which is inspired by classic Disney cartoons. Looks amazing, can't wait till it releases.
 
yoplay said:
it's mostly boss rush. Such disappoint. Needed to be a platformer to hold my interest. I'm also weary of the attack options. Cupheads attacks need more diversity.
Click to expand...

I think that the game would take a few more years if it were more than boss battles.

I am glad we are getting the game at all. This is fantastic coming from such a small team.

I just hope the game is a huge success so we can see more by the developers in the future.
 
Hearing people immediately dismissing this because it's a boss rush game really disappoints me. You guys need to play more Treasure games and realize it's an excellent game design choice.

I'm a bit worried that the game isn't going to be as difficult as the games they're comparing it to though. From the footage shown, it doesn't seem that hard. That still doesn't change my plans to buy it day one though.
 
I have no issue with the boss rush style since I'm a fan of Treasure games and their games have bosses all over your face (and I love it!). I'll give it a chance just to experience that art style. It looks gorgeous! I want to see it animate on my big screen!
 
Had to watch twice because I was distracted by that art director. The game looks so brilliantly unusual.
 
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