Map Exploration

The complete game contains three islands and one final boss. Every time the player gets through a level, the map will appear with white flags and new access. The island has both hidden routes and an invisible level challenge sequence.

Players can choose to enter the store and spend gold to buy various weapons and amulets, or talk to NPCs to get hidden gold.

Levels contain horizontal scrolling level (gold level), tomb challenge level and boss battle (regular and flight mode). Only players who successfully pass the normal difficulty boss battle can obtain the contract, and need to collect all the contracts to challenge the final boss.

Level Design

Before entering the level, players can choose the type of weapon, kill technique and amulet to configure, and choose the difficulty to challenge. After completing the challenge, a score panel will be displayed and will indicate the performance of the level. Otherwise, if you do not pass the challenge, a death screen will appear.

Take Carnival kerfuffle : Beppi the clown as an example.
This level is divided into four stages, the details of which can be seen in the stage division by entering the death screen.

Next will be a breakdown of each stage, including how each monster attacks, the interval between appearances, and the location on the screen. It will also go through the following ways to rate the difficulty of each stage.

-Shooting difficulty (boss size, boss location, displacement speed, predictability, chance presentation)
-Safety (safe area range, safe area stability, safe area randomness)
-Attention distribution (intensity, degree of distraction, reaction time)
-Learning difficulty (first appearance, ease of use)
-Challenge randomness

Analysis

In the level design of Carnival kerfuffle : Beppi the clown, the main features are as follows.

1. The level design mainly adopts the way of limiting the player's action space, which shows that there are very few safe positions for players; the boss design is very exaggerated, with very eye-catching colors and volume; there is little standing space, and the space is fragmented and cut, such as designing narrow and uniformly scrolling stations, or designing blocks containing dangerous elements to force players to give up their original occupancy; designing monsters for tracking attacks, so that players always Need to judge the safety of the current position.

2. At the same time, the attack mode in Cuphead game is very simple, only simple shooting and must-kill technique two. The challenge also does not test the player's shooting accuracy, which is reflected in the large size of the boss, most bosses can occupy the entire height or width of the screen, which means that the player can hit the boss on any platform and use automatic tracking weapons to assist.

3. The level design has a very strong randomness, which is reflected in the randomness of the challenge in some of the levels, ensuring the uniqueness of the player experience. The experience of each challenge is not exactly the same, and there are differences in difficulty, which exactly fits the player's gaming psychology.

4. There are complex elements in the level design, the player needs to focus on a lot of content at the same time, to a certain extent, distracting the player's attention. There are very many fixed obstacles within the level, such as platforms that restrict movement, as well as a very large number of small monsters that restrict players in addition to the boss. Players need to pay attention to their location at the same time, and even pre-judge the path of action and movement to avoid putting themselves in a dangerous situation.

5. The overall pace of the level contains fast-paced attack and dodge, so in the battle with a sense of exhilaration, the player needs to switch the rhythm of attack and defense according to the enemy attack moves, determine the timing of the release of the necessary kill technique and ensure dodge. These form a test of the player's reaction speed, operational proficiency, and foresight.

Other

Another major feature of this game is its rare art style. Take the 1930s traditional old-style Disney cartoon art style as a reference, and frame by frame animation performance, to exaggerate and bright color art style to create a visual impact. At the same time in each level there are fixed background scenes, and bosses even if the constant transformation also maintains the same color scheme. For example, in the Carnival kerfuffle level used bumper cars, carousels, roller coasters, and design targets and other common elements.

Actually, as a player who has experienced this game, may have the following more intuitive feeling.

-Malicious game design
The game may have foreground blocking, hidden enemies, bullets beyond the screen and completely random attack direction, so that players remain nervous for a long time or even unable to predict the enemy's attack.

-High training cost
The high blood volume of a single boss and the low blood volume of the player in stark contrast make the game difficult, and players will keep repeating the initial stage of the challenge in the early stages.

-Strong sense of purpose
The game is designed to give players a very strong sense of purpose at the beginning, including fighting bosses, getting gold, etc. There is no calm training phase, and players are almost always in high spirits.

-Level design is full of surprise
This is reflected in the level design theme which is close to reality but at the same time exaggerated processing, so that players feel familiar and at the same time pleasantly surprised.

Conclusion

All in all, Cuphead is an excellent indie game. In this article, I talked about the game design, especially the level design of Cuphead, from my personal point of view. I welcome all of you reading to discuss and experience this game with me!