My favorite game of all time is Cuphead. The fast-paced gameplay and the constant fear that you’re on the edge of completely restarting with every action creates a beautiful blend of fear and excitement. Despite the many complex boss behaviors, weapon combinations, ultimates, and perks, Cuphead is an incredibly simple game mechanically.
The mechanics of Cuphead boil down to movement and pattern recognition. Every level has a different boss that the player is trying to defeat. The boss has 3-4 stages that the player progresses through as they do more and more damage. Each boss for each stage will have 2-3 different attacks that they will use against the player. However, before each attack, the boss will telegraph what attack they are about to unleash. This gives the player less than a second to prepare for the attack and dodge it. However, the ability to prepare for the attack doesn’t happen on the first play through, the second, or even the fiftieth. Each boss take possibly hundreds of attempts in order to learn what each attack does and the movement needed in order to evade damage.
This builds the challenge dynamic. Every attempt you get a little better until finally you beat the boss and the rush of happiness and dopamine flood your system. With each boss getting progressively harder, you can really feel yourself getting better at the game and overcoming challenge after challenge.
