"That beating was for free -- no strings attached!"
—Cuppet, Phase 4 Death Screen
Cuppet[1], also known as Puphead, is a minor boss created by Djimmi the Great in Phase 4 of Pyramid Peril.
Description
Personality
Cuppet supposedly is a very skilled comedian, even being able to end on a joke when his comedy act is sabotaged by his arm being devoured.
Appearance
Cuppet is a sentient, Pinocchio-Esque Marionette version of Cuphead, sharing the same color scheme as Djimmi The Great. Since Djimmi took inspiration from Cuphead and Mugman, he bears a striking resemblance to them. He has a cylindrical, red nose, a mug-like head, a white and turquoise striped straw and pie cut eyes. He also wears what appears to be a red wooden shirt, turquoise puffy pants, white gloves and red plunger-shaped shoes.
In Djimmi's secret phase, Cuppet becomes a miniature version of himself. His head is now round and resembles more of a sippy cup, his mouth is completely absent, his hands are now just circles and his body is oval-shaped, wearing a single pill-shaped half red half turquoise piece. In A Mountain Of Trouble he also keeps this form.
Battle
Phase 4
In this phase, Djimmi briefly reappears, scanning Cuphead and Mugman. He then turns to the screen (performing an aside glance) and begins laughing, his turban transforming into a lightbulb as he thinks of an idea with which to kill the brothers. Djimmi then transforms into a giant hand and lifts up Cuppet, and his turban appears on the left side of the screen.
Cuppet moves around horizontally, walking in the air, before releasing his finger and proceeding to shoot two (almost vertical) lines of bullets to deter player(s) not to go behind Cuppet’s firing finger so he can still effectively use his Peashooter-esque weapon. While Cuppet shoots, Djimmi can be heard laughing. In Simple mode, there is a chance that it shoots a line of bigger bullets alternating between up and down. In the middle of these two lines, Cuppet will shoot two waves of three, four or five blue, glowing oval bullets, one of which can be parried. In Simple mode, the rate of shooting is slower, the bullets travel slower, they come in one wave of two, three or four bullets. In Expert mode, both firing rate and their speed are faster, they come in three waves of four, five or six bullets.
All the while, Djimmi's turban follows the player(s) and periodically stops, changes the hole at the bottom into a mouth and fires three waves of bullets which go in a cross formation and slowly turns counter-clockwise. In Simple mode, the turban will only move around without firing the bullet waves. In Expert mode, it will send out four waves of bullets.
After taking enough damage, Cuppet is defeated, pulled out from the top of the screen while featuring cross-shaped eyes and having its straw take the shape of an angel's halo (similar to what happens when Cuphead and Mugman lose all of their health). In Simple, the battle will end with Cuppet's knockout. Hitpoints = 880/910/1050
Secret Phase
As Djimmi is scanning the player prior to phase 4, if the players shrink into the mini-plane form, Djimmi will pull out a crib toy with a dinosaur, a mini Dr. Kahl's Robot and a stone statue, and then another tug of the extra long string brings out a mini Cuppet. This effectively skips the fourth phase, but will make the final phase more difficult with his addition. He will dance around as Djimmi's last phase comes in, stopping in the middle of the three golden pyramids. Then he will shoot two empty shots upward or downward, determining where it will start. He sits in meditative stance and start turning his head clockwise or counter-clockwise, firing an energy orb in the cardinal and diagonal directions. Every other shot is pink and can be parried. He can be defeated separately from Djimmi in this phase. In Expert Mode, the mini Cuppet has increased fire rate and the bullets travels faster. Hitpoints = 505/605
Gallery
Unused Content
Game files reveal an unused, golden, sprite of Cuppet. Its animations were the same only recolored, it is currently unknown why it was unused. The golden Cuppet used to be thought as similar to Cuppet using Super Art II, which makes the player invincible for a while, but it turned out to be the "player two" for the Cuppet phase; like the original one shooting "Peashooter" bullets, golden Cuppet would shoot three "mini-bombs" with red, yellow and green color that explode.
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Trivia
- Cuppet was given an official name Puphead[2] by Jake Clark, the animator and designer of Djimmi's fight. Later it got changed in most official sources to Cuppet, like his Funko POP! figure and in The Art of Cuphead.
- Additionally, on the prototype of his POP! version, his name was misspelled as "Piphead".
- There is a bug in which rapidly pausing and unpausing during Cuppet's firing animation causes the number of bullets he fires to significantly increase.
- In A Mountain Of Trouble Cuppet appears to be good friends with Cuphead.
- The unused golden Cuppet sprites could be a reference to Super Arts, specifically Super Art II.
- In Down & Out Mugman has a ventriloquist dummy except the shorts, shoes, nose and stripe on the straw are colored blue to resemble Mugman instead of Cuphead.
References
- ↑ The Art of Cuphead, page 106
- ↑ Jake Clark's Twitter