The King's Leap
The King's Leap is a series of stages that take place in a floating castle above Inkwell Isle Four. It is hosted by the King of Games, and features five chess-themed bosses.
In these stages shooting and charms (save for the Astral Cookie) are disabled. Instead, these fights revolve around tactical parries.
For each boss that is defeated, the King will reward the player two coins, save for the Queen, whose defeat nets the player three coins. He uses his scepter as a lever to spin his flying castle around to the next available challenge, though he will prompt the player to leave if the previous fight took too many attempts. If the player leaves the Leap, the ladder to it may appear in another location on the isle. Once all the King's challenges are complete he will not kick you out anymore and the ladder will permanently appear near the docks.
Once all of his champions are defeated, you can freely choose which challenge to take on and a gauntlet can be selected, the King will rotate his castle once and stops at the Pawns' room. Defeating it does not have any benefit in-game besides the congratulations of the King but it will net an achievement.
Walkthrough
| Challenge | Guide | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| The Pawns | Players must parry all the pawns with heads to defeat them. | File:How To Beat The Pawns NO DAMAGE - Cuphead DLC |
| The Knight | Players must parry his plume whenever he lets his guard down to damage him. | File:How to Beat The Knight NO DAMAGE - Cuphead DLC |
| The Bishop | Players must blow out all the candles before they are able to parry him. | File:How To Beat The Bishop NO DAMAGE - Cuphead DLC |
| The Rook | Players must parry the pink heads that come out from his grindstone to damage him. | File:How to Beat The Rook NO DAMAGE - Cuphead DLC |
| The Queen | Players must parry the fuse of cannons to try and send cannonballs flying towards her. | File:How to Beat The Queen NO DAMAGE - Cuphead DLC |
| The Gauntlet | Players must fight all and each one of the five bosses. | File:How To Beat The Gauntlet - Cuphead DLC |
Soundtrack
King of Games' Castle
| Version | Soundtrack |
| Prelude and Proclamation | File:Prelude and Proclamation |
| King of Games' Castle | File:King of Games' Castle |
| King of Games' Castle (Rococo) | File:King of Games' Castle (Rococo) |
Battle
| Version | Soundtrack |
| The Pawns | File:Cuphead DLC OST - Bourree on the Board (Pawn version) |
| The Knight | File:Cuphead DLC OST - Bourree on the Board (Knight version) |
| The Bishop | File:Cuphead DLC OST - Bourree on the Board (Bishop version) |
| The Rook | File:Cuphead DLC OST - Bourree on the Board (Rook version) |
| The Queen | File:The Queen's Riguadon |
| Original soundtrack | File:Bourree on the Board |
Gallery
Pawns Entrance
Knight Entrance
Bishop Entrance
Rook Entrance
Queen Entrance
Overworld icon
Trivia
- This is based on the scrapped boss level The Airship, wherein all the bosses there had to be defeated by parrying, as shown with Jelly the Octopus. In fact, some code are reused from the bosses there.
- The castle was designed by Screen Novelties, who were also behind the DLC trailer from the 2021 Game Awards and the stop-motion Rotograph sequences in The Cuphead Show!
- Different music for Bourree on the Board plays for The Pawns, The Knight, The Bishop, and The Rook. The Pawns use the xylophone solo. The Knight uses the violin fiddle. The Bishop uses the acoustic guitar solo, and The Rook uses the trombone solo.
Inspirations and similarities
- The name may be inspired by King's Landing, the main capital area for the royals in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones franchise.
- The King's Leap was an old name of a chess move that ultimately evolved into "Castling".
- This is quite fitting, as the structure is a floating castle.