Hollowcup

Cuphead is in Hallownest. Red Cuphead replaces the Knight, with his real hand-drawn animations, HUD, loading screen and sound effects, read from your own copy of Cuphead while you play. Hollow Knight's world, enemies, bosses and music stay as they are.

What you play

• One attack, the Peashooter. Hold attack for Cuphead's rapid peashots in the direction you hold: up, diagonally up, and in the air down and diagonally down. Peashots break what the nail breaks: geo rocks, breakable walls and floors, grass. No nail.
• Lock, like Cuphead. Hold the lock button to stand still and aim in all eight directions.
• EX shots. The Snail Shaman's spell becomes Cuphead's EX peashot: tap to spend one super card and fire a big shot that pierces every enemy in its path.
• Parry anything. Jump again in mid-air to slap: enemies, their shots, spikes, acid, every hazard. A parry bounces you up with Cuphead's hit-stop and fills a super card with SOUL.
• Dash from the start, Cuphead style.
• Hollow Knight's health, Cuphead's HUD. The HP card counts your masks (it flashes at 1 HP and reads DEAD); three super cards hold your SOUL. One card is one heal or one EX, and you still focus to heal like the Knight. Only parries fill the cards, so play brave.
• Benches save without sitting. Press Up at a bench to save, respawn there and refill your health.
• Cuphead's loading screens: the iris closes, the hourglass turns, the iris opens on the next room.
• Straight into King's Pass, no opening story.

Controls (keyboard)

Arrows move and aim · Space jump / parry · E shoot · Right Shift lock · Left Ctrl dash · Left Shift EX (tap) or heal (hold) · Q EX. These are set only while Hollowcup runs; your Hollow Knight settings stay as they are. A gamepad works with Hollow Knight's buttons (lock is Super Dash).

This demo

A demo through King's Pass, Dirtmouth and the Forgotten Crossroads (False Knight, Gruz Mother, Brooding Mawlek, Ancestral Mound). Every other exit shows End of the demo and sends Cuphead back. Charms can be bought but not equipped yet (no sitting at benches), and there are no Super Arts yet.

Good to know

• Single player.
• You need Hollow Knight (current Steam version) and Cuphead installed. Nothing from either game is included: Hollowcup reads Cuphead's art and sounds from your copy, and rebuilds the sounds once into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hollowcup\cache.
• Your own Hollow Knight saves are never touched: Hollowcup keeps its own save slots.

Credits

Hollow Knight by Team Cherry, Cuphead by StudioMDHR (not affiliated). Bundled loader: BepInEx 5 (MIT) with HarmonyX, MonoMod and Mono.Cecil (MIT). The FSB5 sound rebuild follows Fmod5Sharp by Sam Byass (MIT). Code: MIT, open for remixes. Built with Claude.