Cupiclaw looks like a cute little claw machine game, but don’t let the adorable pixel art fool you.
This roguelike deckbuilder from solo developer Typin has way more strategic depth than you’d expect, and it will eat your runs alive if you go in without a plan.
You play as Morris, a guy who lost his engagement ring and decided the best solution is to win a new one from the top floor of a local arcade.
It’s ridiculous, charming, and seriously addictive once it clicks.
Here are all the Cupiclaw tips and tricks you need to start climbing those floors and clawing your way to victory.
Understand How the Core Loop Works
Each run takes you through multiple floors of an arcade, and each floor has its own claw machine with a unique layout and gimmick.
You get five rounds per floor to earn enough coins to advance. The coin threshold goes up with every floor, so the pressure builds steadily.
During each round, you have limited time to move the claw, drop it, and grab as many prizes as possible. Each prize has a coin value that can be positive or negative.
You also need to grab a key hidden in the machine before your rounds run out. Miss the key and your run is over, no matter how many coins you’ve earned.
The real magic happens between rounds and floors. That’s where you add new prizes to the machine, upgrade existing ones, or remove items from the pool. This deckbuilding layer separates good runs from great ones.
Focus on Synergies, Not Individual Prizes
The biggest mistake new players make is treating Cupiclaw like a regular arcade game. They add random prizes without thinking about how they work together.
Your prize pool is your deck. Just like in Balatro or Slay the Spire, success comes from having items that multiply each other’s value, not just individually decent ones.
The cat plush, for example, gives bonus coins when you grab food items like lollipops. In a food-heavy build, it’s incredibly powerful. In a nature build, it’s dead weight.
Stacking duplicate prizes is another major synergy. Grabbing a second copy of the same plushie can double its base value, which adds up fast across multiple rounds.
Some prizes also transform over time.
A flower left in the machine for a few turns blooms into a high-value tree. These transformation prizes reward patience and forward thinking.
Every time you’re offered a new prize, ask yourself: does this make my existing prizes stronger? If not, skip it.
Prioritize Upgrades Over Adding New Prizes
Between rounds, you’ll often choose between adding a new prize or upgrading one you already have. In most situations, upgrading is the stronger play.
A leveled-up prize with synergy bonuses will consistently outperform a machine stuffed with random new items.
Upgrades increase a prize’s base value, and that boosted value gets multiplied by all your existing synergies.
Keep your prize pool lean and focused. A smaller pool of highly upgraded, synergistic prizes is almost always better than a bloated pool of mediocre ones.
Remove Penalty Items as Soon as You Can
Every machine is loaded with penalty items alongside the good stuff. Tin cans, bombs, ghosts, and roaches all work against you in different ways.
Some subtract coins directly when grabbed. Others debuff your prizes or blow up nearby items.
Bombs are especially nasty because they can destroy high-value prizes you’ve been building around all run.
Removing penalties costs more than removing regular prizes, which makes it tempting to just avoid grabbing them. But on chaotic later floors, you’re going to accidentally scoop up junk no matter how careful you are.
A clean machine is a profitable machine.
Spending extra coins early to remove penalties pays for itself many times over.
Prioritize removing bombs first, then clean up smaller nuisance items as your budget allows.
Use Your Tokens Wisely
Cupiclaw gives you two types of tokens for shaping your runs.
Blue tokens reroll the prize options you’re offered between rounds, and red tokens remove prizes from the pool.
Save blue reroll tokens for moments when nothing useful is on offer. A reroll can mean the difference between a wasted pick and a game-changing synergy piece.
Red removal tokens work best on junk that doesn’t fit your build. A useless positive prize cluttering up your machine is also a problem since it takes up physical space and dilutes your pool quality.
Both token types are limited, so treat them as a strategic resource.
The later floors are where things get truly chaotic, and having tokens in reserve can save a wobbling run.
Master Claw Positioning and Timing
The deckbuilding layer gets all the attention, but your actual claw skills matter too. Every second counts when the timer is ticking.
Aim for clusters of high-value prizes rather than chasing a single item near the edge.
Grabbing two medium-value items in one drop is often better than risking time on one awkward pickup.
The claw in Cupiclaw isn’t rigged like real arcade machines. If you grab something cleanly, it will come up. Trust the claw and don’t second-guess your drops.
Plan your next grab while the claw is ascending.
Use the travel time to identify your next target so you can move into position immediately. This saves precious seconds across five rounds.
Adapt to Each Machine’s Gimmick
The first floor is a straightforward claw machine.
But from the second floor onward, every machine introduces a new gimmick that changes how prizes behave.
Some floors have moving platforms that shift prizes around.
Others introduce water physics that make items float unpredictably. You might encounter pebbles, bouncy surfaces, or even portals that teleport prizes to different spots.
The biggest mistake is playing every floor the same way. Take a moment at the start of each new floor to observe how the gimmick works before frantically dropping the claw.
On floors with moving elements, timing your drops to catch prizes as they drift into favorable positions is way more effective than fighting the movement.
Pick a Build Archetype and Commit
Cupiclaw has over 70 unique prizes across several categories. Toys, food, nature items, gems, mechas, and more all have their own internal synergies.
The most successful runs happen when you pick a direction early and commit hard.
A focused build where every prize boosts every other prize will dramatically outperform a scattered collection from five different categories.
Pay attention to what the game offers in the first couple of floors. If food items and food synergies keep showing up, lean into a food build. Let the early offerings guide your decision rather than forcing something the game isn’t supporting.
Once committed, actively remove prizes that don’t fit.
That random gem might be worth a few coins on its own, but if nothing is multiplying it, it’s wasting space.
That said, stay flexible in the very early game.
Give yourself until floor two or three before fully committing. Pivoting early is easy. Pivoting on floor five is a disaster.
Don’t Forget the Key
This sounds obvious, but it’s the number one run-killer for beginners. Every floor has a key hidden in the machine, and you must grab it before your five rounds are up.
No key means no next floor. It doesn’t matter if you’ve hit the coin threshold ten times over.
The key can be tricky to spot in a machine full of colorful prizes, especially on later floors where the gimmicks are making everything move around.
Make a habit of scanning for the key at the start of each floor so you know roughly where it is.
Don’t save the key for your last round thinking you’ll grab it then.
Machine gimmicks can push it into a tough position, or you might simply miss the grab.
Scoop it up as soon as you have a clean shot, then spend the rest of your rounds farming coins stress-free.
Failed Runs Are Short, So Experiment
One of the best things about Cupiclaw is that failure is fast.
A bad run ends in under five minutes, while a good run lasts 15 to 30 minutes. That quick turnaround makes it perfect for experimentation.
If you’ve been leaning on the same build every run, deliberately try something different.
Go all-in on a category you’ve been ignoring. See what happens when you focus entirely on upgrades and never add new items.
Every failed run teaches you which synergies scale well into later floors and which ones fall off.
Some combos look amazing on floor two but can’t keep up with the coin thresholds on floor five.
Cupiclaw also has roguelike progression that carries over between runs. You’ll unlock new prizes and upgrades as you play, so even a run that ends on floor one isn’t wasted.
Drop the claw, see what happens, and try again.
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Images in this article are from the Cupiclaw page on Steam and used under Fair Use.