How Cuphead Revolutionized Gaming and Animation: A Dive into its Retro Charm

Remark: The main purpose of the article is to introduce a game. All information was collected from open sources.

Here is the rubric for the first experimental game on my LinkedIn page. Today, I am going to talk about the game Cuphead, which gives off vibes of American cartoons from the 1930s

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Essentially, it is a platformer game where you fight against frog boxers, evil bees, a huge mermaid and other creatures.

Cuphead was designed by two brothers from Canada, Chad Moldenhauer and Jared Moldenhauer . They had an exciting idea for a childhood game and invested all their resources into developing it.

The first attempt was in 2000. However, due to a lack of money, they abandoned the idea. In 2010, after the success of the Super Meat Boy game, the Moldenhauers collaborated with Jake Clark to revisit the original idea.

As Chad said,

My brother and I saw that people wanted to see what we were working on. So, we quit our jobs, remortgaged our houses, and diligently started hiring people.

At first glance, the game may seem made for children, but after a couple of minutes, it becomes obvious that it is not primarily for children. To succeed, you have to be cool and assertive.

We wanted to create a game where players would say 'Yes! I did that!' at the end of each level. The same feeling that old-school games gave us,

Jared explained.

The uniqueness of the game is preserved because of its retro animation style. This platformer takes gamers back to the aesthetic of the 1930s.

What is the core of the game?

All movements of each element were manually drawn, requiring hundreds of frames and a lot of time for elaboration.

The shake effect of images is achieved through hand-drawn characters. Each line can't be exactly the same in such a case. The development team spent 7 years perfecting it.

Moldenhauer explained that one animation frame takes an average of 20 minutes, including brainstorming, drawing, painting, and integration into the game. Moreover, there is no "Cancel" button like in Photoshop; if something goes wrong, they have to start over.

Multiple 20 minutes per frame on 50,000 frames, instead of the initially planned 15,000-20,000 frames. In total, there are 2 years of man-hours just for making animations.

Plus, detailed watercolor backgrounds in that style, 3 hours of original jazz music, custom fonts, not to mention the original gameplay development. Thinking about it, it's clear why this game took so long.

How was the animation made, for example, the mermaid boss?

I wanted to create an interesting and understandable character that would also be easy to animate. The idea of a little mermaid came to my mind, and I figured out the main traits of her character that could be embodied in this image. I got it like this: strong, cruel, wild, a witch who eats pirate ships. I also wanted to give her hair the shape of an octopus.

Then Jake remembered all the images of strong women he had come across, as well as all the interesting mermaid characters and heroines of that time, and selected references.

I wanted it to look like Betty Boop or Olive Oyl. And I asked myself: what would their characteristics look like if they were little mermaids? I also looked for similar characters in other games and thought I could borrow from them.

As a result, he came up with the following options:

Jake's work then went to Chad, who began experimenting with the resulting ideas, adding something of his own. Chad drew her thinner arms and hands of different shapes, suggested changing her eyes and making them more expressive, like the character on the right. Chad also decided to make the figure more similar to the classic Betty Boop.

The artists looked for a lot of references and tried to combine different ideas that they could find.

Of course, we didn't steal other people's characters. But we needed to dive into that era and understand which images were more suitable for the style of the 1930s. We left the mermaid's hair in the shape of an octopus, made her eyes larger, and drew her bra like Disney's Ariel.

Next, it was necessary to animate the character. Since the entire process is done manually, it would be very disappointing to make a mistake, so Jake tried to think through everything to the smallest detail in advance and imagine the picture in his head.

For example, a mermaid is in the water, she is constantly swimming, so her hips must move. Her hands must be constantly ready to make some kind of movement because she is about to attack. You also need to take into account that in retro cartoons, the characters often dance or jump. This also needs to be shown.

To begin with, he made 3 drawings to test the finished idea. Then, he added 4 more to ensure everything was working out correctly. In the end, 16 illustrations were included in the animation to make the picture smooth and the movements clear.

Today, animation is at the peak of its popularity: the largest corporations release successful new projects every year. But no matter how fantastic the plots are, they are all based on a light reality. Animation in the 1930s almost always tried to escape this reality. The weird retro character aesthetic combined with the equally weird '90s platformer culture makes for an unusual game that stands out from the rest of our era.

Cuphead was one of the best games of 2017-2018 and has received many prestigious awards, including a BAFTA for its soundtrack. In 2019, the online cinema Netflix announced its intention to launch a large series based on the same animation style.

In 2022, after 3 years, "The Cuphead Show!" was released on Netflix. The first season consists of 12 episodes, each 14-16 minutes long, and the show has a 6+ age rating.

It is no coincidence that the name of the animated series contains the word "Show", because it is primarily a set of comedy short films. Although there is a plot in "The Cup Show!", it is quite optional and revolves around Cuphead's soul, which is hunted by the Devil himself (just like in the game).

And although Cuphead retains his gambling nature, in the cartoon, apparently due to the children's rating, there are no mentions of casinos and gambling. For the same reason, King Dice (my favorite character though) became the host of a quiz show.

I have already finished the first season and started watching season 2, and I am on the 3rd island in the game. I like this universe that the Moldenhauer brothers have created. I highly recommend playing Cuphead and watching the cartoon.

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