How Cuphead got its retro design

Cuphead is an exciting run and gun video game released in 2017 by StudioMDHR. Not only does it feature exciting gameplay on a small two-dimensional platform for each level but it also brings new giant bosses that require a lot of pattern recognition in order to beat them. This gets you addicted to the game until the point of no return. Once you start playing the game, you can only hope that you will be able to dodge the last attack of the annoying giant boss before you can finish him off and finally go to bed.

Apart from its interesting gameplay, there is another thing that immediately catches everyone’s attention. The graphics are done in the style of cartoons made in the 1930s, which seems to have been the right choice in order to attract a larger audience. But how did the creators of the game come up with the idea of not following the trends of today’s highly advanced and realistic graphics and giving the game a cartoonish look?

The secret behind the beauty of Cuphead

At first, Maja Moldenhauer, the producer and the artist of Cuphead, had a plan to draw everything by hand in order to cut some expenses and save time. Being a perfectionist, which didn’t really help her get the job done faster, she spent a lot of time drawing the designs and once she was satisfied with her work she gave her drawings to her team. It is quite clear now that her team members were equally satisfied with the drawings as well as the numerous people in love with the graphics of Cuphead. Her decision has proved to be the best possible she could have made when starting her work on this exciting game.  

High expectations and love for the job

All of her work actually covered only the first third of the game’s creation, mainly because of the game’s scope which grew dramatically during the creation of Cuphead. It seems that all the members of the game developing team at StudioMDHR are perfectionists as they tossed a lot of designs of the characters and levels before they got what they really wanted. They have even said themselves that they spent a lot of time fine-tuning some less important parts and details of the game the general public probably wouldn’t even notice because they wanted the game to be perfect.

Game project conclusion

The development of Cuphead started in 2010 and was first revealed in 2014, which shows how much time and effort was put into the game, especially if you consider the fact that all the people on the job are perfectionists. Moldenhauer has said that a lot of time was spent in the hiring process as well.

Finally, the creators of the game got what they had dreamed of and we got a fun game with wonderful graphics. It can be expected that the game will stick around for quite some time thanks to its eye-catching retro style.