Written by Matthew Talbot • Layout by Jesse Tahirali • Images courtesy StudioMDHR

Cuphead, a video game made by a team working across Canada, is a hand-drawn love letter to 1930s cartoons and a callback to the things that made people fall in love with games in the first place.

From the moment gamers first caught a glimpse of Cuphead’s pencil-sketched animation in 2013, it became one of the industry’s most anticipated releases. And when StudioMDHR released the game in late September, it appears to have lived up to the hype.

Cuphead sold more than one million copies in its first two weeks — a huge launch for a small independent title — and it earned high scores from reviewers and a cult following from fans for its visuals and tough-but-fair gameplay. It has since also won several industry awards, including best indie game of 2017.

Cuphead's artwork was entirely hand-animated, frame by frame, starting with pencil sketches (Courtesy @StudioMDHR)

A humble beginning

But before this stunning debut, Cuphead had a humble beginning: two young brothers playing classics such as Street Fighter II and Contra in the basement of their Regina, Sask. home, dreaming about the game they’d one day make.

Cuphead is an homage to those games, a mix of Contra’s “run-and-gun” shooting and Street Fighter’s brawling. You play as a cartoon character with an actual cup for a head, running around shooting enemies with a finger gun.

But the game’s main draw is its 19 boss battles — from slot machine frogs in a hectic casino to a Betty Boop-inspired evil mermaid, players attempt to defeat a host of beautifully drawn, brutally challenging enemies in order to beat the game.

What brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer and their studio delivered with Cuphead is one of the most gruelling, fun and meticulously artistic games of all time.

Jared and Chad Moldenhauer, the founders of StudioMDHR

‘A dying art form’

Cuphead doesn't just look like a 1930s cartoon (think Max Fleischer or Steamboat Willie). It was made almost entirely using the same ink-and-paper techniques.

Artists working in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, New York and L.A. drew each frame of animation by hand on 12f animation paper. That type of paper, typically used by cartoonists, measures 10.5'' by 12.5'', which is slightly bigger than your standard 8.5'' by 11''. And the artists used every inch of it, drawing their pieces from edge to edge.

All those drawings were then sent to producer Maja Moldenhauer, whose hand graced every frame of the game. As the only inker on Cuphead, Moldenhauer added the black outlines to an estimated 50,000 sketches, scaling objects as needed or giving them weight.

Boss Cala Maria in the level "High Seas Hi-Jinx!" could be seen as a nod to "Betty Boop's Life Guard," where Betty turns into a mermaid

“It’s a dying art form to be able to still animate on paper," Moldenhauer says. "We were very keen doing this art style in the way they did in the '30s."

Maja is one of several Moldenhauers involved in the project, which relied on familial support to become a reality. She's married to Chad Moldenhauer, one of StudioMDHR's two founders. As the scope of the game grew, so did the size of the team – but as people across the continent joined the team, development always kept a tight-knit, small-studio feel.

Just a handful of artists drew up to 1,500 individual pictures for each of the game's 19 bosses, bringing the elaborate characters to life. Those pictures were then scanned in and digitally painted before being sent to developers in Ottawa.

The brothers weren’t available to explain the process themselves, but Moldenhauer says they were adamant the art stay true to its 1930s inspiration and wanted even minor animations to be unique — down to puffs of smoke that players would only see once.

This is an example of the stages of art for each frame of Cuphead, from the rough pencil sketch to the inked and painted final product

“Everything really was just a blood-sweat-and-tears amount of effort,” she says. ”We didn’t cut any corners. We didn’t leave anything to the wayside. It’s all in there and we’re very proud of it.”

'Explosive response'

It's clear making Cuphead grew into a huge endeavour, but it started small with just Chad, Jared and Maja working on the game on weekends.

“We didn’t know whether or not there would be an appetite for this style of game,” Maja Moldenhauer says. “We were just taking little bites, dipping our toes in the water."

The game changed a lot throughout development, from this early concept of a boss in 2013 to the final product in 2017

While first working on Cuphead, they kept their day jobs: Maja in downtown Toronto's financial sector, Chad at an Oakville-based boutique web design company, and Jared at the family construction company in Regina.

But when they put a teaser video on YouTube in 2013, everything changed. It caught the attention of Xbox executives and sparked a partnership with Microsoft. They quit their jobs to work on Cuphead full time. They injected all of their savings into production. Both brothers remortgaged homes they’d almost paid off.

“It was personal,” Moldenhauer says. “We didn’t have investors. We didn’t have anyone else’s money to play with.”

The risk paid off.

Winning awards and what comes next

Besides the incredible critical response and sales on Xbox and PC that have exceeded two million copies, Cuphead has also won a number of awards.

It won ‘Best Independent Game,’ ‘Best Art Direction,’ and ‘Best Debut Indie Game’ at one of the industry's biggest awards nights, the 3rd annual Game Awards on Dec. 8.

Cuphead won Best Art Direction at the Game Awards on Dec. 8

On stage at the awards, it's clear how proud the brothers are of the game.

"We poured our heart and souls into this game," Chad said, beaming with the 'Best Art Direction' award in hand. "To be recognized with the greats like this is just out of this world."

The game also picked up awards for 'Best Visual Design' and ' Xbox Game of the Year' at the 35th-annual Golden Joysticks in the U.K. earlier in November.

And it's being recognized outside the gaming industry. The International Animated Film Society is set to give Cuphead the 2017 Special Achievement Award at the Annie Awards in February.

Moldenhauer says the whole journey has been "hard to process" but the positive response from the gaming community and the industry has been overwhelming.

They even earned a congratulatory shout-out from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

All the attention has left them a bit breathless, but the journey's not over yet.

In addition to references to old games and cartoons, Cuphead also has some references to the Moldenhauers themselves

Moldenhauer says they're taking stock of what they created after a mad six-month rush to finish Cuphead. They're considering what to do with some 50,000 pages of art, watching the community and ironing out any bugs that made it into the final product.

For now though, mixed in with the relief of their successful launch is something similar to loss.

“You kind of get sad," she says. "This has been our life for so long — nights, weekends, holidays, vacations, missed birthdays, everything — just working on this game. Because you love it.

"I’m just so proud of the entire thing."

There's one more Canadian connection that makes Cuphead unique.

The team didn't want to re-license music from movies, shows and other games. As with the hand-drawing the whole game, they wanted the soundtrack to be authentic too.

They tapped Kristofer Maddigan, the principal percussionist with the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto and a childhood friend of the Moldenhauer brothers.

“We lured him in to be the composer for this," Maja Moldenhauer says.

Maddigan wrote nearly three hours of jazz music. The soundtrack uses a 41-piece big band ensemble and even a barbershop quartet.