Fans of the retro-sidescroller "Cuphead" will be surprised to know that, like the protagonists Cuphead and Mugman, the developers have also made a gamble, though the latter apparently won given the game's success.
Executive brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer of Studio MDHR, the developers, have stated in an interview that they have made two big risks with equally big stakes when they made "Cuphead." One was the retro 1930s cartoon style of the game, which they were honestly not convinced will appeal to the current generation's tastes, and the other was the games overarching difficulty level, which could have put off a lot of gamers.
Both gambles were all taken and won by the relative newcomer game company, as "Cuphead" has now sold at least one million copies, an impressive feat for a small development team. This success did not come easy though, as the stakes involved, not only for the brothers, but for the development team as well, were difficult to lose, and the hardships that they have encountered have seemingly reminded them of the difficulty they experienced with "Cuphead."
"Everything in the game is done classically, for the most part. Everything is hand drawn on paper, it's hand-inked on paper. All the backgrounds are watercolor paintings," said Chad, which meant that hundreds of thousands of individual stages of character movement had to be done manually. In the current age of technology, this is a rather herculean feat that shows the dedication of the developers toward their game, as well as the skill of the artists in maintaining attention to detail required for the aesthetics of "Cuphead."
This faithfulness to tradition has been a double-edged sword for the developer, however, as it had proven to be the hardest challenge which the developers had to overcome, something that was made even harder due to their small team. The team even alleged that they had to sacrifice nearly everything from their day jobs/careers to their personal lives just to pour in the commitment necessary for "Cuphead."
The payoff, however, was grand, and the brothers, along with their development team, are now looking at other future projects.
