When the Moldenhauer family – Maja, Chad, Jared, and several other siblings, friends,
and relatives – first signed an exclusivity contract to bring Cuphead to Xbox, it seemed
like an end to all their worries.
They’d been working on their indie game passion project for years already at this point.
They needed the assurance that their game would get enough attention from the gaming
press that it would sell upon release.
Microsoft could provide this, and their dreams were in sight.
Several more years of development later, having had to remortgage their homes to fund the
continued development of Cuphead, the Studio MDHR saw their game go out to a wide audience
of enthusiastic players on both the Xbox One, and the PC platforms.
Their game sold millions within months of release, and Cuphead and Mugman became household
names.
But there was one resounding question that the fans were asking in droves: when was this
game coming to the Nintendo Switch?
The Switch seemed like the perfect platform for the game.
And yet, it was impossible.
The Moldenhauers had to broadcast far and wide the disappointing news that, because
of their exclusivity contract with Microsoft, Cuphead would never, ever, be released on
a Nintendo platform.
And that was true, for a while.
Until suddenly, it wasn’t anymore.
At GDC 2019, it was announced that the beloved retro cartoon shooter would be finally making
its way to the Nintendo Switch.
Upon its release, critics praised this incredible port.
Cuphead ran just as good – if not better – on the Switch than it ever had on the
meatier, more powerful Xbox One.
So what changed?
Why could Cuphead suddenly come to the Switch, and how did the Moldenhauers manage such an
impressive port?
Surprisingly, this was all Microsoft’s idea…
The call from Microsoft came out of the blue.
Studio MDHR was busy working on The Delicious Last Course, the DLC for Cuphead, as well
as a new hand-animated game that they were keeping secret.
Then, a contact from Microsoft got in touch, and asked, would the team also want to port
Cuphead to the Switch?
This seemed like a no-brainer!
Everyone at MDHR knew that there was nothing the fans wanted more than a Switch port.
It turned out that, unbeknownst to anyone at the small family-run studio, Microsoft
and Nintendo had been getting cozy.
In recent years, big platform owners have increasingly seen the benefits of letting
indie studios grow and mature without putting up unnecessary roadblocks.
After all, why should they put walls up for these smaller games?
It wasn’t as if Cuphead’s Xbox exclusivity was helping anyone.
So, Microsoft had decided to publish the game on the Switch, increasing the game’s sales
dramatically.
With this more open approach, everybody wins.
But there was one problem with all this.
The small Studio MDHR was still very busy, and porting takes time.
Quite aside from all the other big projects on their plate, the studio’s star producer
and inker, Maja, was pregnant with her third child.
She joked that the family needed more help with the DLC, so they figured they should
have another kid in the meantime to help with that.
The team also decided that they wanted to provide additional improvements to the core
game, including new visual flourishes and animation, as well as, rather dauntingly,
localisation for eleven new languages.
These were all elements that the team had wanted to include in Cuphead to begin with,
but in the interest of actually getting any version of their game finished to a high level
of quality, they’d been left on the cutting room floor at launch.
One big challenge involved Asian language typefaces for the game.
The Moldenhauers weren’t familiar enough with these languages to produce attractive,
legible characters.
In Chinese, for example, calligraphy is an art form in and of itself.
It takes years, and even decades, to develop the skills necessary to write in a way that
looks visually appealing.
So, the studio turned to a pair of talented calligraphers, Keisuke Chiba and Sheera He,
to provide the Asian text for the game.
They researched 1920s cartoons, posters, and even playing cards from these regions to get
the right look for these designs.
The entire experience taught everyone at Studio MDHR a lot as they saw what their calligraphers
were achieving.
Then, there was the issue of actually getting Cuphead to run on the Switch.
Thankfully, as the game had been built with the PC in mind, the Moldenhauers had always
tested the game on the lowest possible technical specifications the whole way along.
They had always done their best to make sure the game ran smoothly on limited hardware,
which made the leap from Xbox to Switch a lot simpler than it could have been.
Still, though, there were technical challenges.
The very large and carefully scanned sprites within the game could end up using a lot of
memory, especially when there were a lot of elements on screen.
This also made for some lengthy loading screens that slowed down the pace of the game.
The sprite storage had to be entirely reworked for this port, in order to make it more efficient.
But this change could be introduced back into the Xbox One and PC versions of the game,
making the experience smoother and more enjoyable for all players.
Just two weeks before the release of Cuphead on the Switch, Maja gave birth to her new
son, Hugo.
When the game released, it instantly won praise from all players.
Everyone familiar with the original version of the game loved all the small changes that
had been made, and were grateful for the streamlined gaming experience.
Those who were discovering it for the first time found Cuphead to be everything they’d
been promised – quirky, charming, and nail-bitingly exciting.
The moral of the story is that it can be rewarding to set lofty goals for yourself.
The Moldenhauers had a lot on their plates when they agreed to make a Switch port of
Cuphead, and even so, they attempted to add in as many extra tweaks and improvements as
they could.
You, too, should strive to do your best in whatever you’re working on.
But bear in mind that sometimes you need to be patient.
You can’t always do everything you want, all at once.
Remember that many of the nice new features in Cuphead were missing from the original
version because the team knew they needed to prioritise finishing the game first.
Take your time.
Work hard, but don’t beat yourself up if your work isn’t perfect at first – you
can always improve and develop as you keep moving forward.
Ultimately, as in playing Cuphead, what matters is that no matter how many times you fail,
you keep trying again.