Jared Moldenhauer, lead team designer at Studio MDHR, in his Regina home office where he and his brother, Chad, created the video game Cuphead.MARK TAYLOR/The Globe and Mail
Jared Moldenhauer was working in his family’s construction business when he designed a retro cartoon-style video game with his brother Chad. Cuphead, a classic run-and-gun game that has a main character with a cup for a head, has now sold more than five million copies and is currently being made into a Netflix cartoon.
So I heard that you and your brother remortgaged your homes to finance the video game.
It wasn’t this crazy all-in from the beginning. We didn’t just start creating something and go, “Take everything you’ve got and liquidate it!” It was around 2014 when Microsoft contacted us, and then we’re like, “Okay, we have a publisher.” Then, when we started showing our trailer and saw the fan reaction, we thought, “This has potential.” So it wasn’t until we were mentally convinced that there was potential ‒ that’s when we went to the banks and started liquidating whatever we had.
Was there a lot of pressure, then, for Cuphead to be a success?
It was more about the passion of creating something. Regardless of the outcome and how things panned out, we just wanted to create something concrete that we could look back at later and be like, “Remember when we made that?” A video game takes a long, long time to create and finish. So it would be a fool's errand to try to do something that wasn't to your liking just because you thought it might succeed.
How did you and Chad learn how to make video games?
There was always something about video games that stood out to us. We lived and breathed it when we were kids and teenagers, spending way too much time at the arcade. We would get graph paper out and just start putting together levels that might suit the Nintendo Entertainment System or the Sega Master System – the consoles that we had at home. Both of us were self-taught on all fronts for video game development. And even on the art side, my brother had a natural talent for art, but he never studied animation.
How did your first video game come about?
In the early 2000s, we ordered an Xbox [development] kit and put a small group of people together between our friends to make the very beginnings of a demo. It was called Ninja Stars. Chad and a friend went out to the Game Developers Conference to try to promote it, but it was really tough to find publishers who would be interested in having a meeting. It was this weird early era before the indie scene blossomed, so we retired the idea and just went back to work.
What changed after that?
It was when Super Meat Boy became a hit, which was around the early 2010s. It was a self-published game and it was a breakout hit. We were realizing that there was an opportunity for individuals to create a game. So we decided, why not give it one last chance?
The team you built ended up being quite spread out. How do you manage?
Yeah, the whole team is all over. I'm in Regina, we have someone in Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Oakland and a couple of other places in California. A large portion of it was out of necessity. Financially, it's tough to move people from the States over to one location. And we were also just trying to find the best worker for the job. Something like 2D art is not an easy field to find a ton of people who are professionally trained in it. Artists are very good for working on their own and not having to meet in the studio. So it was out of necessity that we started a company where we work in different places. It has some downfalls. Time zones can be complicated. But we use Trello boards and Basecamp to keep organized. There's always a way to productively work as a team, even if you're not all in one spot.
How did the Netflix series come about?
That was kind of a complete shock. We have a licensing agent and they’re always going around keeping their feelers out for next steps in merch and other projects. Somehow they just came back and were like, “How would you like to possibly make a cartoon series?” And it wasn’t something that we had thought about. So they set it up. We’re just so excited about seeing it in another light. There’s no specific due date, but they’re working on it. It’s a weird full circuit of making a game that’s a cartoon and then now making a cartoon series that exists as the game.
Despite your success with Cuphead, you’re still working in your father’s business.
Our family business is in construction, pouring concrete. We both worked with our father for a while. Eventually, my brother moved out to the GTA and started a graphic design studio. And I remained pouring concrete, pouring concrete still in the production of Cuphead and pouring concrete still to this day. Our father was supportive during the creation of Cuphead, so there are still jobs and things that he’s completing. To me, it wouldn’t be right to abandon my father’s company 100 per cent, but [my work there] is wrapping up soon.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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