I was thrilled to be invited to help the Studio MDHR team bring their eye-poppingly original Cuphead to fruition. The long-awaited indie run-and-gun platformer was approaching the Alpha stage of development when I came on board to write the cutscenes and in-game dialogue.
Research is an important stage of nearly every project I work on, but in this case -- with a need for snappy, authentic-sounding 1930s-style slang and vernacular -- it was an especially critical (and fun!) aspect of the process. The Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges should practically get co-writing credit with me on this one. Why, they oughta...!
One of my first tasks was to streamline and write the body copy for the live-action storybook opening for the game. For this, the goal was to match the writing style of children's books from the 1930s.
With that time-critical task out of the way, I could then turn to focus on writing the cutscenes and in-game dialogue for the rest of the game. Without the benefit of any voiced dialogue, it was especially important that the characters' personalities come to life from the text alone.
Awards and Nominations
Cuphead has been a massive success, topping over 5 million copies sold and earning over 50 game industry awards and nominations. While I wouldn't try to claim that the story played a key part in either of those achievements, it was an honor to be involved in such a well-conceived and perfectly executed smash hit!