Netflix’s giddy, knowing adaptation sees the indie game reach its ideal form: a cartoon that has great fun splashing around in the tropes of 1930s animation

Few video games in recent years have managed to equal the sledgehammer disappointment of Cuphead. For those of you not in the know, Cuphead was an independent 2017 game that captured gamers’ imagination like little else before.

This was almost entirely down to how it looked. An out-and-out love letter to 1930s cartoonists such as Max Fleischer and Grim Natwick – with a main character inspired by a 1936 Japanese propaganda cartoon about an invasion of an evil Mickey Mouse army – Cuphead thrummed with a gloriously authentic Betty Boop feel. The animations were hand-drawn and imperfect. The big-band jazz soundtrack was recorded on analogue. The voices crackled and hissed as if recorded from worn vinyl. No detail was spared, to the extent that the creators had to remortgage their home to pay for it. And people fell for Cuphead hard. After some initial footage was shown as proof of concept, anticipation hit fever pitch and stayed there for three years.