King Dice

Lore & Background

King Dice is an anthropomorphic die working for the game's main antagonist, the Devil. He tasks protagonists Cuphead and Mugman with collecting the contracts of those the Devil has made deals with. Once they achieve this goal, he acts as the penultimate final boss of the game they must defeat in order to process. The battle consists of several boss fights that must be fought in one go, before taking on King Dice himself. In The Cuphead Show!, his character is revised to be a radio game show host, albeit still a villain working with the Devil and now directly collecting souls for him, eyeing Cuphead and Mugman as his next unwitting targets. After his defeat, he becomes destitute and lives in the alley behind his old theater. Cuphead and Mugman discover him and become his agents, cleaning him up and helping him get his old job back, unaware that he's in league with the Devil.

In Their Own Story

Created by African American animator Joseph Coleman, King Dice was designed as a combination of a Dick Tracy comic mobster, actor Clark Gable, singer Cab Calloway, and DC Comics villain the Joker. Additional references include the Coachman, a minor villain from the 1940 Disney animated film Pinocchio. His head is a large six-sided die with his face in place of the one, with a pencil-thin mustache curving up the sides of his lips. Special attention was paid to the sides of the die to ensure it had the correct number of dots on each side. Meanwhile, his body is humanoid, dressed in a purple suit with coattails and white gloves covering his hands and a large purple bow-tie on his neck. Early concepts of the character's outfit considered a checkered jacket and black pants instead. Coleman leaned heavily into Cab Calloway as a reference, down to the character's personality and movements. The backgrounds for King Dice's battle, designed by Caitlin Russell, took inspiration from the paintings of black artist Aaron Douglas, which Coleman felt helped define Dice's identity. For the boss fight itself, several ideas were considered by Coleman, including one where King Dice physically attacked in his normal appearance with a trumpet, as well as spinning and dancing moves. Ultimately, they decided to lean into casino imagery, with him summoning cards that walked towards the player to attack them. The fight itself leading up to King Dice was inspired by the Treasure-developed game Gunstar Heroes, specifically its "Dice Palace" level, with the development team citing Treasure as a huge influence on Cuphead.

Reader's Guide

King Dice speaks through his theme song, "Die House", which is sung by Alana Bridgewater. Cuphead composer Kristofer Maddigan wanted King Dice to sound like Cab Calloway but in a slightly different direction, and considered the idea of a woman voicing the character instead. Bridgewater was chosen for the role, and provided several different voices and sounds for the development team to narrow down. In addition to the song, Bridgewater provided the vocals for King Dice's boss fight. For The Cuphead Show!, series developer Dave Wasson wanted an actor for the role that could sing and one that hosted an actual game show. Wayne Brady fulfilled both requirements, and was already actively interested in the role. For the show, the production team admitted they knew very little of the character outside of him being a villain, working for the Devil, and being smooth. As both he and the Devil were intended to be grandiose characters, they worked to make the characters distinct from one another: the Devil would be portrayed as emotional and compulsive, while King Dice would be conniving and calculating. To capture the feel of 1930s animation, King Dice was given a wide range of facial expressions to emulate how expressive cartoons were at the time. So many were created during this process that art director Andrea Fernández suggested making just one head chart for the character, which she felt helped them animate him beautifully. For his introduction, the team wanted to recreate the feel of rotoscoped animation, as done in Fleischer Studios cartoons. To avoid having to film an actual performer, storyboard artist Benjamin Arcand used a method of "overposing" the animation to simulate the effect.

Did You Know?

• King Dice was created by African American animator Joseph Coleman as a tribute to black artists of the 1930s era, particularly singer Cab Calloway.
• In the game, King Dice is voiced by Alana Bridgewater, while in The Cuphead Show! he is voiced by Wayne Brady.
• The boss fight leading up to King Dice was inspired by the Treasure-developed game Gunstar Heroes, specifically its 'Dice Palace' level.
• For The Cuphead Show!, King Dice was given a wide range of facial expressions to emulate 1930s animation, and art director Andrea Fernández suggested making just one head chart for the character.
• Early concepts for King Dice's boss fight included him physically attacking with a trumpet, as well as spinning and dancing moves.