Chalice Fan
Chalice Fan is an unused NPC who may or may not have appeared on Inkwell Isle Four in the DLC. He was created as an early or alternative design prototype for Unnamed cactus girl. It's also likely that he may have been utilized as a placeholder to test and/or choose locations on the map for other NPCs that he would later be replaced with.
Appearance
Chalice Fan has a circular shiny gray head and wears a bright orange long-sleeve shirt with oversized blue pants that cover part of his round brown shoes.
Personality
Since he is an unused character, not much is known about his personality. However, we can safely infer from his name that he would have had a certain fondness and admiration for Ms. Chalice.
Gallery
Original and only Chalice Fan sprite.
Mock-Up of Chalice Fan in the overworld on Inkwell Isle 4 in place of Unnamed cactus girl.
Mock-Up of Chalice Fan in the overworld on Inkwell Isle 4 in a plausible spot next to Moonshine Mob’s cave.
Trivia
- The presence of a shadow below his feet strongly suggests that at one point or another, he was placed on the overworld map.
- Chalice Fan was a prototype or alternative design concept for cactus girl that made its way into the game’s files in early development. This is confirmed by the existence of a two lines of code, one containing the text "Chalice_Fan_A" in reference to the early Chalice Fan, and another one with "Chalice_Fan_B" in reference to Cactus Girl.
- His side-quest would have likely been the same as cactus girl’s, which is to defeat every boss in both the base game and the DLC using Ms. Chalice. This can be used as a clever way of showing the player praise and admiration for beating the game, in the same way as others will show it to them in the real world too. Players tend to undervalue how big of an accomplishment it is to beat a a game as difficult as Cuphead, and this could be Studio MDHR’s way of telling the player that they should be proud of themselves.
- His ambiguity, such as a lack of a proper name & dialogue, as well as an overall generic design, all seem to point towards the theory that he may have been created as a placeholder for NPCs on Inkwell Isle 4.
- There is only one sprite of him within the files, which further supports this theory, as it would be pointless to animate a full sprite sheet for a character that won't stay in the game.
- There is a small group of two other known placeholder sprites that he would be joining should this be true, namely Jareed and The Light, and he would be the only one of the 3 consistent with the game’s art style.
- Unlike all other NPCs, the simplicity of his design and his lack of detail leaves what anthropomorphic object he might be up to interpretation, though he was probably never meant to be a recognizable object from the beginning.
- He bears resemblance to a pebble, but pebbles do not have a shiny appearance, so there's no way to be certain. It certainly fits with the desert where he could have been located, though the rest of his colors do not.
- The bright and saturated colors of his clothing, although logical, heavily contrast against the natural theme and colors of the overworld, and it seems likely that they may have been randomly chosen from a default selection of swatches.
- In addition, his right arm and the lines on his left glove appear to be poorly or incorrectly drawn, likely because they were rushed.
- The reason for his scrapping may be related to this. He doesn't blend in with the isle’s natural landscape and was left on the cutting room floor in favor of cactus girl, as it simply seemed more fitting to place a cactus NPC in a desert for easier legibility.
- In cartoons, mirrors are generally depicted as gray and shiny surfaces, just like Chalice Fan’s head. If it’s true that he is supposed to be reflective, this ties back to his admiration for the player and the player themselves taking pride in their accomplishments, as it’s implied that the player is able to see their own reflection on his face and eyes while talking to him.
- Another potential reason for his deletion could be that Studio MDHR could not think of a way to write his dialogue such that it hints at fighting bosses and implement the aforementioned mirror concept without seeming like they're over-exaggerating and/or boasting about their own game’s difficulty, so they opted for hinting at the bosses through tales that cactus girl says she’d love to tell with minimal complimenting and quick delivery of the reward.