This article contains SPOILERS for the main story of CrossCode. Proceed at your own risk!

Designer, also referred to as the Blue Avatar, is one of the main antagonists of CrossCode. He is an avatar with unmoderated power who tries to kidnap Lea at the beginning of the game.

Appearance

The Designer is a tall avatar with light blue skin and long, tangled black hair. On his head, wears a partial helmet consisting of a gold band with a stylized sun above his forehead, reminiscent of a ceremonial headdress, and connected to a chin guard. He also has a black visor covering his eyes, resembling the ones worn by the Gods of Shape. He wears a shirt of segmented gray, blue and gold armor and matching gloves and shoes, along with baggy orange pants. An orange sash with pixelated ends floats around his waist, unsupported. Early concept art shows him wearing a long white and gold necklace with a circular gold and blue pendant, but this is not seen in-game.

He has powers beyond those of any avatar in CrossWorlds. He is able to fly beyond the Playground, can summon Enemies and Bosses at will, create structures out of Instant Matter, increase his own stats (as seen in New Game Plus with the Sergey Hax modifier), and freeze avatars to move them around freely.

Personality

Despite being Gautham's avatar, he acts in a completely different way. He is shown to act superior and condescending to everyone, and completely ignores the desires and opinions of others in favor of pursuing his own goals. He views avatars as being superior to humans, exemplified by him greatly underestimating Jet and dismissively referring to him as a "mortal". He speaks in a rather odd, stilted manner and comes off as rather out of touch, but has proven himself to be the most powerful avatar in the game. He seems to take great joy in designing challenges for others to beat, and is exceptionally ecstastic to discover that Lea can get through even the hardest trials he can imagine.

The Designer usually refers to himself in plural. It is likely that he is using the "Royal We" pronoun to denote his high status above others.

Relationships

• Lea: He knows her prior to her amnesia and tries to kidnap her because he was ordered to do so, however, when Lea demonstrates that she is able to "overcome the impossible", he takes a liking for her and picks her as the player for whom the experience is intended, which is why he betrays Sidwell.
• Captain Jet: His strong senses of order and duty strongly clash with the Designer's condescending attitude and dismissive views of non-avatars. Although the avatar initially dismisses Jet as boring and not worthy of his attention, Jet is later able to hold him off with the Solar Fist and destroy his avatar twice, greatly infuriating him.
• Sergey: While he is one of Gautham's friends, the Designer persona never seems to recognize that he is helping Lea. In the final battle, however, he boosts his health exponentially knowing that Sergey will give Lea a way to boost her attack to compensate.
• Shizuka: Calls him a "fancy avatar" and "little god figure", but she doesn't consider him as someone separate from Gautham, just like her brother.
• Sidwell: The Designer follows his orders until Lea comes back to Vermillion Wasteland, where he foils Sidwell's plans by taking over the Vermillion Dungeon's environment server, preventing the destruction of the Evotar Server.

Role in CrossCode

Before the game

It is assumed that Gautham developed and created this avatar before Lea was put back into the game by Sergey. Aside from that, there isn't much to say about him at this point.

Main Story

The Designer senses Lea's presence on the M.S. Solar and seeks her out, intending to remove her for being outside the Playground. However, he recognizes her, and summons a Huge Hostile Crab for her to fight in order to prove her identity. Satisfied that she is who he thought she was, he attempts to kidnap her, but is shot by Captain Jet's rocket launcher, damaging him. He continues to fight Jet while summoning Shredders to apprehend Lea, but she is successful at leaving the ship, at which point Jet destroys him with an IMF Neutralizer.

Despite his prominent role at the beginning of the game, he doesn't show up again until the end of Chapter 6, where he hijacks Lea's teleporter during the Para Island raid and teleports her to an isolated place in Bergen Trail. There, he vaguely explains his own motives and fights Lea until she is either defeated or tries to escape. He then captures Lea and sends her to a room in Vermillion Wasteland.

Once Lea attempts to escape through the Vermillion Dungeon, she finds a captured Evotar asking for help. She tries to approach him, but the Designer blocks her path and sends in various Security Brutes to stop her. He later summons Gastropolis, assuming Lea won't be able to defeat it, but with Sergey's help she proves otherwise and leaves the Designer impressed. However, he captures Luke right before he escapes with Lea and blocks her path. Just when all hope seems lost, Captain Jet shoot him with the Solar Fist and takes Lea to the M.S. Solar.

In the middle of the Vermillion Raid, he takes over the environment server of the Vermillion Dungeon, turns it into the Vermillion Tower and tasks Lea with completing it. He explains himself through almost every floor before the final confrontation. After Lea takes down half of his health, he transforms into The Creator. Finally, The Creator is defeated and he turns back into the Designer before disconnecting from CrossWorlds one last time.

First fight

The first duel against the Designer takes place after Lea is forcibly teleported out of the Para Island raid into an unofficial part of Bergen Trail.

Combat

He doesn't take much damage and can be broken by hitting him enough, stunning him and lowering his defense temporarily.

Phase 1

• At first, he is passive and teleports out of any attack. After dodging a number of times, he will start attacking and the player will be able to damage him.
• Dashes once, attempting to hit the player.
• Wields one Cold and one Heat orb that he can throw as an attack.
  • Heat is thrown directly and comes back to the Designer while still dealing damage.
  • Cold is thrown into the air and summons one big icicle on its landing site that also spawns three streams of icicles in a Y pattern around itself.
• He uses this 2 attacks before resting while flashing red. He is more vulnerable to breaking in this state.

Phase 2

• Starts this phase and all future ones by teleporting and smashing the floor thrice, two times over the player and once on the closest edge of the arena, destroying it in the process. He might use this attack again if the phase takes too long, aiming the final ground pound at the player or the arena if he so chooses.
• Summons two new orbs: A Shock one and a Wave one.
  • Shock is thrown directly and stops midway through. It throws itself again in the player's direction before teleporting back.
  • Wave is thrown into the air and simply deals damage in a small area after hitting the ground.
• Dashes twice instead of once.
• Still rests after using both attacks.

Phase 3

• He now sacrifices either the Heat or Cold orb to create an elemental shield around himself that forces the player to break him with the opposite element. The shield gets disabled after he breaks, and he regenerates it once he recovers.
• Teleports to the top-center of the arena and summons two lines of metal orbs in a cone shape with gaps between them. Then, he slides one of them first and the other one quickly after, depending on which one of the two he summoned first.
• Throws two orbs, one following another.
• He may or may not use the metal orbs at any point before resting.

Phase 4

• The screen goes dark with only the player and Designer surrounded by light. He then proceeds to direct a small light that stops midway, then goes towards the player. If they are caught, they are thrown into the air and beaten up.
• During his orb sweep, one of his lines will have two breakable metal orbs where the gap should be. Attacking them with anything will break them.
• Throws and orb before dashing twice, though he can still throw two orbs without dashing instead.

Phase 5

• Flies into the air and makes massive explosive beams of light fall down from the sky. They are telegraphed by white lights on the floor that follow the player. Gets tired instantly after this attack.
• Dashes thrice after throwing a single orb. Doesn't seem to throw two orbs anymore.

After completing this phase, Sergey will open an exit point for Lea to escape. However, the Designer quickly notices this and blocks Lea right before she can get away. He then proceeds to endlessly charge at her until he lands one last hit, inevitably capturing her at once.

Strategies

• Losing to him won't change the outcome, as the story will progress normally anyways.

Second fight

The second duel against the Designer takes place at the top of Vermillion Tower.

Combat

The Designer wields four elemental orbs that orbit around him. At the start of each phase, he sacrifices one of them to generate a shield that reduces damage and can be broken by hitting it with the opposite element. He rests and flashes red after attacking a few times, becoming easier to break until he recovers. He picks a different shield after resting and not being broken, or after being broken and recovering. While most of his attacks are the same as his first fight, this segment won't omit his reused attacks to ease understanding.

Phase 1

• Floats slightly upwards before dashing towards the player twice.
• Spins in place and throws two elemental orbs, one after another.
  • Heat is thrown directly and comes back to the Designer while still dealing damage.
  • Cold is thrown into the air and summons one big icicle on its landing site that also spawns three streams of icicles in a Y pattern around itself.
  • Shock is thrown directly and stops midway through. It throws itself again in the player's direction before teleporting back.
  • Wave is thrown into the air and simply deals damage in a small area after hitting the ground.
• Attacks twice before resting.

Phase 2

• Begins this phase and each new one by teleporting and smashing the floor thrice, two times over the player and once on the closest edge of the arena, destroying it in the process. He can use this attack again if the phase lasts long enough.
• Teleports to the top-center of the arena and summons two lines of metal orbs in a cone shape with gaps between them. Then, he slides one of them first and the other one quickly after, depending on which one of the two he summoned first.
• He can use three or two attacks before resting.

Phase 3

• The screen goes dark with only the player and Designer surrounded by light. He then proceeds to direct a small light that stops midway, then goes towards the player. If they are caught, they are thrown into the air and beaten up.
• During his orb sweep, one of his lines will have two breakable metal orbs where the gap should be. Attacking them with anything will break them.

Phases 4 to 7
From this point onwards he begins each phase without his elemental orbs. Instead, he surrounds himself with a powerful elemental shield that repels and deals damage to the player if they get too close. While the shield is active, he only uses one attack and one special attack. Hitting his shield enough with Balls of the opposite element will break him once without breaking the shield, causing the Designer to shoot out an Element Shield to the center of the arena and use his special attack once. He rests after attacking twice or after using his special attack, and his shield is actually broken by attacking him with Melee while having the Element Shield active, after which he resumes his normal attack pattern. The shields aren’t used in any particular order.

• Cold: The Designer smashes the ground twice, summoning single streams of icicles in the player’s direction. It summons one huge ice spike over itself and two icicle streams instead of one for his special attack.
• Shock: Dashes into the player twice. His super attack is a double dash that is used three times, with a single final dash before resting.
• Heat: Teleports close to the player does a Fire Whirl, twice. Super attack is a single huge Fire Whirl.
• Wave: Teleports, then fires two Fae Rounds, twice. Super attack is a really fast stream of Wave projectiles.
• His normal attacks change slightly. He attacks thrice before resting and he can throw one elemental orb before teleporting and dashing three times. If he throws the Heat orb during this attack, it won’t deal damage on its way back because it will teleport instead.

Phase 8

• Flies into the air and makes massive explosive beams of light fall down from the sky. They are telegraphed by white lights on the floor that follow the player. Gets tired instantly after this attack.

After losing half of his total health, he teleports the player to The Ultimate Experience and transforms into The Creator.

Strategy

• When he swaps his shield, the orb that he recovered might overlap another one, so it will look like he only has two orbs.
• His Cold orb has the biggest area of effect out of the four elemental orbs. You can counter it by luring it into a corner.
• You can rush the Element Shield he drops to avoid his special attacks entirely.

Trivia

• The name Egyptian Mr. Freeze was given by a streamer and is not official, but the developers thought it was so funny, that they just took it over as a nickname.
• In the game's files, his In-Game portrait is named designer.png. This, in conjunction with his status as an ancient and his game-breaking powers, could hint to him being the/a designer of Crossworlds.
• It's technically impossible to beat the designer at the last part of his first fight.
  • However, his face changes gradually the more you dodge his attacks (interesting ones are 16: laughing ⇾ 20: bored ⇾ 24: confused ⇾ 26: shouting).^[1] There are no more changes after dodging 27 times and the boss will endlessly charge at you.
  • Killing the boss through hacking will trigger the designerKillLol event which just make him whisper "WHAT."
• He is the only boss in the base game who takes into account if Lea has the Sergey Hax on in NG+.
  • in the first fight, while one shot does take out all of his health and causes him to exclaim "WHAT", he survives and will proceed into the endless charge attack.
  • Meanwhile, in the second fight, he buffs his HP such that the difficulty is more comparable, albeit easier, to the regular (non-NG+) version.

Gallery

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  Concept art.
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  More concept art.
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  Sprite.
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  Stream art.