LORE
“The Black Harvest is upon us.”
The scarecrows that watched over the fields were never meant to frighten anything more dangerous than birds.
When the demonic invasion reached the countryside, however, the abandoned fields offered countless vessels for wandering spirits. One such creature found its way into a towering harvest effigy, twisting straw, wood, and cloth into a body capable of carrying its malevolent will.
Where Jack emerged with a mind and personality of his own, The Effigy became little more than an extension of the entity inhabiting it. Crows gather around the creature wherever it walks, drawn to the corrupted energy holding its unnatural body together.
Now Effigy stalks the farmland it once stood watch over, turning the symbol meant to protect the harvest into the greatest threat against it.
OVERVIEW
The Effigy is a boss variant of Jack, expanding the playable hero’s mechanics into a larger-scale encounter while retaining his core scarecrow and crow-based identity.
Its toolkit combines map-wide projectile attacks with aggressive crowd control and mobility, including ability combinations designed to punish poorly timed dodges and escape attempts.
DESIGN GOALS
- Create a boss that previews the playable character
Use the encounter to introduce players to Jack’s core mechanics and combat identity before experiencing the character themselves. - Expand Jack’s toolkit for a boss encounter
Preserve recognizable elements from the playable version while adding mechanics and variations appropriate for a larger, more threatening enemy. - Maintain a consistent character identity across both versions
Ensure the boss and playable hero shared the same scarecrow, crow, and demonic themes while still feeling distinct in combat. - Make the boss feel more powerful without changing its identity
Increase the scale and complexity of Jack’s mechanics rather than relying solely on increased health and damage to distinguish Effigy as a boss.
DESIGN PROCESS
The Effigy was created as the primary boss for the autumn farm event and as a counterpart to Jack, the playable Scarecrow hero released alongside it. I wanted the encounter to follow a familiar structure seen in games where players first encounter a character as a boss before gaining access to a playable version. This allowed the event to introduce Jack’s character fantasy and mechanics rather than treating the boss and hero as unrelated pieces of content.
I used Jack’s toolkit as the foundation for the Effigy’s abilities, then expanded it with mechanics suited to a multiplayer boss encounter. Two attacks launch waves of crows across the map, one covering a 180-degree area in front of Effigy and another spreading in all directions. Their large reach allowed the boss to threaten players who were occupied elsewhere on the map, drawing attention toward the encounter without requiring them to already be engaging Effigy directly.
I also designed some of the Effigy’s abilities to work as sequences rather than independent attacks. His targeted dash deliberately carries him slightly beyond his target, positioning him behind the player before he follows with an area-of-effect Fear. The short window between the two abilities gives attentive players an opportunity to react and escape, while those who fail to recognize the sequence are sent running away from the boss.
ABILITIES
Movement
Pursuit
The Effigy dashes toward a targeted player, deliberately traveling slightly beyond their position and ending the attack behind them. He can occasionally chain multiple dashes together, forcing players to carefully time their escape abilities.
crowd control
Terrifying Screech
The Effigy unleashes a frightening scream around himself, inflicting Fear on nearby players and forcing them to flee. The ability is particularly dangerous when used immediately after Pursuit, giving players only a short window to avoid the follow-up.
Damage
Crow Barrage
The Effigy launches a wide spread of crows in front of him, damaging players caught in their path. The projectiles travel across the map, allowing the attack to threaten players outside the immediate boss encounter.
Long range damage
Silencing Screech
The Effigy releases crows in every direction, damaging players around him and extending the boss’s threat across the surrounding area.
Aoe damage
Double Blast
The Effigy unleashes a large area-of-effect attack around himself, damaging nearby players. After the initial impact, the area erupts a second time, forcing players to remain aware of the danger even after avoiding or surviving the first explosion.
ITERATION
The Effigy’s visual design was adapted from Jack’s existing model, with changes to its coloration and scale to give the boss a more imposing presence while preserving the connection between the two characters. Since the core toolkit was already established through Jack, much of the mechanical iteration focused on expanding familiar abilities and experimenting with ways to make them more appropriate for a boss encounter.
One late addition was the ability for Effigy to occasionally chain multiple dashes together. A single dash could encourage players to immediately use their movement or escape abilities, while a follow-up dash could punish players who had already committed those tools. This added an element of unpredictability to an otherwise familiar mechanic and rewarded players for recognizing that the first attack did not necessarily signal the end of the sequence.
IMPLEMENTATION & TESTING
Testing the Effigy exposed the same projectile-scaling issue encountered during Jack’s development. Because projectile size inherited properties from its owner, Its larger model caused his crow projectiles to spawn at an exaggerated scale. The earlier work on Jack provided a solution, allowing the crows to use independent scaling and maintain the intended appearance regardless of the size of the unit launching them.
Beyond this issue, the Effigy’s mechanics performed well during testing and required relatively limited adjustment. The encounter was well received internally and, following release, received similarly positive feedback from the community, providing additional validation for the decision to expand Jack’s mechanics into a more demanding boss encounter.
TAKEAWAYS
Familiar mechanics can be expanded rather than replaced
Building the Effigy from Jack’s toolkit showed how recognizable abilities could be adapted to a boss encounter through increased scale, altered targeting, and additional behaviors without losing the connection between the two versions.
Abilities become more interesting when they create opportunities for each other
The Effigy’s dash and Fear were individually simple mechanics, but deliberately positioning the boss behind its target allowed them to form a recognizable attack sequence that players could learn and counter.
Boss mechanics can help direct player attention
The map-wide crow attacks allowed the Effigy to threaten players who were focused elsewhere, naturally drawing attention toward the active boss encounter without relying solely on UI prompts.
Small variations can change how players respond to familiar mechanics
Allowing the Effigy to occasionally chain dashes created uncertainty around when it was safe to commit an escape ability, adding an additional decision to an otherwise straightforward attack.