Neotropolis

Neo 2023 started from a lesson we learned in 2022: everyone wants a cool thing to walk around with. Bounties had carried Data Crypts; Hunters chased them with paperwork and Polaroids. Hunters wanted in. We answered with electronics so duels could be decided on the device instead of on clipboards.

We built two hardware lines, one issued to Hunters and one to Bounties. Today we call that generation Proto-PDN (the crew nicknamed it The Shoe): 3D-printed shells around Arduino Pro Mini boards, soldered in long nights before April. Blue and green marked Hunters; red and gold marked Bounties. When a Hunter and Bounty met in the streets, they plugged together, lights counted down behind laser-cut acrylic, and Quickdraw ran the duel: first button after Go wins. The jack-in moment became Alleycat's signature.

This was also the first year of the player intake film. Every player watched the same briefing before the field so the rules were identical and booth staff could spend time on character, not repetition. Watch the 2023 player intake film or see how later years changed in our player intake film archive. 44 Proto-PDN units deployed (22 Hunter / 22 Bounty). The game finally felt repeatable all weekend without staff chasing paper.

That generation was a successful experiment and a dead end for manufacturing: fixed role wiring meant we could not grow the platform without a new design. We retired every Proto-PDN after 2023. The path to PDN MK I started here.

Breakout boards, fixed serial wiring, and the full engineering story are on the dispatch page.