Play with Us
The Experience
What the Alleycat platform does today, from Quickdraw on a PDN to Mission Control in the field
What Alleycat Is
Alleycat is an open source platform for in-person play. Custom hardware and software get people interacting in physical space, not on a phone.
It started the way a lot of good projects do: friends needed gear for a cyberpunk LARP. They built Portable Data Nodes, wrote game logic, and shipped a bounty-hunting experience at an event called Neotropolis. That deployment is still our reference implementation. It proves the platform in the desert every year since.
Alleycat is a platform, not one game locked to one theme or one event. The same building blocks (PDNs, FDN MK I nodes, Mission Control, NFC tags, and whatever we add next) can be reskinned, extended, and run somewhere new. Another team can take the stack and build something we have not imagined yet.
What It Can Do
Every Alleycat game starts with an immersive icebreaker. A Portable Data Node gives its holder a reason to find other people: compete, cooperate, or start a conversation. Quickdraw is the first app it runs: jack two PDNs together, wait for the countdown, press after Go. Multiplayer modes (Posse, Shootout, and others) chain more devices into the same loop. The game is not only on the hardware; it lives in the space between players.
Fixed Data Nodes (FDN MK I today) push the world past one-on-one duels. Place them around a venue for minigames, training, lore drops, and co-op beats that ripple back to players' PDNs. FDNs add depth without adding bodies to the field.
Mission Control is the operator console. It pushes messages, light colors, haptics, and state changes to PDNs and FDNs in real time. Run a planned beat (broadcast a warning, infect every PDN, clear it again) or improvise when the crowd does something you did not script.
NFC tags are still on the roadmap. They are another way to trigger events, hand off information, or change what a device does when someone touches the world.
Together, these pieces can run a convention icebreaker, a four-day LARP, a tournament, or a mode no one has named yet. You define the game logic and the skin.
Choose Your Path
Some people show up to play. Others show up to build devices, write firmware, code new games, or make art with us. A lot of our favorite people do several.
Play the Game
Quickdraw at Neotropolis is our flagship deployment: LARP cyberpunk bounty hunting where the tech stays out of the way and the table stakes are human. Develop a character, chase a bounty, or let the hunt find you. Go deep on backstory or treat Quickdraw as permission to talk to strangers. The platform gives you the excuse; you bring the scene.
Build With Us
Alleycat is open source: hardware, firmware, and game logic. Fork it, reskin it, run it at your event, or send improvements back upstream. If ESP32 firmware and field-ready enclosures sound like a good Saturday, this path is for you.
Open the GitHub repo and hardware guides
You do not have to pick one forever. Players become makers after their first year. Makers step into the field when the city goes live.
One Platform, Many Experiences
Neotropolis is our reference implementation, not the ceiling. The same devices, protocols, and codebase can power other themes, game modes, and venues. That work can come from us, from you, or from a community we have not met yet. For those wanting to run an event without making everything yourself, we have a shop coming soon with various levels of DIY.