Build with Us
Data Crypt
Analog bounty pack for Neo 2022 (retired) Historical reference only.
Decommissioned after Neo 2022. The Data Crypt was Alleycat's first player device: fully analog, no microcontroller, built in about eight weeks before our first Neotropolis deployment.
Bounties carried a laser-cut acrylic pack with a removable physical key. The loop was capture-the-flag: find your bounty, pull the key, return to the booth with the key or the whole pack so staff could score the capture and send another player out. Hunters were not issued hardware yet. All 42 units in the field went to Bounties. An ACCESS DENIED key variant let no-contact preference Bounties opt out of physical pulls.
Staff ran the weekend on paper: contracts, Polaroid wall, dry-erase ranking on magnet board props, and training at intake. That workload is why automatic scoring and embedded rules became the plan for 2023.
Bill of materials (2022 generation)
| Part | Detail |
|---|---|
| Body | Laser-cut acrylic pack |
| Mechanic | Removable physical key |
| Firmware | None |
| Hunter gear | None issued |
| Opt-out | "ACCESS DENIED" key for no-contact Bounties |
The Data Crypt proved Alleycat belonged at Neotropolis. It also proved we needed digital nodes for both roles. Proto-PDN and Quickdraw followed at Neo 2023.
Field story and lessons: Neo 2022 dispatch. Current player hardware: Portable Data Node.