Neo New York

Civilization

The year 3000: domed towers, sky traffic and pneumatic tubes, and a delivery company that just hired you.

At a glance

Kind of world	Civilization
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	Dark Matter
Quests	Yes: see your Traveler's Guide

Screenshot comingneo-new-york-skyline

Stepping out of the Applied Cryogenics courtyard: domed towers, neon, pneumatic tubes and flying traffic in a violet haze

What happens when you arrive

The Box sets you down in the courtyard of Applied Cryogenics, and the city takes one look at you and decides you are a thawed-out sleeper. "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" It is the year 3000: domed towers in teal, cream and orange, glass tubes that fire people across town, hover cars in two sky lanes, and a violet haze where the towers fade out. Right across the street is Planet Xpress, a delivery company that will hire you on the spot. Go and see Hermos at his desk. The last traveler's final pay, 5 Neo Dollars, waits beside the Box.

Nothing spawns on its own here: everyone you meet was put there by the city, and days and nights pass as normal.

Your quest: Welcome to the World of Tomorrow, then Mum's Update

The quest tracker walks you through two stories at once: your current delivery, and the bigger story of Mum's Update. Mum is a sweet old lady on TV, a tyrant off camera, and the owner of every robot's on-switch. She is about to push a firmware update.

Step	What to do
1	Cross the street to Planet Xpress and sign on with Hermos. You get a Planet Xpress Cap.
2	Take deliveries from the job board in the lobby, or from Hermos. Deliver, then file the paperwork.
3	Once the lobsters and the head are filed, Mum pushes her update. Keep delivering while you find out why.
4	After your third filed job, find Scruffles the janitor in the Planet Xpress basement.
5	Take Scruffles' pizza to Rauly in Mutant Town: down the park manhole and east along the sewer.
6	Find the three parts of the mutants' old jammer: Pannuzzi's old television, the Slorm factory's roof dish, and Edison's jar in the Head Museum.
7	Bring the parts to Professor Fornsworth in his lab. He rebuilds the Signal Jammer.
8	Talk to Nibblet, Leena's pet. He knows how to keep the Brain Brood out of your head.
9	Wear the Nibblonian Charm in your charm slot (beside your armor), or shift-right-click it.
10	Board Leena's ship in the hangar and fly to MumCorp Tower.
11	Take the lobby tube to the security floor, get past it, and take its tube up to the server room.
12	At Mum's mainframe, plug in the jammer, or make a deal. Then run for Leena's ship at the window.
13	Go back to the Professor for his last gift.

Mum's update

When it goes out, every screen says MUM LOVES YOU. The update then spreads one district a day, in this order: the Upper City, the Slorm district, Museum Mile, the market, Robot Armz and the Planet Xpress block. You get a message each time a district falls. Updated robots call everyone "Mother", and MumCorp Enforcers start patrolling that district in pairs, hunting you. They drop 1 to 3 Neo Dollars each.

Planet Xpress deliveries

Each job has a crew member who sees you off and tells you how to travel. Hand the package to the person it is for (right-click them), then go back to Hermos and file it on the right form.

Delivery	Seen off by	How you travel	Hand it to	Time limit	Pay	Right form
Package: Live Lobsters	Fray	On foot	Elzor, at his restaurant in the market	5 minutes	20	1-B, Live Cargo
Package: Head in a Jar	Leena	Leena's ship	Curator Pembrook, Head Museum rotunda	7.5 minutes	30	2-H, Human Remains
Package: Recalled Slorm	Bendor	The tube	Plant Manager Glurbo, Slorm factory	10 minutes	25	7-S, Food and Beverage
Package: Not a Bomb	Aimee	Aimee's hover car	Receptionist Unit 9, MumCorp lobby	about 6.5 minutes	40	9-X, Hazardous Materials
Package: Large Pizza	Scruffles (never on the board)	The sewers	Rauly, Mutant Town	7.5 minutes	30	7-S, Food and Beverage

Getting paid:

• The right form, on time: full pay.
• The right form, late: half pay and a Written Warning.
• The wrong form: 5 dollars less and a Written Warning. (Throw a warning away and it finds its way back into your pocket.)
• Lose the package and Hermos hands you another, with a Written Warning.

Each filed job also hands you the next piece of the uniform: Delivery Jacket after the first, Delivery Pants after the second, Delivery Sneakers after the third. Filing the Slorm job adds a Tube Kit.

The Professor rewards you too: a Smelloscope after your first filed job, and a Finglonger after your third.

The jobs that bite back

The lobsters scream and escape. About once every 40 seconds a lobster breaks out of the crate (up to 3 at a time). Catch every loose one before Elzor will take the crate.

The Slorm factory has a secret. Carry the Slorm onto the factory floor and the worms come up out of the mixing pool. The plant manager locks himself in his office and won't sign for anything until every Slorm Worm is squashed. Worms nip at close range and spit slowing globs of Slorm from 3 to 12 blocks away.

Screenshot comingneo-new-york-slorm-factory

The Slorm factory floor: green vats, the mixing pool and Slorm Worms rearing up to spit

Getting around the city

Way	How it works
Pneumatic tubes	Use a Tube Intake and a capsule carries you along the glass. At a junction it takes the branch you are looking along. Street tubes jam about 6 rides in 100 and blow you out of the top. A building's own tubes never jam.
Leena's ship	Use it while it is parked and it flies you where your job says (the Head Museum's roof pad, or MumCorp's). Leena won't fly without a job that needs the ship.
Aimee's hover car	Aimee drives, badly, and only for the MumCorp delivery. You ride beside her.
The Planet Xpress lift	Goes up and down the Planet Xpress tower.

Street tube stations: Cryogenics, Planet Xpress, the park, the Head Museum, MumCorp, the market, Robot Armz, Leena's, and the Slorm factory.

Screenshot comingneo-new-york-tube

Riding a capsule through a glass pneumatic tube above the street, towers rushing past

Don't stare at the Hypnofrog

Look straight at the giant Hypnofrog screen for 3 seconds from within 48 blocks and it starts pulling you toward it: "ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOFROG". Look away to break free. Nibblet's charm protects you.

People of Neo New York

Who	What they do for you
Hermos	Hires you, hands out jobs, files your paperwork. Explosively proud of a well-filed form.
Fray	The delivery boy from the 20th century. Sends you off with the lobsters.
Leena	The one-eyed captain. Flies the ship.
Bendor	The rude bending robot, and the robot most at risk from Mum's update.
Professor Fornsworth	Owner of Planet Xpress. Gifts inventions and rebuilds the jammer.
Aimee	The rich intern with the badly parked hover car.
Dr. Zoydberg	Give him any food (not Slorm) and he gives you 3 Neo Dollars.
Nibblet	Leena's tiny three-eyed pet. Feed him any food and he leaves Dark Matter behind, once a minute.
Scruffles	The janitor. Knows every service tunnel.
Mum	Waits in MumCorp Tower with an offer.

Ordinary Neo New Yorkers, robots and three-eyed mutants (in Mutant Town, below the streets) have a line for you too, and change their tune once the update reaches them.

Shops and things to use

Pay with Neo Dollars.

Where	You get	Price
Slorm vending machine	Slorm	1
Pizza oven	Pizza Slice	1
Fishy counter	Fishwich	2
Elzor's counter	Lobster Bisque	4

Slorm is highly addictive: drinking it gives a Slorm Buzz for 1 minute (40% faster movement, 50% faster mining), followed by a Slorm Crash for 30 seconds (30% slower at both).

The heads in jars at the Head Museum talk when you use them. The TVs show whatever Mum wants shown.

The tower

MumCorp Tower is guarded. On the security floor float Brain Broods: they drift toward you and, within 10 blocks, think at you every couple of seconds. Without Nibblet's charm you take a little damage and become Dumbed: every item name turns to baby talk and the tower's tubes refuse you. Wear the charm and their thinking slides off.

Screenshot comingneo-new-york-server-room

Mum's mainframe in the server room, Leena's ship hovering outside the window

The three endings (spoilers)

The first ending anyone reaches is the city's for good. Each takes the jammer from you.

Ending	How	What you get	What changes
The Robots Are Free	Plug the jammer into Mum's mainframe.	Bendor's Head	The update is undone everywhere, every enforcer switches off, and the tower's sign becomes a hotel's.
Mum Wins	Say "Deal" to Mum's buyout.	A MumCorp Check (cash it for 50 dollars) and Bendor's Head	The robots stay hers. Her enforcers stay, but leave you alone.
Bendor's Way	Tell Bendor, in the server room, to take the jammer.	Bendor's Cut and Bendor's Head	Every robot in the city answers to Bendor.

Whatever you choose, Bendor insists on coming along: his spare head goes in your pack. Put it down and right-click it, and it won't stop talking. Then run for Leena's ship at the server room window. Back at Planet Xpress, the Professor gives you his What-If Machine, which shows you a world you have never been to.

Bendor's Cut calls a knee-high pickpocket robot that follows you between worlds and now and then lifts a dollar off someone nearby for you. Bendor takes every third.

What to bring home

Find	Where	Why it's worth it
Dark Matter	Feed Nibblet.	Your Serum stand-in (see below).
Smelloscope	The Professor, after your first job.	Sniffs out every container nearby, through walls.
Finglonger	The Professor, after your third job.	Three more blocks of reach while held.
Tube Kit	Filing the Slorm job.	Unpacks 32 lengths of Pneumatic Tube and two Tube Intakes. Build your own network.
The uniform	Hermos, job by job.	A full uniform you wear as armor.
City blocks	Everywhere.	Neon strips, tower panels, chrome trim, neon letters and the Planet Xpress look.

➜3

Pneumatic Tube (Crafting Table)

➜

Tube Intake (Crafting Table)

➜4

Neo Concrete Tiles (Crafting Table)

Serum and getting home

• The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
• Native stand-in: Dark Matter, Nibblet's droppings: starship fuel, heavy and faintly glowing. It takes the place of Somnium Powder in the Synthesizer. Feed Nibblet any food, once a minute, for one each.

Tips

• Read the delivery before you file. Hermos has four forms on his desk, and only one is right. Live things are Live Cargo, the head is Human Remains, anything you eat is Food and Beverage, and the "not a bomb" is Hazardous.
• Watch the clock. The lobster run gives you only 5 minutes, and a late delivery pays half.
• Keep a stack of cheap food. It buys you Dark Matter from Nibblet and dollars from Dr. Zoydberg.
• A Slorm before a long run saves time; just don't be mid-fight when the crash hits.
• Do the deliveries before the update reaches the district you need: enforcer pairs make every street harder.

Birds

Birds you can photograph for your bird log here. Open one to turn it round, watch it move and hear its call.

• Tube Pigeon: common
• Polly 3000: rare, dangerous

The traveler's tape

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

They hired me before I'd even said my name. I've delivered nine packages, been fired out of a tube into a river twice, and a robot sold my boots back to me. The robots have started calling everyone 'Mother.' Something's coming. When you have seen enough, step back into the Box with the Serum still in you and shut the door.