Path of Neo design doc

**Harpalos-mxo**

Interesting find by angry-gamer.net: the design document of Path of Neo by Shiny. It does seem legit, apart for a weird document apparently written by the Wachovskis (and dated as of today) sure has a weird ending.

The last section of gameplay pits the player against a thirty story tall, fire-breathing Smith. At close up it is apparent that Smith-zilla is made up of thousands of the normal sized Smiths. If the player is able to deliver significant chunks of damage to Smith-zilla, Smith’s should shake from his body like sprays of blood.

When at last Smith-zilla is beaten, the player will either get an incredible visual animatic that explains their path to higher consciousness or a medal.

The end.
And I haven't seen the reference, but there are talks that it was based on Seraph instead of Neo. Anyway, enjoy the read!

Paperghost

Harpalos-mxo wrote:

When at last Smith-zilla is beaten, the player will either get an incredible visual animatic that explains their path to higher consciousness or a medal.

Swap that for The Kids ugly face and "We are the Champions" and we're onto a winner SMILEY

**Rarebit**

Interesting.

**Harpalos-mxo**

I'm still reading, but 2 interesting tidbits:

The Wachowski Brothers' arc for Neo is that the character has four general mindsets.

Self-Preservation

Protecting Others

Risking Your Life for Others

Sacrificing Yourself for the Greater Good.

This one makes no sense, but is also in the brothers' document mentionned earlier. I hope this is a joke, or they want to make sure people read the whole thing...

The chateau fight should be a high flying aerial duel. And the player must be reliant as ever to their newly acquired skills in order to beat the gang of heavy metal goons. [...]

After the fight is over, the Merovingian will smirk, assuring Neo that while he has bested his bodyguards he will not be able to defeat his “hounds.” When the door closes behind him, the player must race through the seemingly endless chambers of the chateau, fighting off the Merovingian’s “hounds,” a host of long forgotten root-programs. Vampires, werewolves, witches and warlocks, leprechauns, ant-men, and big-headed aliens, that carry ray-guns and intimidating, looking probes.

Paperghost · 05/27/2007 23:41:20

**SolidRevolver**

I didn't read much of it, I was sort of.... distracted SMILEY

Paperghost · 05/27/2007 23:41:35

**shinpseudo**

Harpalos-mxo wrote:

And I haven't seen the reference, but there are talks that it was based on Seraph instead of Neo. Anyway, enjoy the read!

First off, awesome find.

In the revision notes, for 2-11-04, it says:

"Intranet is completely revamped with new design, navigation and content to reflect change from Seraph game to Path of Neo."

Seeing all this information got me stoked about the game again; I thought about picking it up when I get home, but then I remembered the targeting system which made me feel like throwing my PS2 through the wall.

**ZaneZavin**

Well, it's gone now. I can't view the actual document.

Paperghost

ZaneZavin wrote:

Well, it's gone now. I can't view the actual document.

nuts. er.....oh yeah, page 42 said "The Matrix is bigger than one city too, and Paperghost rocks".

honest.

**Harpalos-mxo**

Bah, it's really taken down. Surely someone downloaded all the content offline and we'll see it somewhere one day. Until then, I have as a memory the cache versions of all the pages I read and the delicious Wachowskis storyline document.

Paperghost · 05/27/2007 23:42:39

**Othinn1** · 05/08/2007 14:25:22

It's legit. A lot of the Wachowski notes listed in this thread were reproduced in PoN's gaming guide, which I think was made by Prima.

And the Seraph game is also a true story. It was mentioned by both Joel Silver and a Shiny dev. Once I get the time, I'll hunt down both articles and post them here. But according to the Shiny dev, they were in the pre-planning stages of the Seraph game when the Wachowskis called them up and told them to make PoN instead. Sad, really. I was more interested in the Seraph game because it was apparently going to reveal his backstory.

   Edit: Here are the two Seraph game articles.

   Joel Silver mentions the Seraph game.

   Shiny dev "Benjamin Cholewinski" mentions the Seraph game.

RainKingX

however, we would suggest that one of the skills
be called something like “awareness” or “atman” and that the selection of these tiles would seem to give you nothing more than
meaningless koan-like expressions such as, “you can hear the sound of one hand clapping,” but in fact, this skill secretly gives
enormous bonuses to your other skills.

You guys are too funny. Yes, I miss those OS days, too.

**flecky**

Anyone found any other download links for this yet?