I love cyberpunk as a genre but man people lean too heavily on aesthetics instead of themes to define it. Not every story has to look like Blade Runner to be cyberpunk. We can adjust to modern trends seen in the real world. It doesn't have to be all neon and chrome.
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But the edges do not line up and everything looks cheap trying to look nice.
Like my current project I noticed a lot of similarities in how capitalism has shaped celebrities and religion
Like I am thinking all crimes being fined, block chain national currency, voting being mandatory and each vote costing money.....
When someone says "cyberpunk," I specifically think of an aesthetic inspired by what people in the 1980's thought the future would look like. The theme of capitalism and technology gone awry is there but it's not enough by itself.
They seem like utopias but they have dark underbellies (usually built on the labor of some secret underground class).
Meanwhile everyone is doing great--if they follow orders and if they question nothing.
which is why the genre works better being defined by it's themes more than its looks, and why focusing on the looks at the expense of the themes produces such hollow results.
90s B5: Grunge / Goth / Corporate.
80s TNG: Yuppies of suburbia.
70s: Buck Rogers/Galactica: Disco.
60s: ST TOS: Hippies.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/
Although I guess it’s more steampunk, if you wanna split hairs.
But yes, Ravnica fucking rules.
[cliched joke about Detroit here]
lol
The sleeper program is one of the most fucked cyberpunk capitalistic attrocities I’ve seen in a long time. I think everyone should play that game so we can all be very sad together
Portal 1 & 2
SUPERHOT
Helldivers
Horizon
DOOM
Cruelty Squad
Ultrakill
All of these have really distinctive aesthetics, but there’s a deep cyberpunk influence to all of them.
Like you apparently just tried to do.
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ha ha
All to get those cool augmented fight scenes
It’s really unfortunate because I feel like that’s missing the entire point of cyberpunk to view it purely through such commercialized lenses…
It’s not about the fight choreography and the potential innovation of technology
It’s about the exploitation of such
Solarpunk deserves to become more popular than it is
But then, there's another thing regarding Cyberpunk that's been on my mind, and that is; Intention. I uh, think.
->
That's not how I define nor look Cyberpunk. I don't define it as "The Purge, or America, but daily and in the future". But a lot of people define it like this. ->
Anyway, that's my contribution here!
I offer this amazing scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aU7CiX7lQ&ab_channel=EarlofSandwich%21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8K34N604Iw&ab_channel=RottenTomatoesClassicTrailers
I think even Appleseed has tones of it too. It can be bright and shiny and it can be dark, depressing. Theme and appearance can be entirely different things, yet put together right?
Somehow, somewhere, people forget that Cyberpunk is a warning, not a goal.
https://youtu.be/K38xNqZvBJI?si=jmwQx8tg5MYHroVj
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B: cyberpunk is in a weird space as a genre. That 80s blade runner/robocop style cyberpunk is the modern retrofuturism
Written and basically solo-dev’ed by a trans, homeless, native Hawaiian social worker, it’s about as full of real-world dystopia as you can possibly get.
At least that's what I think about for real-world tech throwback and alienation. I don't think there's any software more alienating than a spreadsheet.
Yes
There’s nothing wrong with being direct about the role of PCs and the intended playstyle of the game.
(If you want to check it out: https://neonhopegame.com)
A clean aesthetic serving as a commentary on how technology and the corporations that produce it have infiltrated every aspect of our life.
The moment the price of pork skyrockets we will riot.
"When Gravity Fails" by effinger, "Little Heroes" by Spinrad, to name a couple.
Media literacy is dead
Deus Ex (2000) or real life? Hard to tell.
I love the Cyberpunk game and its lore along with its captivating presense of uncheked Capitalism Gone
and The abuse of humans in it all
Because to him it's missing the cyber. The digital aspect.
the -punk genres all deal with the fight against government, cooperate, and/or social corruption as a core theme.
Arcane is beautiful to be sure, but genre-wise I would put it in dieselpunk/magitech cross
aesthetics in punk music are as important as the rebellious social themes present in the music. aesthetics in cyberpunk follow suit.
Whereas neon and chrome is always sick as hell.
Just look at the punks of the 80s. Most are still alive, still frustrated with the system, but also tired.
Unfortunately, I also want to make money off of the project, so I am doomed to prove that one character in Disco Elysium right again
Snap *snap
When I think cyberpunk, I think primitive/base technology (pulleys, levers, catapult, spring boards) vs. High tech, super rich, villainous asshats.
Cyberpunk 2020 😉
Otherwise, I think of it as an American city with lights everywhere (even more so than current American cities).
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Don't fear going MIA. They have GPS--for you.👍🤣
"Your contract of employment at [Corp] has been terminated. Please report to cyber operations to have your implants removed. Failing to do so will result in a £30,000 fine."
I have family members with ruined bodies from a life of labour but even they still own their flesh
Any limb, any price, any payment plan.
Leave any one relative in our cryo chambers as collateral, arrange payment plan. Leave with limbs that same day.
In tiny, tiny writing.
Failure to maintain payments will result in repossession of limbs, and harvesting of collateral for organs.
I don't know, it was dark, violent, raw. Good stuff for 1994!
But fair.
Trust me, they had us figured the fuck out
Alien (also a cyberpunk setting) and Blade runner uses Cassette Futurism as it’s aesthetic bc of the time period they were made in.
knuckles: the strong, stoic, often sage character, sometimes buffoonish
tails: pilot, mechanic, hacker and 'man in the chair' type role
amy: big guns, little lady trope (or hammer in this case)
/cont
rouge: femme fatale burgler seductress archetype
and regarding some of the more fantastical elements, cyberpunk has a LONG history of having magic and spirituality as important aspects of its world and narrative, /cont
Awww dammit. Time to have the irony
Cyberpunk is more than some lightbulbs and chrome plating. That's just describing the 80s.
With a street level story I guess it's hard to explore Corpo life that deeply
deisel punk - bioshock
atom punk - fallout
solar punk - pokemon
biopunk -prototype
steampunk
desert punk
these all are mutations on the cyberpunk formula.
I've played around with bad recycled hardware from Corp VA services.
"just cause the soldier died doesn't mean their cyberware has to die as well!"
Machine memory
License subscriptikns or parts will get bricked.
Undocumented lockouts programmed
Total recall type of things. Ghosts in the Machince that surface as raw psychosis.
Use hardware carrying all kinds of baggage.
New gear is a corpo luxury.
(I say as I have many projects that I have abandoned but desperately want to get back to.)
Stop oppressing me.
Speculitive fiction genres only work if you're working off the modern world you're writing in, not the past.
e.g. tech overreach, oligarchical capitalism, failed nations, etc. should be critical elements of the prop.
Otherwise, you're simply telling a story with cool props.
That it could broaden out to show the themes apply to superdense, hyper violent, neon chrome lit cities but apply to towns, suburbs even rural areas where The Company rules the town.
https://garoad.bandcamp.com/album/va-11-hall-a-second-round
Burst City
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Death Powder
Rubber's Lover
964 Pinocchio
no chrome, no neon lights in the actual time line but all cyberpunk... just LOVE it.
even the RPG "Shadowrun" is not "all over neonchrome", from > to, yes.
lot of people don't really know it.
Part of the issue is scifi in general so often already takes place in dystopias, that neon and chrome are really the only thing that sets cyberpunk apart.
It has all the high tech aesthetics, but the themes are reinvigorating.
Regular every day people using tech to fight the systems around them, or being used by that tech themselves
The antagonists gloat and celebrate only to be puzzled by the protagonist dying with a smile.
Meanwhile, in a hidden location, CHILDREN lay low and learn
... the antagonists' flaws.
You get to have the downbeat tone of cyberpunk while also having a spark of hope.
You get to eat your cake and have it too.👍
A little win against the system is still a win.
Like sure you can set V up better than most but it's a "live fast, die hard" kind of life that is shown to be very lethal to those who live it.
Night City Alive. You can crank up the gang violence to 11.
(Its also likely you don't have NCPD alerts turned on. You're missing literally a hundred assaults and robberies going on)
and they had differing aesthetics
Also, people need to stop looking at Kowloon as an example of urban sprawl, that's actually pretty efficient space use. Urban sprawl looks more like suburban Texas.
Actually I think Night City does that decently well now that I think about it.