Cyberpunk

I've been trying to come up with cyberpunk recommendations for this community to help keep it active. But my assumption is that anyone subscribed here already has basic knowledge of the cyberpunk genre. That is, I don't think we need any "what is cyberpunk?" posts.

But I spend (way too much) time wondering what cyberpunk works I can just assume everyone here already knows about. For example, there are quite a few cyberpunk works that are well-known enough outside of cyberpunk circles that I don't think I need to recommend them. Those would include:

• Blade Runner
• Ghost in the Shell
• Akira
• Neuromancer
• Snow Crash
• Altered Carbon

But then there are what I would consider the "second-tier" cyberpunk works that might not have reached pop-culture status but are still classics to those with knowledge of cyberpunk. Those would include:

• Hardware
• Strange Days
• Johnny Mnemonic
• Hardwired
• Cyber City Oedo 808
• I'm not sure where to draw the line here... Hackers? Dredd? Bubblegum Crisis? Serial Experiments Lain?

I also want to make sure my recommendations are truly cyberpunk and not just cyberpunk-adjacent. For example, as good as they may be, I don't personally consider Upgrade or Ex Machina to be cyberpunk. And that brings me back to if something is truly cyberpunk then it probably falls into that second-tier list that maybe everyone already knows about. It's hard to draw the line between "this is unknown" and "this is a cult classic for those in the know".

Anyway, I'm going to continue over-thinking this and doing my best to come up with interesting yet not-widely-known cyberpunk works. I just wanted this post to run through all the cyberpunk works I won't be recommending because I assume you're already aware of them (even if you haven't watched/read them).

This is a cover of an Essenger song but I prefer the Machinae Supremacy version since I prefer rock/metal over synthwave.

I find alternative approaches to prosthetics fascinating. With enough crativity, prostethics dont need to be replacements for standard limbs. How long do you think it will be before prosthetics exceed regular limbs?

This movie is only two years old so maybe everyone here already knows about it, but definitely check it out if you haven't seen it. As far as I know, it's only available on Netflix.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1WYnJF1Pwo

I guess Dex goes 90% off fairly often so this isn't like some awesome deal you can't pass up (you could just wait for it to go 90% off again sometime) but I figured I'd take this opportunity to mention the game.

The combat is pretty janky/awkward but the world-building and side quests are fun and well-made. And the visuals are perfectly cyberpunk. For $1.99, I think it's worth playing.

I'm new to this community but I know we're still trying to work out the kind of content we want here. I really like discussions of cyberpunk settings, technologies, and their implications so I thought I'd submit my recommendation for a(n unfortunately less-well-known) story that has a lot of that. (I've got a few other recommendations if anyone wants to hear them.)

I'm biased here because I'm already a fan of the author, who passed away last year, but it's really, really good and I wanted to recommend it.

The Other Kind of Life is a cyberpunk noir detective story. It's thoughtful, well-built, and it never cheats the audience out of seeing how the protagonist pulls something off. The story and setting are cohesive, take no shortcuts, and build a very distinct world.

The elevator pitch about a con artist solving robot murders sounds pretty trite in summary, so I'll give you the cool parts:

1: It's set in a custom world, fantasy style, with no connection to our world, which gives the author a lot of freedom and neatly exposed how accustomed I am to seeing this in fantasy books with the slightest hint of magic, and how much it throws me when a hard scifi story exists in the same kind of place.

2: Everything about the AIs carefully considers how they would develop, rather than just writing mechanical humans. They're wonderful and alien in small, interesting ways. And the book is saturated with conversations about them, their drives and design challenges. It feels like a successor to Free Radical, one of his earliest books, but more polished.

3: This book takes no shortcuts. It shows you how the protagonist talks his way past people, plans his heists, and even how he finds and maintains his contacts. (Transmet for example had a habit of letting Spider summon up past contacts whenever he needed a lead, before burning them, making me wonder how he ever made those connections. It worked there, but this stood out in contrast.) I love stories about characters who are smarter than me, and this one shows him being smart. Every step of the investigation feels earned. As trite as the buddy-cop-robot-murder-investigation premise feels... for me, this might be The buddy-cop-robot-murder-investigation book.

Bonus stuff: There's a DM's fascination with how things got the way they are in the setting, from infrastructure to bureaucracy, to technology, to politics. An analyst's perspective that informs pretty much everything else.Young has a real knack for making careful analyses of situations and emotional states almost absurdly engaging, and he has a focus on workable AI designs that I really enjoy. His writing voice shows through in places in the novel's narration and dialogue, but it has the effect of making the characters seem more thoughtful and intelligent than you often get with this genre so I don't mind it. There's not much hacking in this one, which is a shame because he does it well elsewhere, but what's here is solid and believable, and the social engineering probably make up for whatever's missing. I'm probably overselling it, but if you enjoy scifi, I'd say it's worth it for the AIs and the world at the least.

It has low-lifes living in the future, but there really isn't much high-tech and governments are still in control (not corporations). So do you consider Escape From New York to be cyberpunk?

Apparently the movie was an influence for William Gibson:

Escape from New York never made it big, but it’s been redone a billion times as a rock video. I saw that movie, by the way, when I was starting “Burning Chrome” and it had a real influence on Neuromancer.

But that doesn't immediately make it cyberpunk. After all, Gibson was also influenced by hard-boiled detective novels and that doesn't make those cyberpunk.

I could see the argument for this either way so I'm curious what your thoughts are.

It's streaming on Roku Channel and Freevee (Amazon Prime) if you haven't seen it before.

There are a lot of cool games in here:Ghostrunner is great, Observer is great too.

For those of you who never heard about this, in 1987 William Gibson was asked to write a script for a third Alien movie. He'd never written a script before but decided to give it a shot. The producers ultimately decided to go in a different direction and Gibson's script wasn't used at all. Gibson got a paycheck and moved on with his life.

Then, years later, this became some sort of mythical thing like it was a long-lost hidden gem. It was just a first draft for a script Gibson wrote for a paycheck but it had William Gibson's name attached to it! They've since turned it into a graphic novel, an Audible Original with Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprising their roles, and a novel with "Queen of Cyberpunk" Pat Cadigan fleshing out the script into a full novel.

I've listened to the Audible Original and the story is... fine. It does what you'd expect an Alien movie to do, "oh no, the xenomorphs have escaped and are killing characters one-by-one!" But maybe the Audible Original format just wasn't for me. So I'm curious if this fleshed-out novel makes things more interesting or if this was just another paycheck to attach another cyberpunk name to the project.

You can listen to all of his songs on Spotify or SoundCloud but if you want to read the story/lore, that's on his YouTube channel. Each "chapter" video has a snippet of the song and the description explains that part of the story.

I'm not sure if the story is going anywhere but the cgi rendering for each chapter video is really well done considering this is an unsigned artist with no real budget.

I've been trying to post fairly often to this community in an attempt to keep it active, but I'm still trying to figure out what type of posts people want to see here. News? Recommendations? Discussions? Artwork? One thing I've been debating is whether people would be annoyed by seeing memes here.

I'm guessing if you found this community you already know what cyberpunk is. I don't need to make any "have you guys seen Ghost in the Shell??" posts. But does that also mean this community wants to keep things serious and only debate obscure cyberpunk media?

I can keep posting random nonsense, I'm just not sure if there's anything I should avoid posting. For example, aside from memes, does anyone want to see recommendations for cyberpunk music? Music is very subjective/personal so I don't know how many people would appreciate my taste in music.

I'm kinda leaning towards "any post is a good post" since we're still growing and I just want activity. But at the same time, there are definitely pictures from r/cyberpunk that I'm sick of seeing. Like the stupid R.U. a cyberpunk? picture from 1993.

Let me know your thoughts.

The developer previously put up a demo for the last Steam Next Fest, but now with the Steam Stealth Fest live they decided to not only keep the demo up but they've expanded and fixed up the demo based on a lot of feedback they directly received from the previous event.

The demo is available now for Windows/Mac/Linux. It is planned to launch into Early Access in Q4 (starts October 2023).

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhuy_W3cAmA

Squad tactics heist RPG! In a cyberpunk setting ten years in the making. Build your crew of hackers, mercs and malcontents wisely; their stories will become interwoven with your own. Use powerful cyberware, faction connections, stealth, hacking & more to outsmart the odds and determine your future.

Young Qin on Artstation

Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0QUbIzu8ek

I can't tell if it'll be cyberpunk or just "near future" scifi.

A lot of the CGI (especially the cityscape establishing shots) show how low of a budget this movie had, but the sets and acting are all above average in my opinion. I definitely recommend it.

As far as I know, it's only available for streaming on Amazon Prime though: https://www.amazon.com/2047-Virtual-Revolution-Mike-Dopud/dp/B07CT67BM8

You can get the full hi-res version here.

Yes, this was a real commercial for Murphy's Irish Stout.

It was referencing a different Murphy's Irish Stout commercial from 1990: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8nWbo9e6k

I still prefer thinking of Deckard as not being a replicant but...

Releases from Early Access on August 3, 2023 for Windows and Linux.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/990900/Neon_Noodles__Cyberpunk_Kitchen_Automation/

Inspired by Zachtronics automation puzzle games such as Opus Magnum and Infinifactory.

Mintflavor on Artstation

Would anyone be interested in a cyberpunk role-playing community devoted to the discussion of cyberpunk tabletop and computer rpgs as well as facilitating rp groups and other related topics?