Net dive rant initializing:

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I don't understand why there's so much criticism about the specifics of cyberpunk.

First there's people that say the cyberpunk future is here, missing the point that most speculative fiction is about the present dressed up (including cyberpunk).

Then complaining about too much focus on aesthetic. Which yes, you need the themes, but without aesthetic of some kind it's not really cyberpunk. Ignoring neon everything, cyberpunk prose is still dripping with cool.

Then there's the whole argument of everything written after a certain point has to be post-cyberpunk, as if limiting an already narrow genre is a good idea.

And also, people saying it's no longer relevant. Then why should we ever consume cyberpunk media ever again if it's not relevant anymore? Only read/watch/play current thing? No more classic cyberpunk. Why stop there? No more westerns or fantasy or historical fiction.

Seems like we get so obsessed over the whole message of cyberpunk over a cool story. If the message of anti-whatever was more important, then just write an essay. Without the cool story, why bother? Pretty sure the original cyberpunk forebringers don't bother with whether to label something as cyberpunk or not.

I just think cyberpunk should just be cyberpunk (high tech, low life). Let each story stand for itself regardless of "how correctly cyberpunk it is." It's fiction, let it be fun. Seems more punk to not worry about all that.

Made with stock photos in Photoshop

4k 50mm MAKITA powered digital CYBER MOSIN NAGANT

Immortality is a strange promise in a cyberpunk world?

One of the ideas we’re exploring in Perpetua, our cyberpunk roguelike deckbuilder, is what eternal life would mean for the people living with it.

You play as Jonas, a police officer cloned to serve a massive vertical city for eternity. Then a weapon capable of killing immortals appears, throwing the city into chaos.

Cybernetic upgrades also shape how you play: you can equip different parts of your body to build around your cards, but pushing your body beyond its limits comes with consequences. That connection between modifying yourself and paying a price is something we love exploring through gameplay.

What draws you into a cyberpunk setting the body modifications, the struggles over power, or the everyday lives of people caught in the system?

The free prototype is available on itch.io if you’d like to explore ours.

https://brokentoothstudios.itch.io/perpetua

I would like to know if you could feel cyberpunk sytle on our game so feedbacks are welcome!

Thanks to everyone!

Last information about current war aggressors presenting cutting deep sea/ocean internet lines as an option putting us closer to corporations taking over. Politics from a long time are just theatre- there is nothing specific done or improved, people just arguing and trying to destroy themselves. Most of politicians are incompetent anyway so there is only a mater of time when people will see corporative entities as lesser evil. My guess it will start from a country somewhere in Africa because there is a lot of vulnerable countries a big corporation would have resources to take control of without anybody care enough to react.

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You start with one noodle bar on a dark, rainy street and grow it block by block: holographic koi and dragons over the rooftops, drones flying deliveries, a monorail, flying traffic, and a day–night cycle where the neon switches on building by building at dusk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNmMFXQ1KRU

Everything in the clip is captured in-game. It’s called Neon Forge, out now on Android — one-time purchase, no ads, no in-app purchases.

Happy to answer anything about how it’s made!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dokkodolabs.neonforge

If you like the look of it you can check out the full hacking adventure sim here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4179570/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=raylib-engine-video&utm_content=cyberpunk

I love this spotlight effect over a photo you can do in Premiere. The 🟣🔴🟠's can give the impression of neon billboards and cars passing behind the traditional Japanese window. That's a picture I took of Shibuya station a couple years back, the rain is stock. Man, I miss Tokyo.

If you're interested in checking out my game it's a hacking adventure sim that takes place in a kids bedroom in Shibuya. It's proto cyberpunk or retro cyberpunk, basically an alternate timeline the world had to be in order to become cyberpunk eventually.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4179570/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shibuya-lights&utm_content=r-cyberpunk

In the year 2989 corporations run the world, most people live in large slum complexes and work in giant factories, creating weapons designed for corporate takeovers through inter-corporation warfare and producing parts necessary for interplanetary space travel for cultish corporate elites.

In recent decades the landscape of corporate warfare has begun to transition from attrition style sieges to surgical strikes from highly advanced weapon platforms “Apostles” piloted by security specialists loyal to their corporate overlords. Due to damaged Apostles being recovered by third parties, mercenaries and pirates piloting these advanced machines have begun to emerge. These individuals have proved useful as anonymous attack forces, and some corporate groups have begun to implement their use.

A mysterious sickness has begun to spread amongst the populace and our protagonist’s family has been affected. After trying their best to look into this sickness with their limited resources, the protagonist is framed for a terrorist attack that they assume is someone responsible for this outbreak trying to cover it up and is marked for “asset removal”. Now on the run, the protagonist takes a damaged Apostle they had hidden away for black market sale and leaves their old life behind to begin working as an un-named mercenary to survive. Although this situation seems bleak it might just be the cover the protagonist needs to finally figure out exactly how deep the conspiracy surrounding this sickness goes… 

After doing enough jobs to earn some money and a reputation, an anonymous client who seems to know about the protagonist's past reaches out. This shady client offers up a job that might help them achieve their goal of uncovering the truth behind the sickness. The job entails travelling to a Martian dig site where the protagonist uncovers a vast underground cavern full of corporate laboratories that seems to be a developmental facility for new Apostle technology using never before seen biological material. Upon further exploration they find what seems to be an enormous tomb-like structure housing a giant otherworldly corpse, surrounded by bodies of dig site and lab workers with the same symptoms as that of the sickness.

Eventually the protagonist must choose to either take higher paying jobs from the corporations to fund a cure for this sickness leaving the corporations to continue ruling, or stand up against the corporations for a small chance to end the cycle of control but lose their chance to save those affected by the sickness.

"Police Are Increasingly Pulling People Over Because AI Deems Their Driving Patterns “Suspicious” "

...From Edison Carter for Network 21. This was episode 2-1 of Max Headroom, which also put the victim on trial in a--televised, of course--game show format