VN Ren'Py Completed City of Broken Dreamers [v1.15.0 Ch. 15] [PhillyGames]

[botc76]

Thank you, my friend, I agree. Besides, most wiki articles on pop culture are written by fans and seldom fact checked beyond one or two sources. Philly's content does use genre tropes but is 100% original content and doesn't plagiarize any source. The only part on which I don't agree is that cyberpunk as a concept and genre existed well before 1984. That one by Gibson is new to me. The majority of my experience with science fiction comes from film rather than books. David Cronenberg's Videodrome, starring James Woods released in 1983 and Ridley Scott's infamous Blade Runner released in 1982. The concepts found in cyberpunk have been around since the 60's and 70's but as far as I can tell the first mention of the actual term cyberpunk is currently credited to Bruce Bethke who released a novel of the same title, "Cyberpunk" in 1982. I don't mean to argue, just curious as I had not previously heard of Neuromancer by William Gibson. I'm sure that we can all agree that our love of and fascination with cyberpunk is very much alive and well.

Again, I do not wish to argue, just enjoying this discussion on a subject that has fascinated me since I first saw Blade Runner back in 1982. I was a sophomore in high school that year. Blade Runner opened my eyes to a whole new world of sci-fi that extended far beyond the TV and films I had seen before taking me much deeper than Star Trek and Star Wars ever could and made a great deal more sense to me than Kubrick's Space Oddity (yes, I am indulging in parody here... I've enjoyed many of Kubrick's films but 2001 and the follow up 2010 just left me scratching my head, not because I did not understand the concepts, just didn't like the direction they went.) Anyway... Thanks for indulging this wonderful subject, my friends. Let us not quarrel over specifics but rather simply enjoy the complex and intriguing nature of our shared passion for this exceptional genre called cyberpunk.

Adventure ever on, Phat

No need to argue at all, as is often the case it's hard to decide when Cyberpunk really took off, parts of the settings and tropes had been around for a long time, a lot of it is also extrapolation of what had been shown in SF way before as you point out and fe. Blade Runner is definitely just as important for the genre as the novels are, and that in turn was inspired by the work of Jodorowsky and Moebius in the Graphic Novel format, especially Moebius art in "The Long Tomorrow."
Those two also inspired the descriptions of the cities in Gibson's novel.
Then you have fe., films like Rollerball and Soylent Green with their dystopian futures which are foreshadowing parts of the core concepts of Cyberpunk, as is every SF story that has a large megacorp in it which is more powerful than governments, or basically any story where we have some form of connection between the human mind and body and artificial, constructed elements like machines or computer.
All I know is that many credit Bethke with the coining of the term Cyberpunk in the short story of the same name, I never even knew a novel existed as well.
Bruce Sterling and William Gibson are at least seen as the two writers who popularized the genre, if not as the fathers of it in general.
In Neuromancer and his early short stories Gibson coined (in several cases) or at least introduced terms like cyberspace, net surfing, ICE, jacking in, and neural implants to a wider audience.
Especially, his term Cyberspace become so popular that it was used as the unofficial name for the then emerging WWW.

I admit, and I mean no disrespect with that, I am a bit surprised that someone who likes the genre has never heard of Neuromancer, a novel which not only won the Nebula, Philip K. Dick and Hugo Award (which is about as big as SF novels can get), but is also widely recognized for revitalizing the SF genre in the 80s and making it literally relevant again.

I would absolutely advise you to seek the novel out, of course a lot of it will feel familiar, almost 40 years later, but if you like Cyberpunk, there should be plenty for you to enjoy in the book, and it's direct sequels.
The book really influenced my tastes and interests a lot, when I first read it, and I soaked up everything connected to it for years after.
In my opinion, Gibson is also one of the best writers in SF in terms of style and language.

 

[PBS666]

since it basically began with WIlliam Gibson's novel Neuromancer, in 1984

In fact even several years before 1984 if you take his short stories such as Fragments of a Hologram Rose, Johnny Mnemonic and Burning Chrome into account

 

[PBS666]

If you have not already seen it, I would also highly recommend Natural City (2003) by the Korean director Byung-chun Min to all fans of Blade Runner, cyberpunk SF and of course this game.

 

[botc76]

I gotta say, this exchange here made my day a bit, it's great to have a conversation with like-minded people who are into the same things I am (adult visual novels and SF) and know their way around, in a friendly and courteous fashion for once.
Much nicer than the usual back and forth, with people taking offence with the game and/or the dev and others in turn taking offence with that, followed by petty arguments and tons of facepalms, until a mod starts deleting posts.

While the arguing can be fun as well, this is a nice change of pace.

 

[botc76]

Also, when it comes to Cyberpunk, you should never forget to point out Akira and Ghost in the Shell, to add Japan to the mix.

 

[Cabin Fever]

...as a fan of the genre Cyberpunk since it basically began with WIlliam Gibson's novel Neuromancer, in 1984.

Except Gibson was more than a decade late to the game.

Cyberpunk as a genre can be traced back to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K Dick (1968), which was adapted into the Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner (1982).

There were many other novels and novellas, short stories, graphic novels, and comics, all published prior to 1984, that were subsequently categorized as Cyberpunk.

Heck, some even consider the movies Escape from New York (1981) and Tron (1982) as Cyberpunk.

The actual coining of the term "Cyberpunk" dates back to 1983 with a Bruce Bethke short story.

All of which predates Neuromancer in 1984. But what Neuromancer did was popularized the concept of cyberspace within Cyberpunk.

 

[armion82]

Also, when it comes to Cyberpunk, you should never forget to point out Akira and Ghost in the Shell, to add Japan to the mix.

Also Appleseed and Gunnm(Battle Angel Alita)

 

[botc76]

Except Gibson was more than a decade late to the game.

Cyberpunk as a genre can be traced back to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K Dick (1968), which was adapted into the Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner (1982).

There were many other novels and novellas, short stories, graphic novels, and comics, all published prior to 1984, that were subsequently categorized as Cyberpunk.

Heck, some even consider the movies Escape from New York (1981) and Tron (1982) as Cyberpunk.

The actual coining of the term "Cyberpunk" dates back to 1983 with a Bruce Bethke short story.

All of which predates Neuromancer in 1984. But what Neuromancer did was popularized the concept of cyberspace within Cyberpunk.

Oh, I think it did a lot more than that, but that is, of course, just my subjective opinion (even if based on facts).
Like several posts on this page made clear, there are many influences that predate Cyberpunk as a genre and as is often the case with literal genres, it is hard to even define which stories and novels and films really are part of it, or were forerunners or just introduced some of the later concepts.
Let me say, that I didn't ignore earlier stories (some of which were also by Gibson, of course), that is why I wrote "basically began" though I could also have used "popularized" or something like "introduced to a larger audience" and the publication date for the novel was just in there, to make clear that the Cyberpunk RPG wasn't the start of the genre Cyberpunk.

There's definitely a difference between the first stories that play with ideas and the defining of a genre for it.
Just think about Cyberpunk's little cousin, Steampunk. It's very hard to try to pinpoint when the genre really emerged, especially considering that you could take many Jules Verne novels as Steampunk novels, also parts of HG Wells' work, then there were science heroes in pulp fiction, modelled after people like Tesla or Edison, but with adventurous lives, which also read like Steampunk from today's POV and yet the genre AS a literal genre surely didn't exist back then, no one called it that, no one had defined what roughly constitutes Steampunk.

 

[PBS666]

Just think about Cyberpunk's little cousin, Steampunk. It's very hard to try to pinpoint when the genre really emerged, especially considering that you could take many Jules Verne novels as Steampunk novels, also parts of HG Wells' work, then there were science heroes in pulp fiction, modelled after people like Tesla or Edison, but with adventurous lives, which also read like Steampunk from today's POV and yet the genre AS a literal genre surely didn't exist back then, no one called it that, no one had defined what roughly constitutes Steampunk.

Taking about Steampunk, there of course Gibson was highly influential as well, with the novel The Difference Engine, co-written with Bruce Sterling.

 

[Machete]

Hey! Hey! WTF??? We are discussing Gibson here and no one called me?

By the way there is something that always puzzled me. How foundative are cyborgs for the cyberpunk genre? Because, for istance, in 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps' there aren't any. Actually, there aren't androids as well, since replicants are by no means 'mechanical'.

 

[botc76]

Hey! Hey! WTF??? We are discussing Gibson here and no one called me?

By the way there is something that always puzzled me. How foundative are cyborgs for the cyberpunk genre? Because, for istance, in 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps' there aren't any. Actually, there aren't androids as well, since replicants are by no means 'mechanical'.

By the regular definition, Androids don't have to be "mechanical" as long as they are artificial constructs which look like humans, they can be defined as androids. Theoretically they could be completely made of meat and flesh and bones and still be Androids.

As for Cyborgs, and sorry if this seems like a lecture, it's not intended to be, just trying to clarify my reasoning; Cyborgs or rather the connection between artificial and natural components is one of the core concepts of Cyberpunk, as is stuff like Virtual Realities, Megacities/Sprawls, a criminal subculture composed of samurais/warriors and hackers/deckers/riggers etc.., artificial intelligence of some form, Corporations replacing or at least surpassing governments, a relatively bleak outlook to the future and several other tropes or elements.
However, most people would agree that you don't need all of these components to classify a piece of media as Cyberpunk, you just need to use enough to paint a picture that resonates with the genre in general.
FE. many Cyberpunk novels have very little connection to space travel and yet, some of the defining novels, especially those by Walter Jon Williams feature FTL travel and space flights to a large extent, or books like Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovac's series have FTL travels, ancient alien civilizations, human colonies in space and many other concepts which are usually more fitting in the genre of Space Opera or maybe even HARD SF (depending on how they are presented), yet the series also has enough elements of Cyberpunk that many people define it as part of the genre or at least as so-called Post-Cyberpunk (which I think should rather be called Neo-Cyberpunk tbh, like Neo-Noir).
What I mean by that is, there aren't completely clear-cut lines, what is important or what makes something cyberpunk, but I think no one would argue that some form of cybernetic organism, bioware or cybernetic improvements are definitive foundations of the genre.

 

[PapaPhat]

Hey! Hey! WTF??? We are discussing Gibson here and no one called me?

By the way there is something that always puzzled me. How foundative are cyborgs for the cyberpunk genre? Because, for istance, in 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps' there aren't any. Actually, there aren't androids as well, since replicants are by no means 'mechanical'.

Exceptional point, my friend! I've always accepted the role of AI and other technology based intelligence to be native and inherent to the cyberpunk genre. It can include cyborgs and androids from the humans with technology installed in them like Elysium, Johnny Mnemonic and Cyberpunk 2077 and run the full gambit all the way up to full synthetic entities like A.I. Artificial intelligence, i-Robot or Ex Machina and those that are a mix of technology and synthetic living tissue like Terminator or the Cylons in Battlestar Gallactica to those who only exist within the construct of a computer program like HAL 9000 in Kubrik's sci fi fantasy, "Mother" in Alien and the various androids in the Alien franchise to those who totally transcend technology and bridge with human beings as we see in Transcendence. These are all examples of AI that can exist within the realm of cyberpunk and depends solely on the story the author wishes to tell. Admittedly, not all of the examples I gave were from cyberpunk titles yet all of these examples could freely exist in a cyberpunk story.

Anyway... just my two cents Adventure ever on my friends, Phat

PS/Update: Serious kudos for the Takeshi Kovac name drop! Love that character!!!

 

[botc76]

Exceptional point, my friend! I've always accepted the role of AI and other technology based intelligence to be native and inherent to the cyberpunk genre. It can include cyborgs and androids from the humans with technology installed in them like Elysium, Johnny Mnemonic and Cyberpunk 2077 and run the full gambit all the way up to full synthetic entities like A.I. Artificial intelligence, i-Robot or Ex Machina and those that are a mix of technology and synthetic living tissue like Terminator or the Cylons in Battlestar Gallactica to those who only exist within the construct of a computer program like HAL 9000 in Kubrik's sci fi fantasy, "Mother" in Alien and the various androids in the Alien franchise to those who totally transcend technology and bridge with human beings as we see in Transcendence. These are all examples of AI that can exist within the realm of cyberpunk and depends solely on the story the author wishes to tell. Admittedly, not all of the examples I gave were from cyberpunk titles yet all of these examples could freely exist in a cyberpunk story.

Anyway... just my two cents Adventure ever on my friends, Phat

See, you know at least a bit of William Gibson, after all, you know Johnny Mnemonic.
The girl, Jane, played by Dina Meyer, is called Molly in the original short story, and she is one of the major characters of Neuromancer.

 

[PapaPhat]

See, you know at least a bit of William Gibson, after all, you know Johnny Mnemonic.
The girl, Jane, played by Dina Meyer, is called Molly in the original short story, and she is one of the major characters of Neuromancer.

I know the films but I read so much in my youth that I don't read much these days. But, I do enjoy the films
Serious kudos for the Takeshi Kovac name drop! Love that character!!!

 

[Machete]

after all, you know Johnny Mnemonic.

Who wouldn't go anywhere where Molly Millions is?

 

[Machete]

I know the films but I read so much in my youth that I don't read much these days.

Who has time? But lately i've been listening to audiobooks driving to work and back and damn if i hadn't the chance to read a lot of Asimov, Gibson, Herbert, Dick... a lot of stuff i've always wanted to and i even re-read something from my youth.

 

[armion82]

When you start playing Android Netrunner LCG call me.

 

[Machete]

When you start playing Android Netrunner LCG call me.

Next time i own a phone, maybe

 

[cxx]

Hey! Hey! WTF??? We are discussing Gibson here and no one called me?

we forgot your phonenumber?

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Machete]

we forgot your phonenumber?

Well, i do have a phone Just it doesn't belong to me. My own have been stolen a few months ago, but when i was heading for the shop to buy a new one, i realize i don't actually need to own one, so i went dual sim on my office phone.