Cyberpunk
I know that cyberpunk is passe. I know that it is cliche. I know that the internet killed cyberspace, and that megacorporations do not exist (yet?), nor did the devolution and degradation of society into a faithless mass of anarchistic-bordering dregs that cheat and squirm as if writhing naked in the pits of hell.
I also know that not many people read this journal much any more. I havn't made a substantial update to it in months. Well, granted, I have been busy. I have been developing my game, and i'm not going at the rate that I wish I was. It's true that i'd like to do a lot of research before I solidly define what will be in my world and what wont (in terms of creating a fictionial setting), but when I approach creating the rules of the game, I seem to be trying to run through a thick mental jelly, if you accept the metaphor. This is my first real game, and i'm not making it easy on my self in any number of ways. I intend on creating a new system of gameplay as opposed to basing it on a predetermined or already existing engine or format such as the deceidedly genred GURPS RPG-creation ruleset.
Yes, I have played a fair amount of games in my time (albeit nothing compared to the true enthusiasts of a far vaster array of game formats than I have been exposed towards or have a liking to expose myself towards), the majority of those being video games 1st and board games coming in at a relatively close 2nd. This experience allows me a perspective on games in terms of mechanics, atmosphere, and ease of play (streamlining) to name some of the major influences/contributions, with other obvious ones existing but being far too numerous and fiddly in nature to define here. The experience gives me the ability to draw from sources of inspiration.
My game is the merging of a number of games that I have been exposed to, but in addition it will be the birth of the world as I see it. It will be the mirror of myself as any true form of media is. Novels are not books, mere literature that exist for academic critisism nor entertainment. True novels are a direct and raw reflection of the writer, a shard of their soul. Films are an extension of a director's and scriptwriter's lives (those being the major players in this metaphor; of course all contributors to a film inject a part of themselves into the project, no matter how small that may be).
Appropriately, my game shall thus be my reflection. However, in order to reflect oneself, one has to know oneself, and in order to learn about oneself one must learn about the world. The two knowledges are mutual. This knowledge of oneself is where I falter. But that isn't reason to lose hope in progress. Progress is inevitable as long as we're human. What makes us lose hope in progress is it's speed. The speed of the progress of the learning of myself is the fastest it has ever been, perhaps. The only other part that I can think of being the contender for my fastest speed of personal-awareness progress is about 13-14, when I first really began adolesence. However, speed was the uncontrollable focus of that time, as opposed to the focus being directed towards progress itself. I was unconciously burning energy at lightspeed, but all this energy was not disciplined, and instead of being detinated towards one direction and thus creating progress, it was instead spread out in a chaotic fashion as I slowly, over the years, learned to gain control over this energy.
A far simpler explanation of this is that once people begin to reach adolesence, their bodies go into over-drive, physically and mentally. In the midst of this sudden energy comes a time when young people begin to question the world about them, and form ideas of a higher nature than they have ever considered. True, remarkabley interlligent people mimic the thoughts and thought processes of adults at ages even before adolesence, but as humans we have a life cycle that includes adolesence that has a major and important role, and it cannot be denied nor ignored. Thus, even such geniusous will continue to progress intelligently, but especially during and after the approachment of adolesence.
This speed that I feel I have recently discovered, as discovered is the best word for it as I feel that it sat within me, embedded, waiting to be provoked, enticed, and coaxed out of it's hybernation, like a butterfly that has already spun it's cocoon, waiting for summer to beckon it's emmergence. This discovery is due in part to university, my exposure to a highly multicultural environment, as well as my experiences witnessing the different lifestyles of various social classes. It also helps that my current major is history - that has gained me invaluable insight.
I know that cyberpunk is out of taste. I know that the visions of the golden age of cyberpunk (loosely 1983-1994) were inaccurate in their specifics, but history repeatedly teaches us in many, many different forms that the predictions of man can not only but inaccurate and loose, but also blatantly wrong. However, we shouldn't allow this latter fact to deter us from trusting any foundly-based prophecies of man. Rather, just as mankind is ever drawn to extremism. totalitarianism, and viewing the world in a heavily polarized manner (i.e. black & white), so is he able to view the world in a balanced, flexible, and understanding manner.
So, as we look at the predictions of future from the past, recent past, and present, we should admire their specifics as mere entertainment and fancy, while on the other hand we should look at their underlying feelings as not only ideas of where the near future is going from here (for we are not creature of any degree of accuracy at long-range anything) but also the underlying feelings of the time in which the predictions are made. These feelings of the then-current age could range from embracements of then-modern movements, technologies, ideas, and etc. of the time, or the complete opposite, resulting in a desire for change as a reaction to disagreement (and indeed even disgust or hate) over whatever then-current 'thing' is being conciously or unconciously approached by the prophet.
In this sense, by looking at past predictions we can gain a valuable insight into what it means to be human, and even further what it meant to be human in the time and society in which that predition was made.
So I think you might be able to understand, at this point, if you've stayed with me up to this point, what conclusion I have come to. I love cyberpunk in many different ways, but all the same I have a strong love for it. Cyberpunk is oldhat. It's old news. The generations before me got it, experienced it, and maybe even understood the underlying intellectualism behind it. I'm just now getting it all. I'm one generation late. It's not even cool enough to be considered retro-cool: it's far too soon, and the causes of it's "Death" (it did not die: i'll get into that later) are everywhere in our lives nowadays in 2007. "Old" Cyberpunk will be cool once again in another generation's time, and the then-readers will read it and remark that age old, "Oh, how silly they were back then". But silliness in how times view each other in terms of predictions and retrospectives is for another time.
What am I getting at? Cyberpunk has heavily defined the generation after it's golden age, the one I loosely defined. This is, of course, because one comes right after the other, but we cannot skip generations: in order for one to be formed, another has to come before it, and this particular precusor has a enormous ammount of influence upon it's child. So. Here is what I am getting at.
Understanding Cyberpunk is thus understanding my childhood, but even further than that it is understanding the age I live in.
Understanding Cyberpunk is understanding, in part, myself.
And as such, Understanding Cyberpunk is to, in part, understand my generation.