Neuromancer
Member
Hey devs, I've been waiting since 2001 for this and you guys have failed me at every turn. Well I've got tired of sitting around on my haunches, so this thread is to tell you here's the game you should be making, and don't worry about paying me. Playing the game once you're done will be reward enough. Before I give you my pitch, here's some source material to get you up to speed:
Books
Burning Chrome- a collection of short stories by William Gibson. Awesome.
Neuromancer novel also by William Gibson. Also awesome.
Film
Blade Runner- No explanation needed I don't think.
Wikipedia's entry on cyberpunk:
OK so there have been cyberpunk games in the past, but not along these lines (Uplink comes to mind as probably the best). Here's the pitch:Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk", published in 1983. It features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order. Cyberpunk works are well situated within postmodern literature.
Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporations, and tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to be marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its creators ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction.
"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body." - Lawrence Person
I'm proposing a GTA style cyberpunk game in which you run around a city in the near future, but instead of killing prostitutes and doing drug deals (which you could still do on the side, prostitutes and drugs clearly aren't going anywhere) it'd be more about hacking into computers to steal data and money, upgrading your body with grafted muscle and software implants, couriering data Johnny Mnemonic style (short story of which is in Burning Chrome, forget the Keanu Reeves disaster), buying and selling 'hot' equipment, hustling at virtual/augmented reality games, etc. At it's heart could be a heist story like in Neuromancer or feel free to make up your own thing, that's less important than the world and the setting.
This could potentially be the greatest game of all time if you make it right. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.