All these cyberpunk-themed tabletop RPGs on itch.io and not one of them that aims for the vibe of those goofy-ass Canadian YA cyberpunk shows that aired on YTV back in the 1990s. You know the ones:
- the protagonist is named something safely conventional like Kyle or Jake, while every single other kid is sporting a moniker like “Glitch” or “Fractal” or “K C” with absolutely no indication that these aren’t the names their parents gave them
- everybody’s wearing an eleven-year-old white kid’s idea of what hip-hop fashion looks like, except for the ambiguously teenage principal villain, who’s sporting a Spirit Halloween knockoff of a random military uniform
- 90% of the show is clearly filmed in some anonymous industrial park, apart from a handful of flashbacks which were probably shot in the producer’s house
- the writing seems to be unclear on the distinction between “hacker” and “wizard”; there’s a strong possibility none of the writers have ever actually used a computer in their lives
- Ryan Reynolds is there
I swear I’ll write it myself if I have to.
(For those asking for examples they can watch, that’s going to be tough because a lot of them were short runs and/or pilots that never got picked up, and many appear to have become lost media; the only one I can think off of the top of my head that you’d easily be able to torrent is The Odyssey – which is technically not an example of the type, being a fantasy adventure show set in a kid’s coma dream, but otherwise very much adheres to the forms of the genre!)
#i remember one of them had roller blades and teen pregnancy and everyone lived in a mall? (via @tacitgadget)
That definitely rings a bell, and I’m pretty sure I watched it when I was like fifteen, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was called.
I definitely remember watching shows like this just while flipping channels on, like, a Saturday afternoon; but yeah, I’m damned if I have any idea what any of them were called.
…I mean, it was a cartoon, but “The Bots Master” had a similar vibe.
Hey, at least you correctly identified that I’m talking about live-action shows. Half the people in the notes think I’m vaguing about ReBoot.
There was this one where all the adults were gone and the teenager who rebuilt society all had like, bubble-gum pop meets cyberpunk style. At one point they instituted the death penalty by popular vote? Someone in-verse put together a PSA about how the new punishment decided by vote system worked.
Hm. You might be thinking of 2030 CE; it was a very late entry in the genre, debuting in 2002, and the cast skews somewhat older than was typical, but it’s not a bad place to start given that most of the earlier examples are such a pain in the ass to find.