What TOXIC MINDSETS are you PERPETUATING?

(apologies for yet again using the bit of what THING are you THING but I still enjoy it)

Last night, thanks to the news and everything, I was trying to cool off and get chill by just looking at some board game Kickstarters. I do it from time to time just to get an idea of what's out there. I came across one that looked cool, called CYTRESS.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/cytress/cyt...sive-cyberpunk-world

Sorry to take out my rage and grief on this poor thing, but it was there and it pissed me off.

So it looks neat! There's this 3D floating city (3D things are now the new hotness I think) and your characters have lifepaths that develop and it's very old-school cyberpunk looking. Small wonder it caught my eye. But then I read the description.

Welcome to Cytress. You play as a rebel merc who has zeroed in on one goal. To get into Stratos – Earth’s largest sky hub. It is in this sky colony where you will find Earth’s most powerful, wealthiest, and most influential individuals.

These people enjoy having the largest portion of the pie, not to mention toying with the lives of everyone else on Earth – the Underbelly, as the inhabitants of Stratos love to call it. But you are not the type who tolerates these kinds of apathetic, arrogant attitudes. You must challenge these oligarchs and get into Stratos; you consider this action to be a show of defiance, proof that the leviathan city is not exclusive to the powerful few.

But first, you must establish a name in the Underbelly, a strategy that will help in getting you and your crew into Stratos. Unfortunately, this is a journey that's not free from danger. Stratos has tight security, and authorities have their eyes on the gates 24/7. Anyone caught entering illegally is subject to instant termination without trial.

Fortunately, you have found a way in. The Tubes – vertical shafts that serve as the city’s waste chutes. The Tubes will be your one-way ticket to wonderland, your only chance of acquiring a large portion of the pie. Of course, you will need the help of your crew to get in. So hone your skills, upgrade your abilities, and procure as many supplies as possible to achieve your objective.

You must employ cunning strategies and pick the juiciest missions among the lot. Regardless of which faction you choose, remember to use their key abilities to your advantage. That’s how you can outwit the competition and eventually win the game. So do you have what it takes to become a part of Stratos’ elite citizenry? Or do you want to live a continued oppressed existence in the Underbelly?

The 3D city is where the wealthy elite hang out, shitting on the Underbelly. You, a Rebel, must...get into the city.

Faced with oppressive inequality, you're tasked with simply becoming an oppressor. The project is based in Australia but it's the American Dream: crush people with a boot and then sell them a small chance to become the boot.

I understand cyberpunk and dystopias. I'm well versed in sardonic takes on classic storylines. I'm just...tired of it. I'm tired of being told that everything has to be a river of shit because the world is a river of shit so the only thing to do is get used to swimming in shit. I'm worn out from the notion that even in imaginative playgrounds for people to have fun in the best we can offer is a fantasy of "got mine, fuck you". As a leftist in America I have had more than enough hope drained out of me. For fuck's sake give me some small vision of rising up, of creating a better world.

In the game there are different factions you can go to in order to get what you need to get into the city. There is also a mechanism by which you can take the faction that helps you and turn them over to bounty hunters employed by the city. Jesus christ. Is that "realistic"? Maybe. Is it fun? I guess it is for some people. For me it's just shitty. Not just a shitty cynical way to treat others, but a shitty lazy way to say "oh well that's life, sucks but may's well take advantage of it". We are daily pounded down by forces telling us to give up and give in. Why the fuck would I spend my free money and free time for just more of it? What is the point here?

"It's just a game, it doesn't mean anything." But it does. It reinforces this worldview. It inures us to it. It presents it as a fait accompli. It's just another belt sander grinding us down, but expecting to be paid to do so.

"I guess every game has to be rainbows and puppies for you?" No, and I have plenty of games that present worlds I don't want to live in. I enjoy Neuroshima Hex and 51st State. Android is a favorite. Crisis is one I like. But there's something about this one that just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I'm wrong and just cranky from Yet Another Children Murdered Event, but this seems to offer nothing except just the chance to take human misery and luxuriate in it, to fantasize about literally looking down on others because you made it, you're now special. And there's just so much of that already. It's the same fantasy that gives us the dysfunctional (at least for most people) government we have, that gives us cryptocurrency disaster stories, that gives us, I'd argue, more Yet Another Children Murdered Events.

I'm just tired of it. It's exhausting. It's not new, it's not novel, it's not interesting. It's lazy and it's trite. And, I think, it's harmful. Not actively, in that I don't think playing this game will create bad people, but it just smooths over some really bad notions to make them more acceptable. And on a meta level, having the opportunity to create something aspirational and instead taking the cheap cynical path just grinds it in even more.

It's a great looking game, with an ugly, ugly core.

Isn't this a Matt Damon film? I think they just stole the idea.

A big part of American culture is to revel in the Lone Wolf. We export that to the world in the form of film and television. I think that cultural preference, the idea that a single underdog can bring down the system coupled with absurdly liberal gun laws is part of the reason that we're having so many anonymous mass shootings. So yeah, I can see why looking at this particular "campaign" would be distressing.

I can't read Kickstarter. It's all depressing as hell to me. The "funded in three hours!" bullshit just makes me feel like I'm in a den of thieves.

That is a very weird premise that goes against the whole point of cyberpunk. The victory condition should have been infiltrate the upper echelon and bring the whole thing down. Set a bomb, jettison the thing into space, etc.

Sagrilarus wrote: Isn't this a Matt Damon film? I think they just stole the idea, making it even more dismal.

I hear you, but I don't think this is a valid criticism. Everything steals from everything, and the stack of board games riffing off of films goes from here to the moon.

Yeah, in Elysium, Matt Damon is trying to destroy the upper society. This seems more Cyber sellout than Cyberpunk. I guess that mirrors TikTok, influencers, and the general vibe of current youth.

charlest wrote: Yeah, in Elysium, Matt Damon is trying to destroy the upper society. This seems more Cyber sellout than Cyberpunk. I guess that mirrors TikTok, influencers, and the general vibe of current youth.

So you're saying it's those damn kids?

Isn't it always?

Another issue with the superhero stuff is it perpetuates waiting for someone extraordinary to swoop in and solve societies problems for us. When in reality our problems can only be solved by ordinary people working together.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” ― George Orwell, 1984.

Thanks folks.

I wanted to post something about this on BGG but I'm not sure there's a point. I don't know how to talk about this game in a way that would achieve anything other than replies like "HAVE YOU PLAYED IT?", "INSTABUY, THANKS FOR PUTTING IT ON MY RADAR", or "LOL CYBERPUNK IS SUPPOSED TO BE DYSTOPIC"

Legomancer wrote: I wanted to post something about this on BGG but I'm not sure there's a point. I don't know how to talk about this game in a way that would achieve anything other than replies like "HAVE YOU PLAYED IT?", "INSTABUY, THANKS FOR PUTTING IT ON MY RADAR", or "LOL CYBERPUNK IS SUPPOSED TO BE DYSTOPIC"

Or every third post would be deleted by BGG's newschool overzealous mod attitudes, with wonderful placeholders including:

This post has been removed by a moderator - Disruptive

or

This post has been removed by a moderator - Antagonistic

or

This post has been removed by a moderator - Trolling

or

This post has been removed by a moderator - Derailing

Because your duty on the internet is to CONSUME and BE NICE.
Why can't you just be nice?!?
"SAY SOMETHING NICE!!!"

Faced with oppressive inequality, you're tasked with simply becoming an oppressor. The project is based in Australia but it's the American Dream: crush people with a boot and then sell them a small chance to become the boot.

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

(allegedly John Steinbeck, but probably apocryphal.)

fightcitymayor wrote:

Legomancer wrote: I wanted to post something about this on BGG but I'm not sure there's a point. I don't know how to talk about this game in a way that would achieve anything other than replies like "HAVE YOU PLAYED IT?", "INSTABUY, THANKS FOR PUTTING IT ON MY RADAR", or "LOL CYBERPUNK IS SUPPOSED TO BE DYSTOPIC"

Or every third post would be deleted by BGG's newschool overzealous mod attitudes, with wonderful placeholders including:

This post has been removed by a moderator - Disruptive

or

This post has been removed by a moderator - Antagonistic

or

This post has been removed by a moderator - Trolling

or

This post has been removed by a moderator - Derailing

Because your duty on the internet is to CONSUME and BE NICE.
Why can't you just be nice?!?
"SAY SOMETHING NICE!!!"

And after that, go eat at .....Taco Bell ! All restaurants are Taco Bell, they are the only ones who survived the franchise wars.