Inspiration reference/bibliography
Cyberpunk can be a slightly slippery genre. For something that's a moderately well known genre it's got some very thin roots and limited 'classic works'. Sometimes it's rooted in political commentary: a warning against corporate fascistic dystopia. Sometimes it's just sci-fi adventures on neon nights.
At "A Life on the Edge" we're very much in the latter category but the corporations are still definitely not your friends.
In general we could be described as playing in the 'Mike Pondsmith extended universe' of games and the other media that inspired or was inspired by them them.
Games
Cyberpunk 2077
Based off the original tabletop RPGs, this AAA action game was a huge hit through 2020-2022 and responsible for the decision to launch "A Life on the Edge" as it caused a resurgence of interest in the genre.
Cyberpunk Red
A reboot of Cyberpunk 2020 for the actual 2020s that updates a lot of the dated aspects of the original tabletop RPG both in terms of setting and system.
Cyberpunk 2020
A classic of the 90s tabletop RPG era. Cyberpunk 2020 features characters struggling to make ends meet in a dystopian corporate ruled future. Play style tended towards heist/investigative action with the corporations sometimes the paymaster sometimes the adversary and the protagonists being outcasts and malcontents.
Movies
Akira
While we don't go for cosmic superpowers the views of Neo-Tokyo are iconic.
Johnny Mnemonic
Somewhat reviled at the time this semi-adaptation/pastiche of the William Gibson classics does manage to have nice visuals.
Strange Days
Maybe one of the best 90s Cyberpunk movies. A notorious flop but covers lots of classic material. Braindance recordings, snuff video, corruption and seedy violence.
Upgrade
A warning against getting computers connected to your brain. Nice low budget horror-adjacent movie.
Elysium
Astonishing modern visuals and a strong Cyberpunk elements of many kinds. Highly recommended if you've not seen it. I'll take a ChemRail please.
Blade Runner/Blade Runner 2049
Strong on the dystopia and 'personhood' aspects. Classics that inspire the visuals if not necessarily storylines you're likely to run into in our LARP.
TV shows
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
A direct animated spin-off from Cyberpunk 2077 goes the anime route with a more extreme/stylised visuals than can be managed at LARP :-)
Books
The Sprawl Trilogy - William Gibson
Essentially the ones that started it all.
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
90s Edgelord Cyberpunk. Nukes, swordfighting in VR, archaeology, floating trash cities, linguistics and mind viruses. Needs a content warning around underage sex/sexual assault but otherwise a really groundbreaking piece of work.
Hardwired/Voice of the Whirlwind - Walter John Williams
Oft forgotten companion pieces to those of William Gibson but much more of an influence on the Cyberpunk RPG than they are. Full of things that became de-rigeur in the genre.