Cyberpunk vs Steampunk

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The names are built the same way and both invent a world where machinery is left exposed, drawn down to the fittings on the device and the city.

How to tell them apart. Name the material of the exposed machinery. Steampunk runs on brass, leather and gears under amber lamplight, while Cyberpunk runs on plastic and screens under neon.

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk — 新宿・歌舞伎町のネオンサイン — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0Cyberpunk — 新宿・歌舞伎町の看板群 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0Cyberpunk — 香港・德己立街の夜景 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Advanced technology and ruined daily life share the same frame, so the future arrives as promise and as threat.

Steampunk

Steampunk — 『Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition』1854 の機械展示図版 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainSteampunk — 1851年ロンドン万国博覧会に出品された揺動機関 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0Steampunk — Scheidler Machine Works の機械 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Extends steam-age materials and machinery into a tangible alternate history.

CyberpunkSteampunk
Era1980s–Victorian retrofuture
FamilyVisions of the FutureVisions of the Future
KindStyleStyle
CuesRainy nights / Multilingual neon / Dense cabling / Dark citiesBrass / Gears / Leather / Gauges
Best used forSpeaking of technology's light and shadow together · Thick world-building for games and filmThe romance of invention for stories and games · Centering the feel of machinery
TypeAngular sans, monospace, multiple scriptsVictorian serifs plus technical monospace
CompositionStack information densely on dark planesLayer machine drawings, labels, frames
MaterialBlack, teal, red neon, raindropsBrass, dark brown, soot, old paper
CautionDon't use Asian cities as a symbol of otherness. Make the fictional social order concrete.Don't just paste gears on. Keep the world's technology and society coherent.

Put these two together

Visions of the Future

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