What was a seminal sci-fi work for you, that wasn't a mainstream property or well known? What are your big influence deep cuts?
it's very funny to me that you have such a bead drawn on me to tell that i have a sci-fi work that was really influential on me that's not well known.
What a fucking question though. I think the two big non-mainstream Sci-Fi things that still stick with me are Tron: Legacy and E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. That's what I can pull on from around or before 2016.
I'm so in love with Tron: Legacy. Did you know that the Director, Joseph Kosinski, had a background in CGI before taking on the project as a Director? It's a fact I tell myself to pretend I know anything about movies, because it's how I make meaning out of seeing the glossy glass of the whole movie. Everything is this black glass in a world of eternal night, with the reflections of a world of electrical lighting streaks across it. The CGI Jeff Bridges as CLU hits, because CLU is a computer generated Jeff Bridges. The movie knows how to make the Rinzler look like a badass. It knows how to shoot a lightcycle in an arena. All of this is playing out in the most gorgeous moody glass and electric world. With a Daft Punk soundtrack. I will always be chasing the satisfaction of the visuals. I'm happy that I still think it holds up.
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy is an ugly game. It's a source game with complex systems and spartan assets, except for the intricate character models. But by god, are those levels massive and empty. I would load in with 2 friends on the Mars map and we would just explore to try and find out where we were supposed to go. Somebody take the sniper rifle. Somebody take the sword. What's that way? Do you see that big guy over there? E.Y.E. makes the maps this big so you get into it's systems. You should upgrade your legs to run faster and jump higher, but when you don't do that you are taking 30 minutes to fucking wander around a huge canyon, caves, and temples and the ambience is immaculate.
So, are there deep cuts here? I can't really say. I'm writing my ttrpgs and stuff but what I love about Tron: Legacy and E.Y.E. aren't particularly engaging there. It's different to like, take the opportunity in a ttrpg to talk about or highlight a cool mech that evokes the tron legacy than to just see it, see it move etc. Wandering around in a ttrpg is different when you aren't being told about a canyon and how small you are in it than just seeing it. My engagement with ttrpgs as a player actually comes from more character stuff. I really want to think about how the player characters all feel about each other, trying to understand their relationship etc. Those things are still present in Tron and EYE but they weren't things i picked up on when i first experienced them. Hope that answers enough!