Hi! I’m Yuts, a member of the game development cooperation Geography of Robots.
We released our first game Norco in March and are now bringing it to consoles with the help of our publisher Raw Fury. The game is a first-person point-and-click adventure in the style of classics such as snapper, Rise of the Dragonand Déjà-vu. You play as Kay, a transient young woman who returns to her hometown of Norco, Louisiana after the death of her mother, only to find her brother missing. Through this narrative, the player explores an eerie and surreal depiction of southern Louisiana, filled with deranged trench prophets, influencer cults, distributed flesh AI, and other visions of an alternate present. We were surprised and very grateful for the reception the game received after winning the first-ever Tribeca Games Award as well as the Long Feature award at Berlin A Maze-Fest in 2021.
The game began as an informal geography project after Hurricane Katrina. A close friend and I traveled through southern Louisiana taking photos and conducting interviews to understand how the storm was affecting our home. I’m from Norco so I focused specifically on the city and the surrounding River Parish region. We ran this project from about 2007 to 2010. From there I started experimenting online with open source libraries, learning pixel art and basic game design. I used this to build a side scroller prototype loosely based on the observations and research we gathered. It was during this time that I began collaborating with sound artist Gewgawly I and the project quickly grew in scope.
Around 2020, after signing with Raw Fury, Aaron Gray came on board to help port the game to Unity from a JavaScript library. The incredible traditional painter Jesse Jacobi joined our crew the following year to help with pixel art. When the game released in March, we had a small team and a supportive community. We’ve spent the last few months adding quality of life features to the game. These include a combat bypass; an “expert mode” for players who want more challenging puzzles; custom fonts; and gamepad support, which we really hope console players will find comfortable and intuitive.
Norco is available now with Game Pass on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC. We hope you enjoy it!
NORKO
raw anger
$14.99
$11.99
PC game pass
Xbox Game Pass
NORCO is a text-based point-and-click adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and industrial swamps of an increasingly surreal and contorted southern Louisiana. Your brother Blake disappeared after your mother died. You must follow a fugitive security android through the refineries, shopping malls and drainage ditches of the New Orleans suburbs in hopes of finding him. Immerse yourself in a surreal and eerie South Louisiana: NORCO’s painterly and cinematic pixel art draws the player into its everyday sci-fi world of vanishing swamplands, labyrinthine oil refineries, and other landscapes set by the titular city of Norco, Louisiana, and other parts of Louisiana were inspired by the New Orleans area. Immerse yourself in the rich field recordings and sound design of fmAura and a driving, post-industrial electronic music from Gewgawly I. Unravel a mystery in a world haunted by the past and threatened by the future: What can be called a simple search for your missing one Brother begins is fast becoming a generational mystery. The lines between redemption, memory, technology and nature merge into a uniquely compelling, contemplative narrative rooted in Southern fiction, pulp fiction and point and click adventure games, both classic and contemporary. Alongside sharply drawn characters with deep roots, rich backstories and complex motifs, discover: a chaotic bayou pirate, a barstool private investigator, an escaped security android and your childhood stuffed monkey will all offer help in an eroding and uncertain world. Solve puzzles, fight your way past corporate security thugs, and infiltrate an influencer cult occupying an abandoned mall on the outskirts of New Orleans.”
