Norco exemplifies the tenuous relationships we have with our phones

At the beginning of the point and click adventure NorcoYour protagonist, Kay, throws her cell phone into the Rio Grande. Just prior to this, we witness conversations with her brother, Blake, who calls Kay with distressing news regarding their mother’s cancer symptoms. As we learn of those calls, the lines of two roughly drawn, scowling faces light up over the silhouettes of Kay and her brother in a video chat. By throwing away her phone, Kay distances herself from a childhood spent amid “devastating rituals” in a town exploited by the local oil industry. NorcoThe characters of have a complicated relationship with the past, perfectly encapsulated by their parasitic relationships with their phones.

Norco switches between Kay’s perspective and that of her mother Catherine. Catherine chronicles the weeks leading up to her death and her misadventures with a gig worker app called QuackJob, which she downloads to pay an ever-growing stack of medical bills. The app allows Catherine to work for a company called Superduck and perform various tasks (basically fetching quests) to earn a fake digital currency called “$QCK”. When Catherine arrives at a warehouse for one of her Superduck assignments, she meets the figure behind the enterprise. It’s not Chad in Patagonia, but a huge, monstrous bird with a web of writhing flesh beneath its wings. Here we learn that Superduck is some sort of virus that pervades technology and plants alike.

Image: Geography of Robots

Although Catherine’s involvement in this gig work ultimately leads her down a dark path, her phone is also the primary tool that empowers her to navigate the world. She travels with a tiny rideshare account of about $40. She uses her phone to discover secret statues hidden in augmented reality and unlock new areas. In another segment, the skillful use of her phone allows her to record and expose hypocrisy in a cult. But in the end it all serves Superduck.

Exploring the town of Norco reveals a world full of people struggling to make ends meet. At one point, when you’re talking to a lanky silhouette hunched over a car, the character tells you that they’ve started going for a ride, but things aren’t going too well because they’re worried that’s going to happen her grandfather’s car breaks down. Catherine’s friend Dallas describes how he switched from Craigslist to Superduck to make money, but in reality he just wants to spend more time with his family instead of working gigs all night.

Phones are often touted as the perfect tool for staying in touch with the real people we love, but Norco paints a more realistic picture of our current relationships with these devices. When Catherine texts Kay, she doesn’t hear from her daughter. Instead, we see a steady stream of notifications from a collection agency about her medical bills. Although phones can be used to maintain and strengthen relationships, they are also understood as a means to extract further value from their users. NorcoThe portrayal of this dichotomy is harsh but honest; it illustrates how phones can be a useful tool for exploiting the marginalized and impoverished. And after all that, I’d probably throw my phone in the Rio Grande too.