NORCO, the first-ever winner of the Tribeca Games Award, has just released, and it’s well worth your time. This genre-bending narrative adventure game is inspired by the titular town of Norco, Louisiana, and the greater New Orleans region, developer Geography of Robots blends true stories and personal history with inspirations from Southern Gothic literature and pulp fiction to create a uniquely dark and captivating game experience.
This title is brought to life in a beautiful pixel-art style that draws you into the world of the game and invites you to just live in the titular place for the runtime of the game. The story follows what seems, at first, to be a regular missing person mystery, but soon spirals into a much larger story. An official description reads; ‘The lines between salvation, memory, technology, and nature bleed together into a uniquely compelling, contemplative narrative rooted in Southern literature, pulp fiction, and point & click adventure games both classic and contemporary.’
NORCO comes from Geography of Robots, a game dev collab that explores the hidden geographies, conspiracies, folklore, and environmental histories of the American South in a collection of games, interactive fiction, and other experiments. The devs even released a fascinating ‘digital art gallery’ for the game that can be entirely played in your browser.
NORCO is available on Steam and PC Game Pass, and you can watch the launch trailer here.
