Video game collaborative Geography of Robots and unpublisher Raw Fury have partnered up to release the Southern Gothic sci-fi point and click adventure NORCO.
The cancer metastasized.
It was in her liver, then her lungs.
Then it was in her brain.
She was on chemo. Never finished her third course.
She died in hospice care on Jefferson Highway. Blake said the traffic shook the building.
He left before she drew her last breath.
Alone with the morphine drip and the rattling glass.
That’s how Catherine died.
NORCO is a sci-fi Southern Gothic adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of Louisiana’s petrochemical hinterlands. Your brother Blake has gone missing in the aftermath of your mother’s death. In the hopes of finding him, you must follow a fugitive security cyborg through the refineries, strip malls, and drainage ditches of suburban New Orleans.
Asked on how NORCO came to be, Yutsi of Geography of Robots had this to say:
”The game started when I was a kid, really. My family home is a few blocks from the refinery in Norco. Me and my sister would wander along the fence line and dream up RPGs and survival horrors that could take place there. I was interested in the history of my hometown from a young age, and I always embedded what I learned in those original concepts. I’d come up with narratives that involved explosions, gas leaks, residential displacement, wetland erosion, etc. “NORCO” is, among other things, a kind of homage to that process of daydreaming and discovery.”
“The first time I caught a glimpse of Geography of Robots’ landscapes and vistas, I was immediately impressed,” says Johan Toresson of Raw Fury. “They had the scope and feeling of an impressionist painting, a sort of oil on pixel canvas filtered through a ketamine muted haze. Speaking to the crew and getting the opportunity to try the adventure behind the pixels left my jaw hanging. The world, the prose, and the way they filter the best of what a point and click used to be through a modern lens of what a classic can be today set the crew here at Raw Fury on fire. Not long after that we got to discussing crawfish boils and NOLA sludge, and that was that.”
WHAT TO EXPECT:
- Immerse yourself in an uncanny and surreal South Louisiana
- NORCO features detail-rich and atmospheric pixel art born from the natural and industrial landscapes of South Louisiana, accompanied by the eclectic soundscapes of composer Gewgawly I.
- Meet strange, unforgettable, and dangerous characters
- Navigate your way through a world of uncertainty and moral ambiguity as you venture deeper into the swamp to unravel the threads left by your brother. Fight, sneak, or fast-talk your way past any hometown bullies, security contractors, or death cults that stand in your way.
- Explore vast scenic landscapes of pulsing nightlife and eerie solitude
- Skulk through the crowds of downtown New Orleans, recruit a wild-eyed river dog, break into a refinery, boat through cypress swamps, and explore the desolate Batture woods of the Mississippi River.
- Discover a world haunted by both past and future
From Southern Gothic literature to adventure game classics to experimental indies, NORCO fuses its wide sources of inspiration into something new and unseen.
ABOUT
Geography of Robots
Geography of Robots is a video game collaborative that explores the hidden geographies, conspiracies, folklore, and ecology of the American Deep South.
Raw Fury
Raw Fury is a (un)publisher. We don’t care about genres or mechanics. We care about experiences and emotions. And we want to help developers make magic.