NORCO

NORCO is a point and click narrative adventure set in a distorted version of South Louisiana, taking in sinking suburbs and industrial swamps. The player’s brother, Blake, has gone missing following the death of their mother. To find him, the player follows a fugitive security android through refineries, strip malls and drainage ditches in the suburbs of New Orleans. The setting draws on the town of Norco, Louisiana and other parts of Greater New Orleans.

What begins as a search for a missing sibling develops into a mystery spanning several generations, with themes of memory, technology, nature and salvation. The narrative draws on Southern literature, pulp fiction and both classic and contemporary point and click adventure games. Players solve puzzles, fight corporate security guards and infiltrate an influencer cult occupying an abandoned mall on the edge of New Orleans. Allies include a bayou pirate, a private detective, the escaped security android and the player’s stuffed childhood monkey.

The game uses painterly, cinematic pixel art to depict its everyday science fiction world of vanishing swamplands and sprawling oil refineries. Field recordings and sound design are by fmAura, and the post-industrial electronic score is by Gewgawly I. The game is a work of fiction and is not intended to represent any real individuals, entities or events.