Relationships are established and unfurled with a huge amount of grace, as is the wider narrative of Norco ’s setting and people. There’s an economy of language in Norco which allows nearly every facet of the writing to shine with subtle details. The story itself is linear, with branching endings, but generally speaking all choices affect how characters see each other, specifically how protagonist Kay reflects upon her relationships, and how that impacts the ways in which she interacts with them. Norco similarly has a unique approach to narrative choice, again revolving around smaller details.

Within Norco, the strangeness is within small textures owed to its genre broken and beaten people just trying to scrape by, with a lean towards faith and religion. Norco is one of those games where gameplay is kept relatively simple in service of a strong narrative focus, perhaps closest to games such as Disco Elysium and Night In The Woods, especially in its synthesis of genuine humanity and the strange. Here, in a beautiful point and click adventure, is an exploration of those textures and people. It bears deep scars of the constant churn of industry, and the slow choking that has on people. Norco, or New Orleans Refinery Company, is a real town living in the permanent shadow of Shell. It delivers on this basic sentiment with enthusiasm and then some creating a swirl of decay, desperation, hope and faith which would make Flannery O’Connor herself smile.Įverything within Norco’s world is dying, or dead, or being choked under the boot of a gigantic capitalist monolith, much akin to the real place.

Stepping away from Norco the game, here’s the slug line: “A sci-fi southern gothic adventure…” I stopped reading here.

Disco elysium endings