I recently replayed Norco (Geography of Robots), which I included in last year’s list of games I loved, for a video game club discussion — and I found myself enjoying it even more the second time around. The writing is rich and nuanced, with storytelling the utilizes its point-and-click format to explore a sense of isolation in a world impacted by climate change and corporate exploitation. This is a world with advanced technologies, like cybernetic robots and automated supermarkets, but these technologies are not readily available to the working class who are forced to live in communities that face regular flooding and continual entropy — a feeling that is perfectly reflected in the pixel art with its classical compositional style.
