NORCO Teams Up With Fellow South Louisiana Artists, Thou, On Joint Album
Thou represents an aspect of Louisiana that's close to my heart.
The members know the suburbs of New Orleans and Baton Rouge well. I've personally known Bryan, Thou's singer, for most of my life, and he's been committed to the New Orleans underground music scene for as long as I've known him. He helped keep DIY punk alive in the city throughout the early 2000s during the post-Hurricane Katrina era.
Thou captures a strange irreverence in their sound and visuals that's specific to the region and is rooted in decades of house shows, zine libraries, urban exploration, protests, and carnival theater. Their style has greatly influenced the design of NORCO, and for that reason it felt natural for Geography of Robots to collaborate with Thou on our soundtrack.
Today we have two announcements – the first is the NORCO Original Soundtrack, a collaborative album available March 24 that contains the complete in-game score by Gewgawly I (Geography of Robots composer) as well as an album's worth of new songs by Thou. We've put out six track samples from the album. Check out the whole playlist here or hear some of Thou's 'View of a Burning City':
[previewyoutube="cJexVHXzQ8Y;full"]
The second announcement is the NORCO Special Edition bundle, also available March 24. With the bundle you'll get a deal on the base game plus the NORCO Original Soundtrack and The Art of NORCO digital artbook all together.
We're 3 weeks away from launch! Thank you, sincerely, for all the interest and support that's carried us this far.
Y.
The Art of NORCO Digital Artbook; See It First in Virtual Art Gallery & Auction
NORCO has its roots in an informal oral history project I started with a close friend. We went around South Louisiana interviewing people, taking landscape photographs and assembling what we gathered into various kinds of media. I painted acrylic and watercolour landscapes in a small sketchbook that were inspired by that work, and that sketchbook became the foundation for the art featured in NORCO.
There's a lot more to say about the development of the game, and in order to elaborate further, we're releasing a PDF digital companion piece alongside the full game on March 24th. "The Art of NORCO" will feature over 80 pages of art and insight. It'll also cover a bit of history about my hometown of Norco, Louisiana, as well as early photos, sketches and paintings that informed the art of the game. There'll be interviews with Geography of Robots members, process shots of Jesse Jacobi's key art, and more.
If you want a glimpse into the book's content, our publisher Raw Fury just opened a virtual art gallery dedicated to NORCO with a section of the exhibit devoted to NORCO's concept art. You can explore the virtual gallery for free here on Steam, or on your browser here.
Raw Fury will be auctioning off the IRL art from the virtual gallery with proceeds split between fellow NORCO artist Jesse Jacobi, and an environmental organization in the New Orleans region. Jesse painstakingly hand-painted the NORCO Key Art. It's worth checking out the virtual gallery if only to spend some time with his masterpiece. If you feel inspired by the work and can swing it, consider placing a bid.
There'll be more announcements coming before launch - only one month away! Thank you for following along,
Yuts
NORCO Supports macOS; Play Act One Demo on Mac Today!
Dear Mac users,
I'm pleasantly surprised to share that NORCO will now support macOS in addition to PC when it launches on March 24th. The demo, Act One, is also playable on Mac as of today. None of us have a functional Mac, but recently discovered that the game was nearly compatible with macOS as is, with a few minor tweaks. Sorry to those we kept waiting this long!
In case you missed it four weeks ago, here's our Act One Demo trailer, featuring a music track from metal band, Thou, remixed by NORCO's composer, Gewgawly I.
[previewyoutube="Fjz-z6uO1NM;full"]
If you want to get a sense of NORCO's vibe first you can check out @AlphaBetaGamer's no-commentary playthrough of the demo, or this commentary-filled playthrough by @RawFury's own Gemma.
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We're still hard at work finishing NORCO, nearly in the home stretch now. Stay tuned for more announcements.
Luv ya! Yuts
New NORCO Demo ACT ONE Available Now
We're happy to share NORCO Act One with you today, as well as the news that the full game NORCO will be available on Steam March 24.
NORCO Act One serves as a demo and allows you to play the entire first act of the full game for free. Whatever progress you make in Act One will carry over to the full game should you decide to purchase it. Go download it right now and give us a wishlist while you're at it.
We've also teamed up with our dear friends, the much beloved New Orleans metal band Thou. You can hear an exclusive remix of their track 'View of a Burning City' in the NORCO Act One trailer here.
[previewyoutube="Fjz-z6uO1NM;full"]
Thou represents an aspect of Louisiana that's close to my heart. They capture a kind of strange irreverence in their sound and visuals that's specific to the region and has influenced the game NORCO. It's rooted in decades of house shows, zine libraries, urban exploration, protests, and carnival theater.
We're working on some more stuff with the band that I can't share yet but I've been trying to collaborate with them for a while and I'm stoked it's finally happening.
Sending Love, Y.
EXPANDED NORCO DEMO ACT ONE AVAILABLE ON STEAM JANUARY 20
We are happy to share that the expanded demo, NORCO Act One, will be available on January 20th as part of Hitcents’ Big Adventure Event on Steam.
The BAE will showcase a huge array of breathtaking adventure games from January 20-24, and we are proud and humbled for NORCO to take part with a much updated and polished demo experience. If you played the original NORCO demo last summer then you’ll immediately notice the redrawn art and redesigned UI, plus tons of new dialogue and a new interactive segment added. This time around the demo will stay up indefinitely, and your saved game will carry over if you decide to purchase the full release.
I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish these last months. I couldn't ask for better friends and collaborators than the ones who've assembled around the project, both on the dev and the publisher side. Thank you to everyone involved and to those who have helped us feel supported as we work towards release.
I'm sharing a few of the newly drawn environments you'll get to explore next week. Enjoy Act One and make sure to check out some other great demos from #theBAE on the 20th.
Sending Love, Y.
Expanded Demo Coming in January; New and Redrawn Artwork
Some of you may have played the NORCO demo that was released for the Steam Next Fest last June. We’re happy to share that we’ll be making an expanded version of that demo available in January. It’ll include redrawn art, a more polished UI, dialogue style options, a new interactive segment, and more dialogue. This demo will stay up indefinitely, and your saved game will carry over if you decide to purchase the full release.
We’ve become completely obsessed with this project – refining ideas, revisiting old systems and environments, fleshing everything out and making it feel as balanced and alive as we can. We have a playable “core loop” from the title screen to the credits. There are still lots of placeholders, but we’re slowly swapping those out, filling in dialogue, and finishing the thing. It feels surreal after carrying this project for so long.
I’m sharing some new and redrawn pieces here, as well as some works in progress. There’s plenty more we want to share, and soon we’ll be able to, but in the meantime, keep an eye out for the expanded demo release.
You can also check out what our friends and Publisher Raw Fury think about the upcoming demo release here.
