Have you heard of Norco, the new point-and-click adventure praised for its gorgeous pixel art, sublime writing, and poetic exploration of class, identity, faith, and materialism? Set in the real-life town of Norco, Louisiana, the film is a heated social commentary on capitalism and environmental destruction, and when people talk about Norco, they often refer to its insightful use of science fiction, its hyper-local focus on a specific region in the Deep South, and its universal They talk about how much it resonates as a story (if you want an easy comparison to Kentucky's Route Zero, I wrote about its lazy abbreviations and game punk roots here).

What I like best about Norco is not so much its nobility. In an abandoned mall in the second act, the player brings discord to a cult of unstable boys who call themselves Garrett. Armed with the voice memo app on my in-game phone, I gleefully check the box for "unethical modern behavior." At last, a game that understands the weakest, tiniest, most chaotic parts of humanity. At last, I feel I have been seen.

Norco is the first game from Geography of Robots, a collective founded by Yutz, a writer/designer born and raised in Norco. The story follows Kay, a young woman who returns home to Norco to find her vulnerable brother Blake after the death of her mother. Kay is somewhat of a nomad, fleeing her roots and surviving in a post-apocalyptic America of self-made militias, widespread gentrification, and fraying infrastructure. Players are drawn into a surreal, tech-noir mystery as they move back and forth between Kay and her mother, Catherine, shortly before her death. An intense examination of real contemporary issues, including a darkly funny look at the unseen moving parts of the average gig economy job, "Norco" is at once deeply depressing and poignantly funny.

In the finest tradition of old-fashioned point-and-click adventures, no mechanic is better than a few mini-games and small QTEs. The puzzles are simple enough by the standards of point-and-click veterans, and if you play enough, what the developers hide on the screen really matters, but it doesn't detract from the satisfaction you get from solving them. to play Norco is to give the story your full It's about committing. To that end, each character in the ensemble cast has a decent persona, at least as much as the allotted screen time allows. The laid-back security guard, the sarcastic neighborhood drug dealer, the brusque partygoer, and the insufferable Airbnb guest are all small but biting satires of the modern social scene, brought to life by Jutz's talent for dialogue and humor.

Private detective Brett LeBlanc is a particular treasure, as is Catherine's high school friend Keith. LeBlanc is a neat character study of unexpected community ties and found-family values as Kay is forced to reexamine her relationship with home. There is a pleasant sense of brotherhood in the chapters where Catherine meets these old friends, which resonated deeply with me as an only child who has grown accustomed to the idea of projecting family ties onto friendships (or understanding family ties, but not wanting to acknowledge them at all).

The mind map system, a web of connect-the-dots style used to advance the story, is a simple but effective way to dress up the (nominal) role of player agency in Kay's journey. The mind map reflects the need for clarity between the player and Kay, and also serves as an additional place where the player can track key threads of the game. The mind map is an insightful alternative to point-and-click, which relies on manipulating the game environment and collecting items, forcing players to internalize and contextualize Kay and Catherine's decisions on a deeper level. It is worth noting that Norco's physical environment has already changed beyond repair, and all that is left is to find solidarity with those who can survive and subvert the humiliation of techno-capitalist "progress."

This is not to say that most point-and-click adventures are mindless. I am a big fan of Wadjet I's elevation of storytelling and characterization in Primordia and Unavowed. But perhaps because Norco is rooted in a real, hyper-local setting and portrays the developers' lived experiences and issues of class disparity, gentrification, and alienation, it makes us rethink our relationship with video games as an escapist fun medium. I have never been to Louisiana, but as I explore Kay's mind map, I feel an uncomfortable relationship with my own family and hometown. In the myriad ways in which it forces players to pay attention to the issues in their world without turning away, Norco offers a fresh challenge in its chosen genre.

In understanding the essence of Norco, it is significant to understand the Garretts, whom I feel are the true protagonists of the story. They evolve from vicious "shopping mall Nazis" to a group of degenerates who, in their own misguided way, sought to achieve a sense of self and community. They may be the easiest characters for players to imprint themselves on because of their wide range of subcultures and their petty and painfully human flaws. Each Garrett subtype has a depth that transcends the average point-and-click characterization and is enhanced by Youtz's unparalleled ability to build empathy and connection between the most disparate social identities.

On a good day, Norco is a beautifully evocative bastion of storytelling that invites any player to take refuge in its world. On a bad day, it cuts deep as a harrowing but loving portrait of a modern dystopia, a community on the edge of great change. But on a personal level, it is a game about understanding who we are and what the Internet has made of us, and how this digital constellation of fragmented subcultures has shaped our worldview and our place in it Games like Norco are few and far between in the world and clearly belong to the pinnacle of narrative experience in the gaming medium today.