RELEASE & RECEPTION
We released the game on March 24th. It feels like multiple years ago at this point. Anxiety was high. Being a neurotic group, we chalked the Tribeca win up to a strange fluke, and were confident that NORCO would get shredded by critics and reviewers. We went in prepared for this inevitability, armed only with our personal love and respect for what we created. We were floored by the positive reception from players as well as from Kotaku, PC Gamer, Vice, Polygon, and other outlets. It's been a source of energy and inspiration for the past several months as we move through updates, bugs, and porting.
PATCHES & NEW FEATURES
We’ve also received our share of helpful criticism. We've done our best to address what we can. We’ve added the ability to automate combat encounters in the game, provided an “expert mode” for eliminating signposting for more challenging puzzles, made various edits to pieces of the script that were undercooked or too verbose, added full gamepad support & a “chapter select” menu, improved performance, and more. You can always check the latest patch notes here.
SOUNDTRACK
Not long after launch, the record label Sacred Bones released the NORCO OST as a split with our dear friends Thou. We’d been discussing some kind of collaboration with them for a while, and were thrilled for it to finally materialize. The split features extra material, an album's worth of original Thou tracks, and sleeves that double as pixel art prints.
INTERVIEWS, WRITTEN REFLECTIONS & VIDEO ESSAYS
Following the release, I spoke to a number of outlets, including WWNO, Polygon, Gaming in the Wild, and Waypoint. By the summer, I’d gotten a little tired of hearing myself talk and decided to step back from interviews, but those early conversations were extremely valuable in setting the right context for players to understand the game – its origins, intentions, and how it relates to other regional media. I’m forever grateful for those opportunities.
There were a number of written essays that resonated deeply, such as “NORCO and the Art of Never Going Home” by Eddie Johnston, as well as “notes on norco” by lotus.
Youtube creators shared several thoughtful and in-depth video essays about NORCO, such as this one by RagnaRox that brilliantly communicates the spirit of the game:
[previewyoutube=pNX280h12Mg;full][/previewyoutube]
That Dang Dad also reflects on the game’s relationship to oil and climate, and The Svamp King uses hauntological elements of the game as a springboard for discussing lost and alternative futures.
CONSOLE PORTING
This ended up being more of a job than we anticipated, but as of early December, we’re very happy to be on the other side of it. A lot of the technical debt that we accumulated in the lead-up to release came back to haunt us.
One lesson I learned throughout all of this: avoid crunch at all costs. Not only does it ruin your mental health and your morale, but it leads to messy code that you’ll have to fix in the end. After a couple of big refactors, the code is in a much better place. The 1.4.4 patch should be running more smoothly than 1.4.3 on lower-performance machines. This difference is particularly noticeable on PS4 but should benefit Steam Deck players as well.
We also implemented full controller support for a more console-native experience. You can use the d-pad to navigate discretely, and there are various shortcuts to make navigation and selection easier. This video goes over a few of them:
[previewyoutube=WL74mv-0onM;full][/previewyoutube]
END-OF-THE-YEAR RECOGNITION & PRINTS
We’ve received a lot of love the past couple months, and I know I’m repeating myself, but we truly are deeply grateful. NORCO’s not perfect, and we have a lot to learn as first-time devs. But the fact that so many of you believe in and support this experiment means everything. We owe it to those who have helped and supported us to express both our pride and our gratitude.
We were excited to learn that we were nominated for the category of Best Debut Indie at The Game Awards alongside Stray, Neon White, Tunic, and Vampire Survivors.
We also ended up on several end-of-the-year lists:
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Paste Magazine’s 30 Best Games of 2022 (WE WERE NUMBER 1….???!!! ????)
New Yorker Best Video Games of 2022
Slant Magazine’s 25 Best Video Games of 2022
Polygon’s 50 Best Games of 2022
Another welcome development to bookend the year was Lost in Cult’s limited run of NORCO prints of Jesse Jacobi’s handpainted key art. Many people have requested these, but it’s been hard to find the time to order and ship them, so it’s massively appreciated. You can order them here through February.
THANK YOU!
While we still have a few patches and features in store for NORCO, we’ll begin focusing on new things. Future projects are certain to carry many of NORCO’s themes forward. We’ll have more to share on that soon.
One last time: thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with us. We are extremely lucky to have the kind of thoughtful, considerate, and supportive community that we do. It’s an honor.
More soon!
- Yuts
