Lead Image by Yutsi, commemorating Public Lab's 10th anniversary. Check out more on their Twitter and Instagram.

Join us for a conversation with Yutsi of the game development collective Geography of Robots, creator of the award winning game NORCO. Norco is a sci-fi Southern Gothic Adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of Louisiana's petrochemical hinterlands. Following the game’s release on Steam this March, many individuals in the gaming community were suddenly introduced to the present day dystopian environments of coastal Louisiana and Cancer Alley. The New Yorker article “Mapping Climate Grief, One Pixel at a Time begs the question: What does it mean to love a landscape that is engineering its own disappearance? This event will seek to indirectly answer that question through a colloquial conversation between two friends who were raised on opposite banks of the Mississippi River.

Please RSVP to this event using this form.

If you have questions for Yutsi regarding environmental game development or growing up beneath the flare of an oil refinery, please attend our weekly Open Call call a few hours before the event, or submit your questions via this form.

Details and call links for each event are below!

🎮 Pre-event Open Call

When: Tuesday, May 31, 12pm PT / 2pm CT / 3pm ET / 8pm UTC / other time zones.

Where: Join OpenCall

What:

• This meeting is for those new to the Public Lab community who would like some orientation on what we do as an organization and how this relates to NORCO: the game.
• This is a weekly scheduled meeting, a literal Open Call, for members of the Public Lab global community to drop in and chat with each other about their work, their environmental concerns, and their experiences.
• If you have any questions that you would like brought up in the later discussion with Yutsi, please join this zoom discussion and your questions will be noted.

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🤖 A Conversation with Yutsi, creator of the video game NORCO

When: May 31st, 2pm PT / 4pm CT / 5pm ET / 9pm UTC / other time zones. This event will run for approximately 1 hour.

Where: Join Zoom meeting

What: ​​In this hour, Public Lab staff member Alahna Moore will have a conversation with Yutsi of Geography of Robots. Alahna and Yutsi both grew up in suburbs of New Orleans, Louisiana and have run in similar circles for many years. The two will discuss the impact of using video games as a method of environmental storytelling, the process for writing and designing NORCO, and the Louisiana landscapes that inspired this work.

Previously submitted questions from the Public Lab community will be woven into the discussion to the best of the moderator’s ability. Additional questions can be asked in the meeting’s chat space as well.

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Call-in Information for Event: Time: May 31, 2022 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Meeting ID: 837 4893 7637
Passcode: 200717
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Meeting ID: 837 4893 7637
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Who are these events for?

Anyone who's interested in communicating environmental information through any medium, as well as fans of industrial landscapes, coastal Louisiana, science fiction, Todd’s cream shack snowballs, & video game development. Our weekly Open Call conversation is open and available to the public as a space to discuss environmental issues and monitoring projects with other members of the Public Lab community.