Kentucky Route Zero

released on Jan 07, 2013

Kentucky Route Zero is a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks who travel it. Gameplay is inspired by point-and-click adventure games (like the classic Monkey Island or King's Quest series, or more recently Telltale's Walking Dead series), but focused on characterization, atmosphere and storytelling rather than clever puzzles or challenges of skill. The game is developed by Cardboard Computer (Jake Elliott and Tamas Kemenczy). The game's soundtrack features an original electronic score by Ben Babbitt along with a suite of old hymns & bluegrass standards recorded by The Bedquilt Ramblers.


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Despite it's cryptic, magical, nonsensical elements, this game feels so incredibly down to earth, so human.
It's a game that reminds you that every person has their own lives, their own struggles, their own pasts. The southern gothic imagery paired with the pleasant ambient soundtrack makes this game go down like smooth whiskey. The reader is asked for patience, as some part of the game did bore me and the story often lost me in it's surrealism, but looking back on all of it I find myself with the feeling that this is a game that I will cherish for a really long time.
Not just one of the best games I've ever played but one of the best stories I've ever experienced.

This review contains spoilers

I love magical realism as a genre. I started by reading Isabel Allende's "House of the Spirits" in high school and was just hooked. I appreciate variants of the genre as well, such as the afrosurrealism of Donald Glover's "Atlanta", and I think KR0's Appalachian inspiration is another great expansion of magical realism. I was lucky enough to experience the Act 1 multi-media installation in person and dialed the riverboat cruise phone number from my own phone. My experience with this game was phenomenal.

That said, I have a few things that hold this game back from being a 5: most of which are contained in the final act. Having your ending be particularly ethereal is not uncommon for the genre, but in a game so grounded in the conversations between others - just eavesdropping on others felt shallow without a real connection to the character you control. I also struggled to interpret the meanings of that final chapter - a flaw of my understanding not necessarily the text, but surprisingly after the four previous chapters clicked into place with me.

I would recommend this game to almost anyone interested in art, storytelling, and world-building - my perceived flaws and all.

There were a few moments that really worked for me but I can't say it was most of the game.

Very cryptic game, which feels more like an interactive David Lynch movie. I have to say that I couldn't quite connect with the game that well. The game is extremely text-heavy, which I appreciate when the text is meaningful. In this case, however, I often had the feeling that the texts were rather isolated and had no connection to the main characters or the story. The whole game reminds me more of poetry, it doesn't follow a clear narrative structure, but is more concerned with evoking feelings, especially through audiovisual stimuli, beautiful scenes, melancholic music. I liked what the game had to say thematically, especially in relation to guilt and shame, alcoholism and the resulting alienation and loss of control. It also touched on themes such as social inequality, which I liked. Overall, I'm rather ambivalent, but I don't regret playing the game. The religious lyrics in the songs got on my nerves a bit :D

I have to say, the vibe of this game is undeniable. It's dark, hazy, almost
sexy. Sadly, this strength ultimately becomes jarring, because of the way it incessantly screams GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL at you. The vibe is now spoiled, and in complete want of its previous mystique, Kentucky Route Zero smudges over the haze with the garish makeup of a clown.

If by some pure luck you manage to complete this boring garbage hop on to goodreads.com and log it because you didn't finish a "game" you finished a book.