“An American tragedy. An odyssey of debt, of grief, of broken promises, of hope. A painful, melancholic fable composed of fables and more fables, spreading out and weaving in and out of itself. A dream ebbing back and forth between memory and fantasy. A plea for you to care about something.”
...This was my original review for Kentucky Route Zero. I still think it’s a good description. But on consideration, I feel as though I need to be bold and say it: Kentucky Route Zero is not only one of my favorite games, but one of my favorite things ever made.
This is not an assessment of quality. I am not telling you what to feel. I am telling you how I feel. And Kentucky Route Zero makes me feel a way.
I specifically say “Favorite Thing”, because Kentucky Route Zero doesn’t affect me like a game. When I think about many of my favorite games, I often think of them as games. They are full of mechanics, of challenges, of systems. That’s certainly not all games are, and games can be many things, but in the capacity that they affect me, enchant me, or fascinate me, it is often within this vague category of “game”. But Kentucky Route Zero is different. To call it “my favorite game” and leave it at that misses something. It’s certainly a game, but it doesn’t make me feel the way games usually make me feel. First and foremost, Kentucky Route Zero is a story. It’s unlike most. The main body of this story is a game, but it’s also a multimedia saga. There’s something quintessential permeating my experience of Kentucky Route Zero that transcends that category.
It is a hauntological melancholy. It conjures a world more like a memory than a reality. Kentucky Route Zero tells the story of people who seem familiar but you’ve never met, with jobs that were never really secure, in situations that could never happen, in a version of Kentucky that has never existed. Magical realism constructs a vision not of reality, but of memory, of a sensate fabric that you swear could have been but never was. Americana is a mythic entity made visible, standing in front of me within Kentucky Route Zero, and it’s on its last breaths.
It’s a hopeful story. That doesn’t mean it’s happy. The world around you is a wasteland. Everyone is dying. Everyone is suffering. Everything is weighed down by debt, pulled deep down into pools of darkness. To live is to work, work, and die. Except… there are other ways to live. There always have been. Should we move on? I think the answer is clear. But that doesn’t make the pain go away. We have to be willing to feel both grief and hope in the same breath.
All of its blemishes are dismissable. Fleeting problems with UI, incidentally clunky writing, weird mechanical tangents, overwhelming scope, these melt away when I take a moment to remember what Kentucky Route Zero is and feel the frisson travel up and down my skin. I'm trying to not be too longwinded here, but it's hard. I can't get into specifics. So I wax poetic instead. I could write thousands of words on every minute I spent with Kentucky Route Zero and still feel like I was forgetting to say something. It is a multitudinous masterpiece, refracting and reflecting endlessly, timelessly, quietly.
Kentucky Route Zero is one of my favorite things.
...This was my original review for Kentucky Route Zero. I still think it’s a good description. But on consideration, I feel as though I need to be bold and say it: Kentucky Route Zero is not only one of my favorite games, but one of my favorite things ever made.
This is not an assessment of quality. I am not telling you what to feel. I am telling you how I feel. And Kentucky Route Zero makes me feel a way.
I specifically say “Favorite Thing”, because Kentucky Route Zero doesn’t affect me like a game. When I think about many of my favorite games, I often think of them as games. They are full of mechanics, of challenges, of systems. That’s certainly not all games are, and games can be many things, but in the capacity that they affect me, enchant me, or fascinate me, it is often within this vague category of “game”. But Kentucky Route Zero is different. To call it “my favorite game” and leave it at that misses something. It’s certainly a game, but it doesn’t make me feel the way games usually make me feel. First and foremost, Kentucky Route Zero is a story. It’s unlike most. The main body of this story is a game, but it’s also a multimedia saga. There’s something quintessential permeating my experience of Kentucky Route Zero that transcends that category.
It is a hauntological melancholy. It conjures a world more like a memory than a reality. Kentucky Route Zero tells the story of people who seem familiar but you’ve never met, with jobs that were never really secure, in situations that could never happen, in a version of Kentucky that has never existed. Magical realism constructs a vision not of reality, but of memory, of a sensate fabric that you swear could have been but never was. Americana is a mythic entity made visible, standing in front of me within Kentucky Route Zero, and it’s on its last breaths.
It’s a hopeful story. That doesn’t mean it’s happy. The world around you is a wasteland. Everyone is dying. Everyone is suffering. Everything is weighed down by debt, pulled deep down into pools of darkness. To live is to work, work, and die. Except… there are other ways to live. There always have been. Should we move on? I think the answer is clear. But that doesn’t make the pain go away. We have to be willing to feel both grief and hope in the same breath.
All of its blemishes are dismissable. Fleeting problems with UI, incidentally clunky writing, weird mechanical tangents, overwhelming scope, these melt away when I take a moment to remember what Kentucky Route Zero is and feel the frisson travel up and down my skin. I'm trying to not be too longwinded here, but it's hard. I can't get into specifics. So I wax poetic instead. I could write thousands of words on every minute I spent with Kentucky Route Zero and still feel like I was forgetting to say something. It is a multitudinous masterpiece, refracting and reflecting endlessly, timelessly, quietly.
Kentucky Route Zero is one of my favorite things.
my grandma lives in kentucky. this game is like if Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote about my grandma. i love it.
There is only a very small handful of games that can hold a candle to KRZ's level of writing quality. And paired with the gorgeous art direction? This game is extraordinarily special.
melhor point and clickers
fuck. play this game.
It's a really pretty game. Failed to resonate with me all that much, but that's just a me thing!
//\\\\idea//ewe
el círculo es la figura sin lados, mas la circunferencia es la unión de todos los puntos que equidistan otro, por tanto, infinitos lados. esto que vemos naturalmente como una misma cosa es cero e infinito, nada y todo a la vez. dar vueltas en círculos nos recuerda la inmensidad y nulidad de la existencia.
el círculo es la figura sin lados, mas la circunferencia es la unión de todos los puntos que equidistan otro, por tanto, infinitos lados. esto que vemos naturalmente como una misma cosa es cero e infinito, nada y todo a la vez. dar vueltas en círculos nos recuerda la inmensidad y nulidad de la existencia.
You've Got To Walk - The Bedquilt Ramblers
I understood the themes
Just because a game makes people angry doesn’t mean it has a critical design flaw. Built-up tension can make victory all the sweeter, and there’s always going to be a level of frustration associated with even a completely fair challenge. On the other hand, making players fall asleep might be a categorical disqualification. As much as I hate to admit it, in the fourth act of this game, the pace was so slow and so little was going on that I actually fell asleep in my chair. It’s the first time in my life where that’s happened, so this is where I should normally start tearing into it for not keeping me engaged. However, that’s not the right approach this time. Artsy games with a lot of dialog are usually called book games, ones with a lot of first-person exploration are called walking simulators, and the best way to summarize Kentucky Route Zero’s style would be to call it a road trip game. Not just for the game’s actual driving and highway imagery, but for the sort of adventure you have in a general sense. There are moments that actively engage you like a typical game does, but that’s just the destination, one piece of a full journey. In between, there’s going to be a lot of sleeping. A lot of reading. A lot of looking out the window, passing by the places that define people’s lives in a nameless blur. The moments you’re far away from home, tired, and experiencing something new have a memorable otherworldly quality, and all these little moments are what Kentucky Route Zero simulates. It uses a blend of fantasy and drama to portray the realness of these experiences, both of you as a passenger and of the people whose lives you briefly intersect in the middle of nowhere. The presentation is so magical and the subject matter so unique that I want people to experience it, even in spite of the ways it bored me. Just like any trip, there will be times you're bored or wish you were back home, but you’ll always be thankful for the memories.
This game is a great exploration of auteur theory in a setting where the old ways of America are slowly fading away and being replaced. You are the director and (most of) the choices you're provided do not change the story. You're decisions may initially seem arbitrary and have little consequences but through your choices, the game reflects your own personal tastes through tone of the narrative. In this way KR0 is a powerful interactive movie. It's a visually stunning movie at that, where the games minimalism can lend into some very memorable scenes.
The only downside is that the game can be quite slow, requiring a fair amount of patience, but good things come to those who wait.
The only downside is that the game can be quite slow, requiring a fair amount of patience, but good things come to those who wait.
The ghosts extended deep within American soil reach out, as we descend in search of a destination at the heart of it all. This game is their medium.
Required reading. Video Game Canon. The GOAT.
“An American tragedy. An odyssey of debt, of grief, of broken promises, of hope. A painful, melancholic fable composed of fables and more fables, spreading out and weaving in and out of itself. A dream ebbing back and forth between memory and fantasy. A plea for you to care about something.”
...This was my original review for Kentucky Route Zero. I still think it’s a good description. But on consideration, I feel as though I need to be bold and say it: Kentucky Route Zero is not only one of my favorite games, but one of my favorite things ever made.
This is not an assessment of quality. I am not telling you what to feel. I am telling you how I feel. And Kentucky Route Zero makes me feel a way.
I specifically say “Favorite Thing”, because Kentucky Route Zero doesn’t affect me like a game. When I think about many of my favorite games, I often think of them as games. They are full of mechanics, of challenges, of systems. That’s certainly not all games are, and games can be many things, but in the capacity that they affect me, enchant me, or fascinate me, it is often within this vague category of “game”. But Kentucky Route Zero is different. To call it “my favorite game” and leave it at that misses something. It’s certainly a game, but it doesn’t make me feel the way games usually make me feel. First and foremost, Kentucky Route Zero is a story. It’s unlike most. The main body of this story is a game, but it’s also a multimedia saga. There’s something quintessential permeating my experience of Kentucky Route Zero that transcends that category.
It is a hauntological melancholy. It conjures a world more like a memory than a reality. Kentucky Route Zero tells the story of people who seem familiar but you’ve never met, with jobs that were never really secure, in situations that could never happen, in a version of Kentucky that has never existed. Magical realism constructs a vision not of reality, but of memory, of a sensate fabric that you swear could have been but never was. Americana is a mythic entity made visible, standing in front of me within Kentucky Route Zero, and it’s on its last breaths.
It’s a hopeful story. That doesn’t mean it’s happy. The world around you is a wasteland. Everyone is dying. Everyone is suffering. Everything is weighed down by debt, pulled deep down into pools of darkness. To live is to work, work, and die. But there are other ways to live. There always have been. Should we move on? I think the answer is clear. But that doesn’t make the pain go away. We have to be willing to feel both grief and hope in the same breath.
All of its blemishes are dismissable. Fleeting problems with UI, incidentally clunky writing, weird mechanical tangents, overwhelming scope, these melt away when I take a moment to remember what Kentucky Route Zero is and feel the frisson travel up and down my skin. I'm trying to not be too longwinded here, but it's hard. I can't get into specifics. So I wax poetic instead. I could write thousands of words on every minute I spent with Kentucky Route Zero and still feel like I was forgetting to say something. It is a multitudinous masterpiece, refracting and reflecting endlessly, timelessly, quietly.
Kentucky Route Zero is one of my favorite things.
...This was my original review for Kentucky Route Zero. I still think it’s a good description. But on consideration, I feel as though I need to be bold and say it: Kentucky Route Zero is not only one of my favorite games, but one of my favorite things ever made.
This is not an assessment of quality. I am not telling you what to feel. I am telling you how I feel. And Kentucky Route Zero makes me feel a way.
I specifically say “Favorite Thing”, because Kentucky Route Zero doesn’t affect me like a game. When I think about many of my favorite games, I often think of them as games. They are full of mechanics, of challenges, of systems. That’s certainly not all games are, and games can be many things, but in the capacity that they affect me, enchant me, or fascinate me, it is often within this vague category of “game”. But Kentucky Route Zero is different. To call it “my favorite game” and leave it at that misses something. It’s certainly a game, but it doesn’t make me feel the way games usually make me feel. First and foremost, Kentucky Route Zero is a story. It’s unlike most. The main body of this story is a game, but it’s also a multimedia saga. There’s something quintessential permeating my experience of Kentucky Route Zero that transcends that category.
It is a hauntological melancholy. It conjures a world more like a memory than a reality. Kentucky Route Zero tells the story of people who seem familiar but you’ve never met, with jobs that were never really secure, in situations that could never happen, in a version of Kentucky that has never existed. Magical realism constructs a vision not of reality, but of memory, of a sensate fabric that you swear could have been but never was. Americana is a mythic entity made visible, standing in front of me within Kentucky Route Zero, and it’s on its last breaths.
It’s a hopeful story. That doesn’t mean it’s happy. The world around you is a wasteland. Everyone is dying. Everyone is suffering. Everything is weighed down by debt, pulled deep down into pools of darkness. To live is to work, work, and die. But there are other ways to live. There always have been. Should we move on? I think the answer is clear. But that doesn’t make the pain go away. We have to be willing to feel both grief and hope in the same breath.
All of its blemishes are dismissable. Fleeting problems with UI, incidentally clunky writing, weird mechanical tangents, overwhelming scope, these melt away when I take a moment to remember what Kentucky Route Zero is and feel the frisson travel up and down my skin. I'm trying to not be too longwinded here, but it's hard. I can't get into specifics. So I wax poetic instead. I could write thousands of words on every minute I spent with Kentucky Route Zero and still feel like I was forgetting to say something. It is a multitudinous masterpiece, refracting and reflecting endlessly, timelessly, quietly.
Kentucky Route Zero is one of my favorite things.
A game that's lyrical in its prose, with visuals so stunning, they look like crafted illustrations. This game has moments that will be with me forever, and it seems many feel the same, now seeing its influence on so many games, even before it was finished.
There's not much I can say about this game that hasn't already been said, but I want to note how much The Entertainment stood out to me specifically. Afterwards, I felt like i had finished reading a gothic horror short story similar to something like The Lottery and it's probably now one of my favorite video game moments period.
There's not much I can say about this game that hasn't already been said, but I want to note how much The Entertainment stood out to me specifically. Afterwards, I felt like i had finished reading a gothic horror short story similar to something like The Lottery and it's probably now one of my favorite video game moments period.
If "The Entertainment" thru "Un Pueblo De Nada" isn't the greatest achievement in narrative gaming, then, like, what the hell is
Kentucky Route Zero is in one way a collection of stories intertwined between ghostly caricatures of the past, complicated stressed and living individuals, and government and environmental factors that work in such mysterious and incomprehensible ways to the denizens living underneath and on it that they might as well be supernatural, and which they are shown as within the entire work.
Every Act has interesting messages to tell, and lives to reflect on and shed a tear with. By the time everyone comes together to mourn the end of the journey, each person is fleshed out further than the featureless faces that adorn them would suggest. The game touches on several aspects of a decaying shifting void that is midwest America, whether that be the brainwashing ghastly denizens of corporations that push people into the neverending spiral debt hole they craft, or the old denizens on the high mountain scattered long after their nature project failed with an attachment to a dingy computer program that sounds constant static. There isn't really a single piece in here that feels without purpose or really in the wrong space at all. It is dense, certainly a less explicit piece than most, and a large amount of factors that make up the whole are something that it intentionally encourages you to research on your own. Each dialogue in their own points to several meta and thematic factors that don't just have to do with the characters at the receiving end of each line.
The visuals and music are just as thematically placed, each a perfect painting and screenshot in of itself. A lot of work was put into matching the perspective of the characters and where the camera is placed. A few specific examples that stand out to me is the revolving passage of time in Act 5, as a cat hearing everyone mourn and discuss where they're going, or the overbearing perspective when you move about the Hard Times. Or my favorite part, The Entertainment, as you bounce between each painfully depressing line.
I won't claim to understand all of what I saw as I played through the game, and honestly there are a lot of things that are too subtle for me to catch on, or maybe I'm just not in tuned enough to just get it. But that's fine. It's still a masterpiece of the medium, something I wish to see considered in high regard for the recognizable future. I hope it inspires people as much as it teaches me on aspects of life I've never been a part of or could directly relate to. It's a perfect encapsulation of what it sets out, and I was very emotionally invested. I highly recommend getting Kentucky Route Zero.
Every Act has interesting messages to tell, and lives to reflect on and shed a tear with. By the time everyone comes together to mourn the end of the journey, each person is fleshed out further than the featureless faces that adorn them would suggest. The game touches on several aspects of a decaying shifting void that is midwest America, whether that be the brainwashing ghastly denizens of corporations that push people into the neverending spiral debt hole they craft, or the old denizens on the high mountain scattered long after their nature project failed with an attachment to a dingy computer program that sounds constant static. There isn't really a single piece in here that feels without purpose or really in the wrong space at all. It is dense, certainly a less explicit piece than most, and a large amount of factors that make up the whole are something that it intentionally encourages you to research on your own. Each dialogue in their own points to several meta and thematic factors that don't just have to do with the characters at the receiving end of each line.
The visuals and music are just as thematically placed, each a perfect painting and screenshot in of itself. A lot of work was put into matching the perspective of the characters and where the camera is placed. A few specific examples that stand out to me is the revolving passage of time in Act 5, as a cat hearing everyone mourn and discuss where they're going, or the overbearing perspective when you move about the Hard Times. Or my favorite part, The Entertainment, as you bounce between each painfully depressing line.
I won't claim to understand all of what I saw as I played through the game, and honestly there are a lot of things that are too subtle for me to catch on, or maybe I'm just not in tuned enough to just get it. But that's fine. It's still a masterpiece of the medium, something I wish to see considered in high regard for the recognizable future. I hope it inspires people as much as it teaches me on aspects of life I've never been a part of or could directly relate to. It's a perfect encapsulation of what it sets out, and I was very emotionally invested. I highly recommend getting Kentucky Route Zero.
The king of atmosphere. This is what it feels like to be 14 years old in the woods at 2 am like 30 feet away from your campsite so you can pee
How can I recommend this more? I am hungry for more things of this genre. Felt honest, true, simple, brilliant, meditative, complex, layered, like, I could think about this game endlessly. Couldn't imagine a better, more beautiful video game. One of my favorite pieces of art, and it gets better every time I revisit it.
This review contains spoilers
Finally getting around to the full game after playing Act 1 at release and at some point falling off during the extended waits for the following ones.
Absolutely incredible. The game is special from the start but nothing in Act 1 or even 2 had prepared me for the what was to come a bit later. The stretch from "The Entertainment" through the ending is on another level both narratively and emotionally than any other game I've played.
I can see why this might not be everyone's cup of tea but for all intents and purposes this was my shit and it knocked me on my ass. Gonna be thinking about this for a really long time and I'm looking forward to future replays. It just effortlessly slid right into my list of favorite games of all time.
Absolutely incredible. The game is special from the start but nothing in Act 1 or even 2 had prepared me for the what was to come a bit later. The stretch from "The Entertainment" through the ending is on another level both narratively and emotionally than any other game I've played.
I can see why this might not be everyone's cup of tea but for all intents and purposes this was my shit and it knocked me on my ass. Gonna be thinking about this for a really long time and I'm looking forward to future replays. It just effortlessly slid right into my list of favorite games of all time.
Evocative and contemplative about the decay and erosion of Americana and general happiness at the hands of capital, but only willing to present a single mood through the entirety of its ten hours. While depressing whismy is indeed a good mood for a magical realist story to explore, it just wore a bit thin after a while, aside from its beautifully affirming yet haunting final scene.
For all its slow pacing and text-heavy interaction, Kentucky Route Zero is a meditative piece of art best enjoyed intermittently (there's a reason why the five acts are released progressively over 7 years), mainly to appreciate its beautiful art design, fantastic atmosphere and score, great writing, and deep characterization.
Act III will forever be ingrained in my mind as one of my favourite gaming moments of all time. Act IV and V were somewhat disappointing, but still interesting.
I played before Act V came out.
It's beautiful and I had a bunch of "OK that's pretty cool" moments, but it lost me on a few occasions.
I must play it again from the beginning now that it's finally complete.
It's beautiful and I had a bunch of "OK that's pretty cool" moments, but it lost me on a few occasions.
I must play it again from the beginning now that it's finally complete.
Atmosfera impecável e apresentação engenhosa montam a mesa desse jogo único. Lançado ao longo de 7 anos em efetivamente dez partes, KR0 é uma narrativa difusa que tem a qualidade mágica de uma obra genuinamente fantástica de realismo mágico - é muito difícil definir seus temas, apenas conectá-los ao chão de onde veio. É uma obra inconfundivelmente norte-americana, sem dúvidas, e apresenta o sufoco da vida comum pela modernidade capitalista de forma melancólica e respeitosa, caracterizando o fluxo da vida através do que ela é: movimento, constante e corrente, sem se saber quando um momento acaba e o outro começa.
Gostei como o jogo brinca com quem são seus protagonistas, e como ele te coloca nos papéis de ator, diretor, roteirista e espectador; gostei, também, como ele não te dá o final satisfatório que queria, e te força a refletir no que se passou (a saída de Conway um lance corajoso e um baque memorável). Todavia, sinto que não consegui aproveitar muito do jogo: me sentia constantemente perdido, e não de uma forma tematicamente coerente (soube apreciar quando era), perdido mesmo, sem saber quem era quem ou qual foi o propósito de algumas coisas. Essa sensação e a minha interpretação fez com que embora o jogo tenha causado uma poderosa impressão em mim, não me afetou além de sua apresentação genial, capaz de conjurar em tela, controle e escrita as sensações melancólicas do meu gênero favorito da literatura.
Gostei como o jogo brinca com quem são seus protagonistas, e como ele te coloca nos papéis de ator, diretor, roteirista e espectador; gostei, também, como ele não te dá o final satisfatório que queria, e te força a refletir no que se passou (a saída de Conway um lance corajoso e um baque memorável). Todavia, sinto que não consegui aproveitar muito do jogo: me sentia constantemente perdido, e não de uma forma tematicamente coerente (soube apreciar quando era), perdido mesmo, sem saber quem era quem ou qual foi o propósito de algumas coisas. Essa sensação e a minha interpretação fez com que embora o jogo tenha causado uma poderosa impressão em mim, não me afetou além de sua apresentação genial, capaz de conjurar em tela, controle e escrita as sensações melancólicas do meu gênero favorito da literatura.
I tried playing through Act I several times. Just not my thing, I guess.
It's beautiful, ambitious, effective, enthralling. I love every moment, even the boring ones, even the really sad ones. You are never not feeling something when you're playing this game. I still need to finish it, and I've been putting it off because I'll be sad to be done with this game I've been playing for pretty much a decade.
I really thought this would be more game than book, but it isn't. Got through two acts and threw in the towel. The story is also very slow and I imagine I would have to dump an extra 4 hours to appreciate the story cause that's when it all makes sense. But I really don't care enough. Everybody's got their thing.
no game has ever hurt me like this game hurt me.. in a good way tho
Honestly this might currently be my favourite game