On the kind of stormy night that can change a person's destiny, an enormous sinkhole opens in the middle of Whit Anderson's farm. Braving the rumbling thunder and the driving rain, Casey - their curious Golden Retriever - ventures too close to the gaping maw and tumbles in. Desperate to save her, Whit descends into the darkness, and emerges in a realm beyond his imagining. In this strange world, constantly shifting like the stops and starts of a dream, Whit bears witness to the story of his life and gains the power to change it.
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It would be easy to dismiss Where the Heart Leads as "we have Kentucky Route Zero at home" and leave it at that, but I think there's more going on here than the obvious influence KRZ had over this game.
The big draw for Where the Heart Leads is the massive amount of choices and outcomes that the game offers. It is genuinely impressive how many decisions big and small have a tangible effect on the way things can play out. The narrative itself is personal, never straying from the confines of the Anderson family and the small town of Carthage. Your choices as Whit define how his life and others play out over the span of a lifetime. Helping Whit navigate his and his wife's dreams and ambitions while also building a life for his young family led to some genuinely great and relatable moments, and the choices involved really made me sit and think about what I wanted to prioritize in Whit's life.
Though I do think that Where the Heart Leads illustrates the limits of this type of storytelling, prioritizing player choice over all else. Having all of these variables and branching paths is cool, but what meaning can there really be when all possible outcomes need to be satisfying in at least some way? Should I pursue a career that is more practical or one that is more fulfilling? Both paths are treated as reasonable, just different, smoothing over any truly hard consequences in service of this ethos. Sure, you can take things off the rails if you want to, but there's always an easily identifiable out given to get you back on track. In the end, the game's only real identifiable message seems to be a lackluster "your choices affect your life in a lot of ways."
In my playthrough, Whit Anderson lived a good life, and was a generally positive influence on the people around him. He took a few risks here and there, but in the end they all worked out. His kids turned out fine, even if they had a few struggles of their own. A life well lived, even if it was one without much to say, despite the pages and pages of text hoping to make me feel otherwise.
So, yeah, we have Kentucky Route Zero at home.
The big draw for Where the Heart Leads is the massive amount of choices and outcomes that the game offers. It is genuinely impressive how many decisions big and small have a tangible effect on the way things can play out. The narrative itself is personal, never straying from the confines of the Anderson family and the small town of Carthage. Your choices as Whit define how his life and others play out over the span of a lifetime. Helping Whit navigate his and his wife's dreams and ambitions while also building a life for his young family led to some genuinely great and relatable moments, and the choices involved really made me sit and think about what I wanted to prioritize in Whit's life.
Though I do think that Where the Heart Leads illustrates the limits of this type of storytelling, prioritizing player choice over all else. Having all of these variables and branching paths is cool, but what meaning can there really be when all possible outcomes need to be satisfying in at least some way? Should I pursue a career that is more practical or one that is more fulfilling? Both paths are treated as reasonable, just different, smoothing over any truly hard consequences in service of this ethos. Sure, you can take things off the rails if you want to, but there's always an easily identifiable out given to get you back on track. In the end, the game's only real identifiable message seems to be a lackluster "your choices affect your life in a lot of ways."
In my playthrough, Whit Anderson lived a good life, and was a generally positive influence on the people around him. He took a few risks here and there, but in the end they all worked out. His kids turned out fine, even if they had a few struggles of their own. A life well lived, even if it was one without much to say, despite the pages and pages of text hoping to make me feel otherwise.
So, yeah, we have Kentucky Route Zero at home.
Has a very slow start but develops into a vast and branching narrative the likes of which I have never experienced before. You become invested in Whit and his families’ journey through their lives, shaping it in ways that seem to be monumental. That is the absolute greatest thing about this game is you live with your choices and they keep coming back to inform your next decisions; they are not one-off’s like most choice-based narrative games. It’s all one continuous stream of pivotal moments, not self-contained episodes.
I think it falls flat in some respects, in particular the music. It becomes very repetitive with these ethereal, undulating, heartbeat-like rhythms that start to wear thin over many hours making choices and wandering its various mini-worlds. The art style left a lot to be desired. It worked for its purpose, but wasn’t great to look at; I wasn’t a fan of its muddy colors and I found the bloom to be excessive and irritating to the eye.
I think its low detail presentation was a tactful strategy that allowed them to go all in on a truly branching narrative. Also I thought the writing was decent but never really rose to the level that I thought would rival a great novel. It was serviceable, but a bit choppy at points. Sadly the epilogue was exhausting with the amount of long pages of character summary to sift through. I enjoyed reading the conclusion of each character and my effect upon their life, but I wish it could have been shown with vignettes like it was for some of the characters it deemed worthy.
How it all connects though through your choices is brilliant. It tells a grounded story in a slightly surreal atmosphere (that feels a bit tacked on), but serves to allow Whit to reflect on his life by revisiting important junctures. In telling this grounded story it allowed me to reflect on my life and my future in a way I had never attempted before. What choice would I make if I was in Whit’s shoes? But that’s what made it so compelling: I very likely will be forced to make choices along these lines, which made them personally more difficult to contemplate than dealing with something otherworldly.
Even with all its faults, how your choices effect its large cast of characters, your choice of residence, what career or lack of career you will pursue, who you will back and who you will turn your back upon, is the best choice-based gameplay I have ever experienced just for the sheer weightiness of your choices and their far-reaching effects.
I think it falls flat in some respects, in particular the music. It becomes very repetitive with these ethereal, undulating, heartbeat-like rhythms that start to wear thin over many hours making choices and wandering its various mini-worlds. The art style left a lot to be desired. It worked for its purpose, but wasn’t great to look at; I wasn’t a fan of its muddy colors and I found the bloom to be excessive and irritating to the eye.
I think its low detail presentation was a tactful strategy that allowed them to go all in on a truly branching narrative. Also I thought the writing was decent but never really rose to the level that I thought would rival a great novel. It was serviceable, but a bit choppy at points. Sadly the epilogue was exhausting with the amount of long pages of character summary to sift through. I enjoyed reading the conclusion of each character and my effect upon their life, but I wish it could have been shown with vignettes like it was for some of the characters it deemed worthy.
How it all connects though through your choices is brilliant. It tells a grounded story in a slightly surreal atmosphere (that feels a bit tacked on), but serves to allow Whit to reflect on his life by revisiting important junctures. In telling this grounded story it allowed me to reflect on my life and my future in a way I had never attempted before. What choice would I make if I was in Whit’s shoes? But that’s what made it so compelling: I very likely will be forced to make choices along these lines, which made them personally more difficult to contemplate than dealing with something otherworldly.
Even with all its faults, how your choices effect its large cast of characters, your choice of residence, what career or lack of career you will pursue, who you will back and who you will turn your back upon, is the best choice-based gameplay I have ever experienced just for the sheer weightiness of your choices and their far-reaching effects.