I typically hunker down after beating a game and get my thoughts down immediately. Upon completing Kentucky Route Zero, I sat at my computer and just could not figure out the appropriate way to confront my experiences with the game.

Given its text adventure nature, it lends itself to a literary deconstruction. Yet, that approach poses some difficulties. Either address the broad strokes of the game--the degeneration of ‘The American Dream’ and the consequences that flow from it--or discuss the introspection that the game invites through a narrative decision-making structure that puts the player in the driver's seat for the games slighter moments of insight. Ultimately, this form of analysis is better suited for a discussion involving ‘spoilers’ where all interested parties have at least attempted a complete run of the game.

Another approach would be to engage in a discussion of the mechanics at work throughout. Such dialog would undoubtedly be complementary to the developers ability to couch what is essentially a novella inside the framework of a video game. Mixing up mechanics effortlessly just before the player might think: wait, am I just reading a book? Again, this type of breakdown is unsatisfactory. It brushes past the soul at the core of this game and instead focuses on the lifeless skeleton that accompanies it.

It’s a game that invites discussions not typical of the titles it was inspired by. It may end up influencing storytelling in games in ways that draw comparisons to Super Mario 64’s inspiration on the 3D games that followed it. In the end, I suppose I’ve simply come to realize that I don’t quite have the chops to do Kentucky Route Zero justice. If you’ve ever put a book down after finishing it and thought, man I could go for another one of those, then I suggest you at least give this game a shot. You’ll be glad you did.

A hard game to describe and an even more difficult one to quantify. What started as something I deeply admired as a murky, occasionally moving exploration of capitalism’s inherent stranglehold on middle to lower class Americans slowly transformed into one of the most consuming and gorgeous works of art I’ve experienced in any medium. With each act, the ensemble growing in number and the mystery increasingly folding in on itself through magical surrealist imagery and an ambient rural atmosphere, I found myself less so questioning the meaning of the thematic poignancy behind these elements and just succumbed to the emotional prowess and tenderness on display. Albeit refreshingly nuanced in these expressions of grief, longing, regret, and so on it’s in the game’s pronounced moments where it shines the most and gives levity to the entirety of the narrative. “Too Late to Love You” may be the iconic standout but playing Xanadu, deconstructing the play in “The Entertainment”, discovering the haunted distillery, and listening to voicemail messages on a barge proved just as profound amongst a dozen or so other cherished sequences.

I’m all the more happy I ended up settling in for what would prove to be an overwhelmingly dense masterwork in storytelling and atmosphere because there were times when the straying gameplay tested my attention span with its meandering conversations and cumbersome movements. Even as I write this review my mind spins with the dizzying tangents this game takes the player on; components unique to this medium solely because of its interactivity. It just can’t be done on film or prose alone. The stunning visual compositions and lush soundtrack are only gravy to what Cardboard Computer accomplishes with their rich screenplay and cleverly nuanced direction. It’s all meant to serve a greater purpose that transcends being a “novel” or a “film” or a “play”, let alone a video game. Its potent fluidity between all of them is what makes it the powerful experience that it is and yet it ultimately pitches its tent as a game.

While it spends its first two acts building up a proper narrative and giving the player a decent amount of lore and character backstory to chew on to push them through, after that brief initiation the game becomes an odyssey-like trek into the waking unknown, culminating in what can only be described as Heart of Darkness but make it tranquil space country vibes (with a dash of unease). A purgatorial journey on the Echo River where the mundane stops along the way unknowingly determine the fate of society as these characters know it, leading to an ethereal apocalyptic landscape where God is an overseeing cat and the player a director to this sweeping game of life. Our choices, neither right or wrong, are about providing context to the jinxed voids presented before us. They have their lives and have made their decisions, however exist to be defined by the player. Maybe those words are nonsense to the uninitiated who haven’t played this or maybe I missed the point but it’s how it made me feel right now.

This is a game that demands patience and rewards those willing to take their time with it. It wants to be felt in a spiritual sense rather than intently understood through an intellectual lens and even then to dissect the game’s many literary, cinematic, theatrical, religious, etc influences and references would probably prove just as fulfilling. This is as much a video game about creating and commodifying art and the futile process behind it all as it is one about studying and making sense of it. Some call it Lynchian in that respect but I’m as much inclined to compare it to the films of Terrence Malick; wandering souls attempting to reason with the reality of death and the emotional toll it takes to wrestle with mortality. It’s amazing how despite containing obvious homage to the original Twin Peaks, Kentucky Route Zero is as much a spiritual precursor to what Lynch would do with The Return. So much of what those 18 hours achieves can be found in here in more ways than one. There’s no future conversation about this medium as an artistic form without these five acts and five interludes somewhere within it. I feel as though a decade or two from now we'll still be trying to catch up.

A simple yet really charming point and click adventure about a man trying to deliver a package to an unknown adress. Meet people and talk to them to help you find your way and that's it.
The story features a lot of magic realism touches which fill the game with this eerie yet somehow soothing vibe. The chill tone is perfect for the premise and the story, the only gameplay is picking dialogue options with no right or wrong choices, you build the conversations and even the characters' pasts with the choices. Not that they impact the development of the events (some actually do) but it's cool that the game let's you build the characters and their life choices as you wish. There are few games that actively build the story in a way that's only possible in videogames and this is one of them. No TV show nor movie could possibly convey this tale.
There are some moments and conversations that are so beautifly crafted that, and I can't explain why, feel like the closest thing to poetry in videogame form.
Lastly, the only bad think is that some sections feel poorly paced, the game is on the long side of the spectrum for this narrative-heavy games. It's aboud 8-10 hours long which makes some of the chapters feel kinda stretched out, specifically the last one.

Overall it's still an amazing and unique game, one of the few videogames that thrive more of the experience than the game itself that I genuinely believe are worth having.
The soundtrack is pretty neat too I guess.

I'm not from Kentucky, but I've been there. I live in an upper Midwest city where 45 minutes and a good sense of direction can take you from a bustling city center to the middle of nowhere, all rolling hills and tired forests and pocket sized towns, little corporate fiefdoms all teetering on the verge of abandonment, through catastrophe or corporate malfeasance or just plain old neglect. Flyover country, most people call it. The American Ruins, I call it. Urban decay is one thing. Rural decay is another entirely.

Kentucky Route Zero is a game (and yes, it's a game, it could not exist as a novel or a show or a series of slides) mostly about what it's like to exist in a post-2008 rural America, where the jobs have gone overseas and where 40% or more of the people are one disaster or accident away from utter financial ruin. It's a game about driving along the backroads at night, feeling like the only person in the world. It's a game about those dusty summer mornings where golden light trickles through the window panes and makes you forget about how powerless you truly are. Mostly, it's a game about reading dialogue bubbles and deciding how what you read makes you (or the character you happen to be controlling at that specific moment in time) happen to feel about it. There are no boss fights or Big Choices, just the struggle to keep going, to keep living in a society that wants nothing more than to crush you down into dust and pave over the remains to build a new parking lot.

Most dialogue driven games, be they classic adventure games, BioWare style RPGSs or even the recent strain of Telltale games, are based around the art of the possible. Around convincing the player that they truly control the narrative, despite the impossibilities of coding and game design that we all know exist. You can't really do whatever you want in Monkey Island, you can only do the things the game designers programmed you to be able to do. By stripping all of that away, KR0's designers are more interested in the art of the impossible, of taking you to places that have not and will not ever exist, and instead of giving you the same old power fantasy, they remind you that even here, in the realm of the impossible, capitalism can still crush you, and that the only agency you truly have is how you choose to feel about it.

I could talk about the terrific music, or the little experimental segments and how they toy with the concept of identity in a medium literally built around being someone else. I could wax poetic about the wonderful characters and the beautiful places they go and how well written all of it truly is (one of the major players is someone named Marquez, if you were wondering what kind of magical realism we're dealing with, here) but that's not what it makes me feel, that's not the parts of this experience that I'm going to take with me until the day that I die. What I'm going to take from this game are non-euclidean caves filled with buzzing skeletons, the white shadow of a giant bird swooping over darkened roads, the ceiling of a bar exploding out into the night sky, silhouettes of horses bathed in the muted light of a road sign. An old bony dog teetering on down the road, abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of it but refusing to die, either out of pride or shame or both. Collapsed barns. Abandoned houses. The rubble left over after the collapse of the American Dream.

I'm not from Kentucky, but I've been there. And it's both like and not like Kentucky Route Zero in ways I still couldn't describe here and might not be able to if you gave me a hundred years. What I do know is that this game, this experience, is quite possibly the best piece of American art released in the whole of the 2010s.

"I don't think you can win. They say it's a tragedy on the back of the box."

Kentucky Route Zero is a special experience. Equal parts collaborative poetry and campfire story, KRZ manages to nail it's very specific tone so utterly I fail to find the proper words here.

KRZ captures the essence of Americana tinged with a surreal horror while telling a subdued, melancholic supernatural story of the prison of capitalism.

The interludes are all stand out, each one completely unique and utterly captivating.

My recommendation, should you decide to immerse yourself in the quest for Dogwood Drive, is to play in bed right before bed. Allow the game to usher you into dreams every night... it will make for a magical experience.

If there was one criticism I could make, and it's a small one, is that I find it frustrating the VR version of The Entertainment is no longer available.

This game has a lot of care and love behind it. Sadly, it's a love that is far beyond my reach. The game is abstract and ambiguous. A lot of negative reviews call it pretentious, but seeing how it gets lots of praise and many people consider it to be among their favorite games, I don't think that is the case.

I will blame myself, and assume that I wasn't able to connect with the story and it's characters; to grasp the meaning behind all those lines of dialogue. As invested as the first chapter got me with it's cool visual style and it's intriguing story, I quickly began to lose interest and failed to remain attentive, as I couldn't understand what was going on.

so badly want to dispel certain preconceptions of this game--ones set by some who dismiss it ("its a vn with no real agency/choices dont do anything") AND ones set by some who gas it up ("the next great american novel" canonization discourse). so badly want to just talk about the many little optional-to-contend-with details ive come to love in this game that's so dizzingly full of them, interpretative or intertextual or something snuck into the code or otherwise, that i immediately forgive it for not caring much abt how indulgent it must look. so badly want to express the episodic experience as bad and good with the excruciating waits, tantalizing peeks of a world that crosses the boundary of the game space into other mediums and irl, and having a closer understanding of a work that changes from part to part, on an almost exponential scale, with the shifting priorities and moods of the creators--and the ideology of obsolescence that extends to both unity as an engine and the game's themes and perceived relevance--over time. and so badly want to talk about my own cowriting of this story that became a mirror into myself; fear of genetic alcoholism, anxieties on separation between "work" and "hobby", the shame of guillibly falling into something i couldn't really foresee but well you shouldve, the worry of constantly forgetting, the difficulty of accepting records and archives and memorials as washed away and lost, for me all of these and more are in it. but ky0 sprawls in my imagination so far and wide that its so intimidating, with so much i want to address.

maybe ill just lose any sense of restraint someday and spread out thoughts on the other nine or ten entries of acts/interludes that count as kentucky route zero on this website, because its an anthology of smaller games strung together at its heart and there's something to say about each element on its own. or maybe ill express how much i love the game in an actually useful and productive way instead. but for now ill settle with saying this is my favorite of them all. sometimes i forget why but i only have to go back to it, slowly replaying it all and loving the finale so much more the second time around, and then i remember. i realized why i love games most of all, after forgetting for a while, because of this one.

replayed on switch and imo, pc is the slightly better option if you got one that can handle it. i dont think its that demanding but idk how the complete version's specs are, plus on pc you can "hack" into the save files by opening them in a text editor and see the variables for yourself, becomes another aspect of playing ky0 for me. no idea if other consoles are better or worse.

I need to replay this game. My expectations ruined my first playthrough :( It's a game that kind of transcends genre in that it takes storytelling to new heights to build this whole world and establish this rich cast of characters.

However, I came into this blind expecting something linear/easy, casual and straightforward (a la Abzu, Life is Strange, Night in the Woods). I only played late nights before bed and fell asleep playing it during at least three of the five acts. It moves at a very contemplative pace, but it came across as glacial. I expected something grounded so the constant introduction of new surreal sci-fi type aspects took me out every single time. Also, it's not casual in that these storylines are heavy. Technically the plot is simple (at its core it's a road trip), but we've got characters all struggling through different crises and hardships that can be felt even in between their lines of dialogue.

But of course as the game progressed I got more into it and understood its rhythms and by the end of the fifth act I was all in. It's a gorgeous, melancholy game set in what feels like a southern rural gothic atmosphere about anything and everything in life. It's got themes of found family, home, regret – the past as a ghost, friendship, loneliness, healing, technology and labor, the list goes on and on. I will think about this game for a long time. And the soundtrack bangs. I cried to basically all the lyrical songs.

For the last year since playing this wonderful, wonderful, game there was an absence of words to capture what made it so special. Perhaps it was the way it dealt with humanity, or the little moments of pain and loss, or the way it depicts moral, mental, and financial debts. Maybe it was its fantastic soundtrack with a folksy and otherworldly feel. In the end, I think I have just been overthinking what makes this game so special. Kentucky Route Zero is a game about a delivery to Dogwood Drive, not about where you are going but the journey there.

You are this story's curator piecing together the lines of a play as it is performed live in front of you. There will be times in this story where you control every line of dialogue and times in which you contribute very little. Still, that is but minutiae of the moments. The game at its best will invest you bring you into a moment and let it ruminate. These moments are shared by a disparate group of travelers all heading in the same direction for one reason or another. What begins with Conway and hit old mutt grows into a group of people held together for reasons even they cannot put words to. It seems that while chance encounters brought them together they are bound by loneliness. The relationship they share is not unlike those who stumble thei way into the acquaintanceship of others and eventually become friends, sometimes even family. We all need people, sometimes two people come upon one another at the exact right moment to form a bond. Even if that bond is only for a little while.

The thing Kentucky Route Zero captures best is the little moments of mundanity we all live through. For as ethereal and distant as some elements of Kentucky Route Zero are it remains an honest capturing of life. With its every line and stage action hurtling the player towards a finale less grand than it is bittersweet as much of life often is. These moments string together forming a complex web of stories that define us. These plain moments end up on display for thoughtful reflection, much like residents homes are snapped up and displayed in the games Museum of Dwellings. For characters such as Conway, this can see something as minor as a leg injury come to define his life. We don’t often think about how these little insignificant things come to shape our entire worlds. Still, they do, there is no turning back the clock or answer to the ‘what if’ questions we might ask. We do our best to continue life, waking up getting out of bed and going about our business as if it were the most important thing in the world whether we stop by the barber after work or put it off that one more day.

Kentucky Route Zero is about being set back. For Conway, his injury does more than simply delay the delivery to Dogwood Drive. It sets him onto a path of no return in which medical and moral debt consume him. After years of fighting against alcoholism and trying to keep going, keep pushing for those who he had hurt he gives in. Conway is lost, what is left in the aftermath is a nameless man lost to his own vices, settling for a life unlived. It wasn’t just capitalism that killed Conway, but his own waning resilience in the face of an uncaring monolith. That story is just one of a handful reflecting on American decay. The loss of life and family in the service of greed and labor. For his traveling companion’s loss is not unfamiliar, still, they remain, for a time, resilient against the crashing of a wave against their shore. For a young boy like Ezra, it could be his innocence will remain despite all that he has lost but the world often takes more than it can give. What is to become of him, or the others, is left up to us. We are all just keepers of a flame. If we nurture it, it will grow and keep us warm. If we do not, if we let the waves of life wash it away we too will lose ourselves in the torrent.

Kentucky Route Zero is about moving ahead. In the face of an unrelenting sea, we are then too asked the question, why keep going. Kentucky Route Zero shows us time and time again what we do in the face of loss. Grief too is just a moment in our lives like any other. It fades over time before inevitably returning like an old friend. Like many of its themes, Kentucky Route Zero lays bare grief and trauma. There is loss and death and yet they continue onward. Even in the carnage, some find hope, where something is empty there is an opportunity to fill it. To make it a home for friends and family to come together. Even if for a short time. What comes after that? Well, more mundanity. While one town might be suffering the worst storm in a generation another might be featuring the debut play of an aspiring playwright. The world is rarely this binary but Kentucky Route Zero in all its mysticism allows itself to be as simple or as complex as its messages need it to be.

We often find ourselves adrift in the sea without guidance or purpose. Still, we find our own guidance in time. From simple goals to big dreams were are aided by our friends, family, and even strangers. They help us along the way and eventually we find our own place in the world. Stories such as Kentucky Route Zero are rare in that they capture these elements and distill them so elegantly they stick with us. Even if we cannot put words as to why. I hesitated, trying to find the words to describe Kentucky Route Zero. “The next great piece of classic American literature?” with some grandiose idea of what words could justify the importance of this game. Nonetheless, thinking more about Kentucky Route Zero it stuck with me that there need not be some elaborate story to put to this game. After all, others have certainly captured the spirit of the game better than I could. It is, for a remarkable difficult world, another piece of literature that brings us into its stories if only for a moment to better understand the world and ourselves.

Kentucky Route Zero is like a journey through all the Midwestern parts of my mind. I'm originally hail from Michigan, and though I haven't been back in some time this game felt all too familiar. I've spent tons of time driving through that part of the country, through Southern Ohio and through Kentucky, and all the strange characters and people you meet in Kentucky Route Zero strangely felt like... home. The sad old man at the gas station, the homely people along the riverboat's path, and the quirky people at the late night TV station, they all just feel... like people you've met. While I can't even begin to describe a lot of the themes of KRZ because quite frankly, I don't understand all of them, the solitude and loneliness enveloped in this game was strangely cathartic to experience. I don't know if you could give it a genre outside of "point-and-click surrealism," which is fine because that's simply what it is.

You embark on a journey to deliver for the antique shop your character works for and quickly find yourself off all semblance of a beaten path. While the story is great, the visuals even greater, one thing that stood out to me was the soundtrack which features some great ambient works but also a few harrowing bluegrass and synth based vocal songs that will remain engrained in my brain for quite some time.

Una review especial, para un juego especial. Como homenaje a la narrativa del grandísimo Kentucky Route Zero he querido hacer un ejercico un poquito diferente para esta review, ejercicio que es imposible hacer aquí y que hice en Twitter. Encuestando decisiones a lo largo de la review, que no afectaran realmente a la opinión que quería dar, o a mi guion, pero sí que la personalizara un poco para las personas que votaban, algo así como el desempeño que tienen las decisiones en el videojuego, donde no alteras la historia en sí, si no tu percepción del papel que interpretas en ella. Enlace a Twitter: https://twitter.com/joseizq_/status/1437456317132820489

------------------------- LET'S GO -------------------------------
Cuesta lo suyo hablar de un juego como KRZ habiéndolo jugado solo una vez, donde es prácticamente imposible rascar algo más allá de la superficie. Pero no tengo ninguna duda de que es uno de los juegos más originales (y valientes) de [ENCUESTA]
1. su año. 25%
2. la década. 75% ✓
3. este siglo. 0%

Es difícil de encasillar a KRZ... Se podría decir que es una aventura point-n-click ambientada en un mundo de realismo mágico. Pero se aleja bastante de los estándares de este tipo de aventuras. Empezando por su mecánica principal de "toma de decisiones", si se puede llamar así. Seguramente la podríamos llamar [Encuesta], por ejemplo, para que encajara mejor. Pues realmente las elecciones que tomemos no afectaran a la historia per se, si no más bien será un modo de interpretar a nuestros personajes. Somos intérpretes en una obra de teatro ya escrita.
1. toma de interpretaciones. 75% ✓
2. rellena la ficha de rol. 0%
3. imagina ser intérprete. 25%

Al contrario que muchos juegos que toman como mayor influencia al cine, aunque no son pocos los ensayos que hablan de cómo el videojuego se parece más al teatro, por su carácter interactivo, ya que el público (o nosotros) influye en la obra (ya me estoy enrollando...), KRZ apunta descaradamente hacia el teatro (esto se llega a hacer casi literal incluso en el interludio - El entretenimiento). Es algo que no recuerdo haber visto nunca, y menos de esta forma tan bien realizada (la escritura de este juego es para flipar también).

Un ejemplo perfecto de esto es el concierto de Junebug y Johnny. Nos da el poder de elegir la letra, el concierto se va a dar igual elijamos lo que elijamos, pero crea un vínculo con nosotros al tomar un papel actoral (poca broma al apartado audivisual).

Vídeo del concierto: https://youtu.be/ufAUonsYhVU

De esta forma hace que cada experiencia jugando a KRZ sea única, aunque hayamos completado el mismo viaje, cada uno lo habrá vivido de una forma muy diferente: Conway era [ENCUESTA]
Pero su innovación en la narrativa no se queda solo en esta mecánica, no deja de experimentar.
1. demasiado serio. 25%
2. algo melancólico. 75% ✓
3. muy hablador. 0%

Especialmente en los interludios, que podrían ser pequeños juegos por sí mismos, no para de intentar comunicarse de maneras diferentes, y lo mejor de todo es que lo encaja a la perfección. El sobrenombre de juego más original de [la década] no se le queda corto.

Pero no solo su narrativa es genial, con esta "[toma de interpretaciones]" recién acuñada y demás mecánicas, su guion está a la altura de grandes obras de ficción de cualquier medio. Cargado de referencias y simbolismos a descubrir con cada revisión, p.e. referencias a [ENCUESTA].
1. Gabriel García Márquez. 66.7% ✓
2. David Lynch. 0%
3. (juega el juego flojo). 33.3%

Además, de un texto escrito muy muy bien, cada pequeño detalle, todo tiene sentindo y un eco en el tiempo. P. e., justo en la 1º pantalla te encuentras a 3 pjs que sintetizan a la perfección la propuesta de KRZ, "Creo que no puedes ganar, lo dice en la caja es una tragedia". Es que es totalmente eso, no se puede ganar, asistimos a una tragedia. Estos 3 pjs nos acompañarán durante toda la aventura, lo que parecía un pequeño detalle se hace eco hasta su final, y tiene mil cosas como esta que cierran círculos perfectamente tejidos.

Se mueve también en varias capas, y no está excento de subtextos; contamos con uno principal como es esa crítica a la recesión provocada por el capitalismo y el estado en el que quedan muchas familias y paisajes. También toca otros temas, algunos a interpretación, como [ENCUESTA]
1. el miedo al fracaso. 75% ✓
2. qué es el arte. 25%
3. la desidia de la rutina. 0%

Todos ellos perfectamente explotados en este ambiente lúgubre de realismo mágico que crea. Los fantasmas del pasado persiguen a todos nuestros personajes, y no pueden encajar mejor con el diseño visual que nos brinda KRZ.

Se podría seguir hablando horas y horas del guion de KRZ, de su narrativa, de su ambientación, de su diseño... Estoy seguro, y espero, que se harán muchos ensayos de este juego, muchos centrados en temas como "[el miedo al fracaso]" que ya comentamos. Pero como siga no paro nunca.

Lo mejor de todo, es que es un juego que cuanto más pienso en él mejor me parece, y del que seguro sacaré diferentes lecturas con otras partidas nuevas y con una mayor experiencia en muchas artes que referencia. Pues ni con [ENCUESTA] creo que se pueda exprimir al máximo.
1. 5 partidas. 0%
2. 10 partidas. 25%
3. 200 partidas. 75% ✓

Lo único que me ha jodido de KRZ, y no es culpa del juego. Es no haberlo jugado conforme salían los capítulos y diferentes interludios. Creo que es un juego que va evolucionando junto con la sociedad y tener esa perspectiva con el lanzamiento de cada capítulo es la experiencia óptima. Además, los creadores se comunicaban con el jugador no solo con lo que es el juego, si no en la vida real con vídeos con personas reales que hacían para complementar interludios por ejemplo, o teléfonos físicos que llegaron a sacar. Todo lo que rodeaba cada capítulo acompaña genial.

Esto también te da el tiempo necesario para exprimir cada capítulo por separado antes de que salga el siguiente, que se ha alargado bastante más de lo esperado en el tiempo. En fin, un detalle que igual me hubiera hecho amar incluso más KRZ.
Cerramos por aquí. [ENCUESTA]
1. Que tengan un buen día. 0%
2. Hasta nunca hijos de puta. 25%
3. Viva er beti. 75% ✓

Pues lo dicho. Viva er beti y viva Kentucky Route Zero.

Painfully pretentious, with a healthy side of slow pacing, weak characterization, and a nonsensical 'story' if it can even be called one. The very worst aspects of 'magical realism' all rolled into one package.

It almost feels like some sort of inside joke where the people calling this a masterpiece are just pranking the rest of us by saying there's a deep and moving message here and that we 'just didn't get it'. A story doesn't need to be blatant, but at a certain point esoteric brilliance and vapid nothingness end up being indistinguishable from one another.