I’ve tried writing this over and over, and I keep failing to express how much I enjoy Kentucky Route Zero.

It’s a surreal, edge-of-consciousness ghost story about dying rural towns. Places tucked away, at the end of lonely roads, almost completely forgotten except by their dwindling inhabitants.

It’s a deeply personal, realist character study of working-class America, with dialogue that’s not only astoundingly well-written, but nuanced, and often endearing, despite its weighty themes.

It’s a travel story, where the final destination is shrouded in mystery and can only be accessed from a secret, reality-bending highway, buried deep beneath the caves of Kentucky. Hidden in plain sight.

It’s highly experimental. It’s not afraid to radically change graphic styles, gameplay mechanics, and control schemes. The soundtrack ranges from ethereal instrumental bluegrass, to buzzy drone ambient, to shoegaze, to synthpop, to anything and everything in between.

It took seven years to complete.

I want to keep writing about KRZ, but I also don’t, because it really should be experienced by you.

I have an admission: all of the other games I played this year are escapes. They’re enjoyable, and they’re fun to play, but when I turn them off, they disappear and I don’t think about them too much afterwards.

Kentucky Route Zero is different.

That’s not to say that it’s not enjoyable, or I had a bad time playing it. But I can see it pushing the entire medium of video games forward in a way most other games can’t even conceive of doing, let alone pull off successfully.

Do yourself a favor: after you finish reading this, go and pick it up. It's liquor for the soul and a dream that I wish I could never wake up from.