A story like a thin, 15 hour-long rain puddle that, when stepped into, sucks you deep into a dark, flooded underground cave, submerged for 122 hours, re-emerging, itching to dive in again.
A story like Atlas, holding you up with the world, knees buckling.
A story like a family, found, picked together from lint and scrap and old furniture, a story of broken people feeling a little more whole with each other.
A story of many arms, holding pieces of a whole, each visibly broken.
A story as a book, as a game, as an exhibition, as a play, as a hotline, as a painful auction, as a phone call with a loved one about to pass on.
A story that respects and knows art, architecture, theatre, computers, games and this broken scrapyard of a world as deeply as it respects you.
My favourite story ever created.
---
10 years down the road, ten years after I gave the first act a preliminary playthrough, unsure if I'd like it due to its (then perceived) mixed Steam reviews - in 2023, I can't overstate the significance that Kentucky Route Zero has had in my life. When I begin to describe it with my voice, I get choked up- This story has, in near every facet, shaped the person I am; my aspirations, my goals, my loves, my dreams.
Part of me wants to say "I can't believe it's over now", but that's not true, nothing could be further from true than that. Kentucky Route Zero was a preamble to our current days; to the injustice of a global system built on the glowing bones of workers, soldiers, debtors, the other.
Kentucky Route Zero knows: We will be buried in time. All of this is vain. Businesses fail. Unpaid houses are abandoned. Jobs are left vacant by necessity or death. Monuments wash away in the cyclical tides of time.
People remember people, but that circle of support and awareness doesn't turn forever. Community is strong, mutual aid is strong, but it's all temporary. The systems, the money, the specific sense of gnawing on everything wins out against aspirations, goals, loves, dreams. This story needed no villain - a human price put on a quickening of entropy was villain enough; a price on food, on health, on community, on work, on addiction, on loneliness.
From within that anthropic erosion, Kentucky Route Zero asks us to hold onto each other, and pick up the ones that society has dropped. The world isn't evil; people aren't evil. The systems people build to elevate themselves over other people, themselves just as mortal, just as filled with blood and guts as them - those systems are an evil construct, and must be rejected, operated around, dismantled.
Kentucky Route Zero is a tragedy, but its catharsis isn't voiceless and meaningless; it's the strength needed to carry on and understand what to do.
Developing video games independently has been a hard road. Maybe someday, my landlord will change the locks.
Until then, with the voices of this story, I will sing.
A story like Atlas, holding you up with the world, knees buckling.
A story like a family, found, picked together from lint and scrap and old furniture, a story of broken people feeling a little more whole with each other.
A story of many arms, holding pieces of a whole, each visibly broken.
A story as a book, as a game, as an exhibition, as a play, as a hotline, as a painful auction, as a phone call with a loved one about to pass on.
A story that respects and knows art, architecture, theatre, computers, games and this broken scrapyard of a world as deeply as it respects you.
My favourite story ever created.
---
10 years down the road, ten years after I gave the first act a preliminary playthrough, unsure if I'd like it due to its (then perceived) mixed Steam reviews - in 2023, I can't overstate the significance that Kentucky Route Zero has had in my life. When I begin to describe it with my voice, I get choked up- This story has, in near every facet, shaped the person I am; my aspirations, my goals, my loves, my dreams.
Part of me wants to say "I can't believe it's over now", but that's not true, nothing could be further from true than that. Kentucky Route Zero was a preamble to our current days; to the injustice of a global system built on the glowing bones of workers, soldiers, debtors, the other.
Kentucky Route Zero knows: We will be buried in time. All of this is vain. Businesses fail. Unpaid houses are abandoned. Jobs are left vacant by necessity or death. Monuments wash away in the cyclical tides of time.
People remember people, but that circle of support and awareness doesn't turn forever. Community is strong, mutual aid is strong, but it's all temporary. The systems, the money, the specific sense of gnawing on everything wins out against aspirations, goals, loves, dreams. This story needed no villain - a human price put on a quickening of entropy was villain enough; a price on food, on health, on community, on work, on addiction, on loneliness.
From within that anthropic erosion, Kentucky Route Zero asks us to hold onto each other, and pick up the ones that society has dropped. The world isn't evil; people aren't evil. The systems people build to elevate themselves over other people, themselves just as mortal, just as filled with blood and guts as them - those systems are an evil construct, and must be rejected, operated around, dismantled.
Kentucky Route Zero is a tragedy, but its catharsis isn't voiceless and meaningless; it's the strength needed to carry on and understand what to do.
Developing video games independently has been a hard road. Maybe someday, my landlord will change the locks.
Until then, with the voices of this story, I will sing.
MrWarm
2 months ago