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.
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.