Kentucky Route Zero: PC Edition

I am wordless.

Unlike some episodic video games, each episode (and interlude!) in Kentucky Route Zero has a completely different vibe to it, and they range from cool to absolutely fucking amazing. "The Entertainment" will be living in my mind for the rest of my life

I understand that this game is very philosophical, it has a great art direction and other good stuff. Simply speaking, this game is not for me. Too many incomprehensible and long dialogues, i don't like it. I tried to finish the game, but near the end of act 3 i decided to simply give up, i was very bored and it doesn't make sense to skip dialogues.

"Capitalism is bad"
There, I saved you about 6 hours of meandering.

I'm conflicted with this "game". Having picked it up back in 2013 it held such promise when I played Act 1. The style was engrossing and unique with some locations being quite impressive, such as the lit up neon sign on Equus Oils and The Bureau of Reclaimed Spaces. While these qualities are indeed worthy of art pieces, they are not enough to make a game worthwhile, especially given the volume of other unique indie "games" out there.

Some things:
Kentucky Route Zero is a story and not a game. There is only one story and your choices (if you can call them choices) give more of it. As a result, there are no consequences to your actions and subsequently no weight to your choices; just sad, melancholic characters that make comments on grass and rocks, incessantly. I would not go as far as to call it Dear Esther, but its damn close.
The story is overloaded with metaphorical exposition, to the point that it undermines its muddled message. There's a reason that philosophy major you knew in college could only be tolerated in small doses.
Despite its name, there is very little "Kentucky" in it. Its almost as if the creators made this game from someones description of Kentucky, rather than having invested the time to actually visit there. The end result is akin to a facsimile of a facsimile. Just throw some banjo music and some depressing rust belt exposition in there, problem solved!
This game took 10 years to create! For something to take that long, I expected it to be...better? Its wire frame with limited animations and no facial features, can't rush high art I guess?

The initial acts (1-3) makes for a focused view of the small cast and this is when Kentucky Route Zero shines, epitomized by Junebug's performance in Act 3, only for the story to abruptly decompose in Act 4. At this point, the interludes between Acts (especially Un Pueblo De Nada) pulls in all the background characters into a giant incoherent mess, trying to force multiple background characters and backstories into the forefront. The final act seems as if the creators had a vision of the total story but couldn't execute it, so they made up a new one to rewrite over the existing one. By the end I only cared for the dog.

The best analogy I could give to Kentucky Route Zero is an art piece called "Comedian" by Maurizio Cattelan. Its a banana duct taped to a wall. While Cattelan has a history for satirical pieces, his jab at the stupidity and pretentious of high art is commendable.

Multiple reviews of Kentucky Route Zero call it a "masterpiece" and "genre defining" (easy in a tiny genre), I call it a good concept, but ultimately a banana taped to a wall.

this is a very special work of art, which i think successfully captures the harsh absurdity of our world in all its sadness and humor. it's sort of like ivan turgenev's First Love, a coming-of-age romance novel which indulges in love's blossoming as well as its decay and eventual death. there is a constant undercurrent of mourning permeating Kentucky Route Zero, and yet it also displays a true appreciation and understanding for the stunning vibrancy of existence

its pretty good

Not to sound too pretentious, but I honestly never experienced a video game with this much depth, both when it comes to understanding the human condition, and as a critique of the state of our contemporary world. I guess Disco Elysium comes close, maybe. This game actually makes me see the world differently the same way depressing Russian literature did, and describes the environment of its creation the same way it did, too. I suggest recommending this game to snobbish intellectuals to make them see the value of our favorite medium.

If you are a lover of the strange, abandoned, forsaken and unanswered, please play this beautiful game.

One of if not the greatest game I've ever played. I bounced off it twice before finally having that magic moment where my mind opened up enough to let this game in and show me how much further the boundaries of game/story/art/music could go.

Do it. Is good.

I was literally forcing myself to finish this unlit I've realized his is not a game, it's an experience. If you treat it this way you might have some fun with it

I don't know how many types of sadness there are, but here's KRZ inventing all new ones anyway.

Hi
This game sucks.
Went in for a good track / walking simulator.
Instead was an annoying read everything simulator.
Ugh.
only 1/3rds through and i really cant be bothered,

wish I could pet the dog more.

im out,

This is barely a game. It is a mad lib post modernist story with game like elements. I put in a few hours and decided to drop it after the story ended up with an absurd plot point.
To be clear the only game play is clicking around and advancing text bubbles. It is not clear what any of the multiple choice dialogue leads to and a vast majority of the content just tries to be weird/off putting.

Kentucky Route Zero is an intensely slow appalachian/southern gothic narrative with point and click elements.

The visuals are pleasantly minimalist, and the sound design and music are strong and effective; however the narrative is the game's strongest feature. Despite the narrative being its strongest asset, it is at the same time loose and slow, and the early acts are impenetrable due in part to its surrealist qualities. It picks up and develops in the later acts when the threads begin to form a tapestry, but it does feel as though it could have been tightened up. The slow pace is deliberate and does add value to the themes presented, but can be on the frustrating side before it begins to coalesce.

Kentucky Route Zero is not for everyone. The gameplay is thin and the narrative is fairly sluggish early on, but there is true value in its narrative and it presents a unique look into southern gothic themes, enhanced with a surrealist lens.

I would recommend Kentucky Route Zero to the right audience, much like a book by William Faulkner.

If you read other reviews you'll see that they say that KR0 is a piece of modern art, not a game. They are correct, but let me review it as such then. Because if I were to review it as a game the score would be very low. There is no gameplay.It is painfully slow in too many episodes. It would score a bit for stylish looks but boredom and tediousness would earn it something like 2/10.

Now back to reviewing this as an artistic expression. I like modern art. I like things that evoke feelings and don't necessarily require reason to be appreciated. But KR0 is not a modern art picture, its not a white rectangle on white background. KR0 is one of those video or sound installations that modern art museums show looped in separate small "movie theaters". At best they are provocative or thought-producing. At worst nonsensical. KR0 fluctuates between the two. But then again, would you really spend 10 plus hours of your life in one of those "movie theaters"? I chose not to.

So overall even as a form of modern art it lacks some foundation to be interesting. The more grounded parts it has are better than the artistic ones but they are far and between.

4/10. Do not recommend. Go to a modern art museum instead.

An adventure game through and through, just with the sort of engines (item puzzles, navigation, winnable dialogue trees) that generally drive those games replaced with an examination of your own instincts. The main concern of the gameplay is how you respond to the idea of a choice, even when that choice cannot result in a fail state, which in this game, as far as I know, it cannot. As such It's going to ask you to give something over to it, it requires a sense of curiosity about how you can work in tandem with the story and a willingness to Play rather than to Game, if you catch my drift. And if you are willing to give that to it it becomes an incredible work not just about art and how we interface with it (either as artists or audience members) but also debt, community, what there is to do about the rot of capital slowly snuffing out every bit of life America has got. It's one of my favorite games I've ever played.

I had an overall positive experience with this game, but there were major issues with it that are hard to overlook. The vibe was solid, the main underlying story was interesting, and the music was folksy and contemplative. However, both in narrative and mechanics, I felt that this game fell short of the mark it was shooting for.

Mechanically, the game is almost entirely linear and the choices presented to the player seem to have no meaningful impact on the direction of the game at all. There are multiple dialogue options for nearly every interaction in the game but they don't seem to affect anything, leaving me feeling like I was being dragged along with enough of an illusion of choice that it felt interactive when it really wasn't. Maybe this was an attempt at making a point about society, but if so then the essence of the game seems to have been lost within that point.

In substance, the game has significant narrative flaws as well. Multiple major plot points are never resolved, the chronology of certain events is never explained, and characters just appear and disappear at will without explanation or purpose, sometimes in the middle of a scene. If this was intentional, it certainly did not feel like it.

These mechanical and substance issues combine to create an experience that feels simultaneously too linear and too convoluted. Again, I enjoyed the vibe, the music, and the main underlying story of the society itself, but finishing this game I can't help but feel that the narrative and character writing was two or three drafts shy of being complete.

All that being said, I enjoyed it enough to wish that it could have been more enjoyable.

What I liked: attractive, spare animation; smart writing about big topics (class, wage slavery, environment); outstanding music. What I didn't like: it felt like my choices had no effect on the story, and I didn't feel connected with the characters. Perhaps rolling out the phases of the game over many years meant that the designers changed their mind over time about some things, but yeah, there were some choices that didn't make sense to me (like Conway's arc). I didn't finish Act V because I lost interest.

I love this game. Surreal, funny, and emotionally resonant. If you like David Lynch, play this game.

An American tragedy. A mystery, you could call it "Entertainment". Objectively a video game, if we were better a naming things we would call it something else.

Maybe we're all trying to find the zero... I think that. All of us tragic souls, who have known fear and failure in ample portion, are searching for the same thing... Whatever it may be, I pray we all make it there, some day

Its gorgeous. I love it.

got a notes app filled with quotes from this game, insane that we live in a world where a video game says "the computer is no longer the pure domain of language or mathematics but entropy" I'd kill myself if i had to grow up in the 80s.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GAME KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO

How can one find words to describe the feeling of community, of pedigree both personal and global, of the unexpected, of the eclectic strangers and folk music that feel as old and permanent as the very hills. There is no one way to write all that, the story of a curious life, a messy life, and life lived with utter precociousness, obsession, and deep love. None that I know of that is, or at least that I knew before I took my journey along the zero.
Because of my profound respect and love for video games, I might have expected, or at least, if inquired upon, guessed that they might be the only chance at showing all that in a single package; but I never was, never even did I pose this question to myself, I simply took them in, I found wonder and tragedy inside the layered storytelling Outer Wilds, and I found glutinous joy in 5 dollar rougelites à la Vampire Survivors, yet never before did I feel so intimate with a videogame experience as did with Kentucky Route Zero.
The arc of KR0, told in five acts, brought me through the full spectrum of emotion, and effortlessly brought me into a curiosity and wonder the likes of which I have not experienced since I was 12 and played my first real game of Dungeons and Dragons. At first glance these things may not seem immediately related, but allow me to explain. On the one hand we have KR0, a visual novel turned point and click adventure game, and D&D, a rules heavy, clunky tabletop game, how could both have stirred within me that same sense of wonder? Simply put: these two experiences, unlike most other things in my life, were truly able to transport me. Often, especially in my young adult life, I feel overwhelmingly centered within my body and my mind, and I seldom feel a connection to the spiritual or the mystical (though I yearn for it). As I travelled in the Mucky Mammoth however, down the echo river, hearing the subtle sounds of the subterranean and gobbling up each storyline like a serving of cold blind eel from Sam & Ida’s, I felt connected to something bigger. It sounds silly, perhaps even contrived for me to say this, but what I felt while playing this game was a sense of community, of true closeness, the likes of which I have not been able to feel in my real life in some time. Drifting down this stream and wondering how it would turn out for Conway, as more and more of him was consumed by his debt to the Hard Times Distillery, thinking about how, and in fact if Ezra would ever again be united with Julian, I felt truly outside of myself, as if I too was drifting down that river, each character I encountered fishing a new piece of me to the surface (no pun intended). I felt seen, and, transcending usual struggles depression often brings to bear on my heart and mind, I was completely enraptured in a world that was so like, yet so unlike my own.
Now of course no experience can be perfect and this one, eclectic as it may be, is, in reality, ‘just another game’. This gamey-ness weighed heavily on my sense of immersion in the first two acts, which take a much more streamlined approach in their storytelling. During this portion, interludes notwithstanding, the camera is centered completely on the games erstwhile protagonist Conway and his straw hat wearing hound, Homer. A rather schlubby, though ponderous fellow, in tune with the sublime energies that hang about this game like the heaviest of perfumes, Conway seeks to complete a delivery of antiques, the final delivery to be made for Lysette and her late husband Ira with whom he shared a deep bond, complicated and troublesome as all bonds of this nature tend to be, but loving too. During this phase of the game I was curious, but I was not yet truly in it, as I would become later around act 2.5 during the interlude ‘the entertainment’. A segment in which the player finally gets a real taste of what is to come as they are placed in the middle of a realism-inspired stage performance about a seedy dive bar called ‘the Lower Depths’. During these first few acts we are introduced to the mannerisms of the game, and it presents us with a dreary, surreal world set firmly in the doldrums of Kentucky. An environment through which the player travels by way of hand written directions in a busted old truck, driving by small towns and past run down casinos, all while hearing ominous whisperings of ‘Consolidated Power’ a burgeoning electric company that seems to have an invisible chokehold on each and every corner of this place.
After the aforementioned interlude, however, things begin to shift, and the grasp that Cardboard Computer, the studio responsible for this masterpiece, has on their world becomes astoundingly clear as they shake the foundations of the avant-gard-warioware-like-visual-novel-point-and-click-adventure-game (or whatever genre I am supposed to define this game with), with each act and each interlude presenting itself in through a unique new spin. It is here that we are introduced to two of my personal favorite characters, a pair of bantering, motorcycle riding, music making, androids. Now I have yet to make a second playthrough of the game (best believe that it is coming), but when I learned that I would be able to travel to previously mentioned dive ‘the Lower Depths’ and see them perform a song, it was with a feverish urgency that I rolled my little tire Icon along the through-way and grabbed myself a barstool. I will not go into too much depth in the following sequence as to leave some mystery and novelty for those who have not yet played the game (though if you are one of those people I urge you to stop reading and go make the journey yourself), but the scene that follows was one of the first major ‘oh shit’ sequences that I experienced in the game, and, much to my elation, I was later able to encourage Junebug and Johnny to join my quest to make the delivery to 5 Dogwood drive.
There Is so much more I could say about this game, and it is a testament to games as an artform that they include an experience such as this, but as mentioned, ages ago at the beginning of this review, no five, ten, or one hundred paragraphs could accurately describe the feeling of playing this game. So I will instead leave you with this, to all my dreamers, my romantics looking to feel again, PLAY THIS GAME. It will make you want to cry, it will make you chuckle, and it will, in the best way, make you think of all the things that you love, hate, fear, and long for in this world. If you are someone who does not play games (I don't know how you found this review but here we are), and chooses instead to take your stories in other ways, be that through film, music, prose, the visual arts, or any other form, the richness of KR0’s literary, and audio-visual style will not disappoint you. After finally completing it, I can say with confidence not only that it is one of my all time favorite games, but one of my all time favorite media experiences, period. So, reader, if you do decide to make your own way through the subterranean highways of the zero, take notes, and for the love of god, feed Homer that little piece of jerky while you have the chance.

Not every game makes me cry.
This is absolutely beautiful.
And I just have to mention the music of Ben Babbitt separately - together with the story, it did so much to me.

Kentucky Route Zero is a "capital A" arthouse game, which makes it a tough sell as a commercial product. I liked its themes of displacement, and the game is at its best when it is moving quickly between stunningly framed tableaux and evocative character vignettes. However, the majority of the experience is brutally slow, and I lost patience well before Kentucky Route Zero was finished introducing its large cast of characters, which muted the overall impact of the story.

I respect what Kentucky Route Zero is trying to do, but ultimately I can't think of anyone that I personally know to whom I could recommend this game.

Kentucky Route Zero takes some patience, but giving it patience rewards one with a truly special experience.

kentucky route zero

This game might be the most important piece of interactive media since the dawn of computer technology, and its influence will be felt far into the future. It is not a game in the traditional sense but rather a meticulously crafted virtual experience that has defined its own grammar, established a new identity, and attracted a unique type of player. It is a game for musicians, cinema enthusiasts, readers, artists, and even for those who have never played video games before or felt unsure about how to engage with them. It is also for individuals contemplating the artistry of video games or, more profoundly, the idea of games as a form of art.

The game raises profound questions about the impact of interactive media and how it can influence us. It does so in a straightforward manner while delivering a powerful aesthetic and emotional experience.

At times, it may feel slow or uneventful, but it is also frequently beautiful, atmospheric, and impactful. Spending time in the world of Kentucky Route Zero and engaging with its characters can be an immensely rewarding experience that stays with you for years to come.

atmospheric point-and-click with arresting storytelling and gorgeous visuals.

reminded me of how sometimes people existed so briefly like they were never there

典型的慢游戏，需要用一整天安安静静地体验。镜头和氛围非常印象深刻，文本朦胧晦涩，充斥个人体验细节。风格太突出，怕会是一个孤品。

I still need to figure out where the Zero is

Phenomenal from start to finish

Disco Elysium for hillbillies. 10/10

I'm glad that I was just barely smart enough to understand most of this game. BARELY. Be warned it is EXTREMELY SLOW, but also very very beautiful and haunting. Pick this up on a slow and quiet day if you want something to ponder.

KR0 is the forerunner and the capstone of the direction of indie in the 2010s. To me, it’s the definitive game of the decade. The game is a thinker, it’s dense and doesn’t always go down easy. But every moment of frustration and confusion I felt momentarily only served to reinforce the beautiful, disquieting atmosphere and the haunting narrative. KR0 is best experienced with a lot of time and thought in between each act.

Some people have accused the game of being dissatisfying and aimless, but I suspect they approached it with the wrong mindset. The game is a work of art, it compels you to stand and study it until your eyes water and your legs hurt. In drifting passively through a gallery with impatient, wandering eyes you will miss the “good part”. Below the stunning scene composition, music, and attention to detail, the truly “good part” of KR0 is the indescribable feeling it pulls out of your heart, one you didn’t know was even there. Disquieting is one (incomplete) way to put it. Its illusory “aimlessness” is the shadow cast by the fact that every single little thing is connected to everything else, in its own way. The game is electric. Like radio and TV static, an infinite web of people, relationships, insecurities, histories, economies, appears as grey noise from afar. KR0 makes the player to listen to this noise, to hear voices in the static, to see ghosts on television, to meet its characters as wavelike perturbations in the electromagnetic field. KR0 is for those willing to read and to linger.

Played for 4.5 hours and have no idea what is going on.

english teacher gaming

Fine i'll play Disco Elysium too.

10/10

Something is coming
Or maybe it's already gone

Either way, the atmosphere of this game, is unmatched. You'll know exactly what your experiencing in vibe only, save for some moments of clarity. Whether those moments are from you or the game itself is for you to find out.

This game is slow, as some slow dreams where reality, imagination and quirks go together in an apparent logical flow.

ok

The kind of game that leaves you with a lot to think about.

No idea what the &^%$ Im playing, way above my head.

Even though the beginning seemed to be a bit boring to me I kept going and it was awesome, it's truly a real good and unique experience.

i am heartbroken

a 2010's-ish Appalachian ghost story in a surrealist, point & click, Midwestern adventure.
Anyone who misses &/or grieves the country life in one regard or another, or who's curious about a metaphorical way of storytelling & commentary, will appreciate this game

In case yer wondering, 5 Dogwood Drive, Carlisle, Kentucky, is real, but it's been broken up into about 6 lots, and no telling if it's still on the market or not. Be nice if they'd build what you see at the end of Act V

i mean i don't know what's going on yet but i love the humor of this game so much

If you graduated art school and feel your degree was worth it, this is the game for you.

For all else, don't waste your time. This is a "modern art" piece which makes everything a shallow abstraction so that you can pretend to be smart by mocking the people who "don't get it." In reality, there is nothing to get. But the sycophants will point to the times it touches on alcoholism, addiction, debt, etc. which all sound really deep and mature, but what you get is endless upyourass dialogue with no real decisions to make.

It's not a game, it's not *even* a point and click adventure. And it has nothing to say either. Oh wow the main character mesomorphs into a spooky scary skeleton and floats away how profound.