Kentucky Route Zero - magical realist episodic adventure game

[ValeVelKal]

I really tried to like it because it is the cool thing to like, but I really disliked the game. Boring and pretentious, not even that beautiful.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I really tried to like it because it is the cool thing to like, but I really disliked the game. Boring and pretentious, not even that beautiful.

Thank you for waiting on line, we think the problem is you.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Kentucky Route Zero has, among other things, always been about loss--how we come by it, and what is left after. By the time the last episode came around, the game felt heavy with it, like when your clothes are soaked. The loss of a leg, then an entire body, then a friend, then a town. The loss of a home, a place to be, the ability to be anywhere at all. Debt ate people alive like a wasting disease, drove them to self destruction, or when all else failed, simply crushed them. Capitalism does this, over and over again. It marks out the contours of so much of our suffering, like a mime doing that invisible box thing. You can’t see it but the walls are there all the same, and it’s shrinking. You are left with the feeling that you’re managing loss, just deciding when is the best time to let another thing go. An empty space is still a thing, even if it's defined by absence.

https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/scott-bensons-top-10-games-of-2020/1100-6094/

 

[Verylittlefishes]

TV Edition fucked the performance, btw, have a ton of epileptic glitches in the Bureau of Reclaimed Spaces.

Edit: oh, and I was blocked on-screen after finding Organ Player Easter egg. Perfect.

Otherwise, still masterpiece.

 

[lightbane]

SPOILERS FOR THE GAME BELOW!!!

Finally finished this. I believe I should have played it earlier, perhaps during each episode's new release, since it feels I'm missing something, or perhaps I grew jaded and old and I'm not surprised by stuff anymore. As mentioned, this is an almost walking simulator if it wasn't because it has minimal gameplay and C&C that scares away game journos. It took so long (it started back in 2011 if you count the Kickstarter campaign) because the 3 devs making this (yeah, the group is that small), poured their hearts into it and went beyond what was needed. You can notice the game getting better with each new episode mirroring the devs getting better (until the last 2 acts which suck IMO). Shame the art of the Kickstarter trailer was lost, that one was cool too. In fact, this is probably one of the first, if not the first, of the "Kickstarter flood" from the early 10s.
But I insist, the devs didn't simply make a walking simulator where the overbearing narrator yells at you when you try to leave the scripted path, or make fake pixel art purpose-made by and for lazy hacks. Nope, they went as far as to make a live action version of the 4th interlude just because they can, and it even synchronizes pretty well with the dialogue ingame!

Spoiler

This game is about the evils of unchecked corporations yes (I bet we would have had "peaceful protesters" and blatant commie propaganda had this game started in the 2020s), as well as drifters, losers and those unable to adapt doing their best to keep going, but it's probably metaphorical as well. You don't know if the protagonist is alive to begin with, as you can walk into a brutal truck crash he may or may not have been involved with depending on what's Conway's answer to the event. The Hard Times Distillery is an unsubtle allegory to hell or at least purgatory, complete with a monster tempting him into a contract he didn't want and still falls for in a moment of weakness. I know Conway was a walking death-flag, but the way it ends for him is depressing. There are also way too many characters to the point it gets a bit hard to keep track of. Then the last Act comes which... Is pretty much Gabriel García Marquez's 100 years of Solitude, as a game*. Identical themes, similar fatal end for the town and so on, although in this case you may choose for your party to stay behind and rebuild**... Which doesn't make too much sense IMO, as why would you stay in the middle of nowhere, completely isolated, at the risk of disease or yet another natural disaster wiping out the town? Moreover, one of the character choices implies that Bureau of Pointless Bureaucracy wants to reclaim this town. Also, why bury the horses and not the many people that surely died in the flash flood? Classic Star Trek and even Mother 3 used the themes of naturalism and going full hippie much better, by correctly by pointing out how it can be as bad as being a corporate wage-slave (in M3's case for example by showing how that community was actually fake and created by implanting artificial memories, as well as showing multiple times their inability to cope with adversity).
Oh well, again it's probably metaphorical for going to heaven or something as mentioned before, but it felt like trying too hard to me. Also, playing as a kitty is cool, but having to find the spots you have to click to continue the story progression is annoying.

In any case, the game is a reminder of better times, back before Gamergate, the world going full insane, the Chink Virus, and so on. I give it a 6/10. I'm not sure what I played, but it was pretty (especially the final song of Act 3), even if the last Arc goes a bit overboard. I'm not sure what's the game's fixation with horses either.

Lastly but not least, there's a LP of the first chapter was started by Crooked Bee back when she (if she is an actual "she" to begin with) posted regularly here.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/lets-play-kentucky-route-zero.79515/


*Not that the game is subtle about its inspirations, having characters named "Márquez" and such.

**I found this video today which also reminds me of the town's layout which is probably not coincidence: https://youtu.be/4e5u9uYvfZ0?t=289

 

[Verylittlefishes]

6/10 you must be kidding, this is one of the best videogames ever made

 

[lightbane]

6/10 you must be kidding, this is one of the best videogames ever made

It's still almost a non-game, and the last Act is really disappointing in comparison with the previous ones, being weaker in most aspects and annoying to play, especially you have trouble spotting the spots where you have to stop to advance the story. The ending answers none of the questions until that point and creates more instead, which would be fine in most cases but I didn't see it fitting here, plus I would like to know at least what's the final fate of poor Conway and his former lover. Or at least not replicate the ending of 100 años de soledad but with horses.

Speaking of Márquez, there's that museum interlude where a tornado is destroying a house. That's probably another reference to the aforementioned work.

Oh well, I can bump it to 6.5 at most. I'm considering replaying it in a few weeks/months to explore the choices I didn't pick.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

the last Act is really disappointing

The ending answers none of the questions until that point

I wrote earlier in this thread how this is the perfect ending and what it means, lol.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Horror movies and games usually don't scare me at all, the only thing that I've ever found frightening was House of Leaves.

The Zero fucking gave me shiver. It feels like you're being stuck inside a gigantic cobra. HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THIS.

House of Leaves is great, by the way! Thinking about ordering The Familiar bricks.

BTW 2 years after I ordered the 3 volumes of Familiar and now they are gathering dust on my shelf since I'm not sure what to do with this.

 

[lightbane]

the last Act is really disappointing

The ending answers none of the questions until that point

I wrote earlier in this thread how this is the perfect ending and what it means, lol.

You did offer your theory yes, but it's an interpretation, as the game won't explain shit. The whole "heaven" bit doesn't match with that part of Mary mentioning the Bureau is going to reclaim that literal ghost town, or the fact you can make the other characters leave to somewhere else.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I replayed 4th Act yesterday, found a couple of scenes I missed. What a game.

 

[lightbane]

Turns out, the company is still doing something! Enjoy this 0 seconds teaser!



Really, it's like that. Or a bug.

 

[lightbane]

So, I finished this one again after a few months as was recommended here, taking the chance to pick options I didn't choose in my first playthrough, especially during the 4th act. The extra content is enough for me to raise the game to a 7/10, barely, but only if you like this type of games. Chapter 4 is definitively the weakest even if it has lots of content, as it strains my suspension of disbelief by having an entire community living in an underground river just like that, with somewhat inane stuff such as a telephone floating in the middle of nowhere. I know it's magical realism and all of that, but the thing is that it's hard to take seriously (the endless walls of text don't help either). The crew of the ship is not particularly interesting nor it matter because you won't see them ever again, and Clara is a nobody that literally joins at the last minute.

Regarding the protagonist's final fate,

Spoiler

An interesting theory I found online is that Conway is absolutely dead or dying, and nearly everyone else but him are spirits or such. That's why you can see weird shadows during the mine of the first chapter that you can see clearly while you play as a cat during the final chapter, because cats can see the dead or some shit. That would explain why the weirdos that provide live music from time to time ignore Conway but pay attention to Shanne during the last chapter. OR why you can stumble upon that hidden but very interesting scene in the Zero where Conway sees himself as a ghost back in the mine.
Not that it matters because the whole thing is a loop, a cycle of guilt that probably never ends and whose final result probably matters little, as the malevolent Company will take over the Pueblo de Nadie as one random NPC mentions.
It's also a bit vague time-wise as it seems the flood happened a long time ago, but you find people that seemingly escaped the destroyed studio just recently in the last chapter.
It's also interesting that Conway's regrets over Charlie are referenced over, over and over during the game even by seemingly unrelated people, as if the whole thing was his personal hell.

In any case, it's an interesting experiment, even if it took FOREVER to complete. I suppose poor management is to blame and/or the three devs making too many weird experiments like the whole thing about the Ebay phone that was apparently a real thing.

I'm not sure if the ending was clear from day 1, or if it was decided later. I believe they had some idea how to end this, but they were lost on the specifics

Spoiler

I suspect the horses you see in Marquez's home are the same you see in the final chapter, as the house they're next to is the same destroyed one you can spot during chapter 5, but I'm not sure.

In any case, it was fun to play and has tons of RL references for good or bad.

Sequel when?

 

[Verylittlefishes]

So, I finished this one again after a few months as was recommended here, taking the chance to pick options I didn't choose in my first playthrough, especially during the 4th act. The extra content is enough for me to raise the game to a 7/10, barely, but only if you like this type of games. Chapter 4 is definitively the weakest even if it has lots of content, as it strains my suspension of disbelief by having an entire community living in an underground river just like that, with somewhat inane stuff such as a telephone floating in the middle of nowhere. I know it's magical realism and all of that, but the thing is that it's hard to take seriously (the endless walls of text don't help either). The crew of the ship is not particularly interesting nor it matter because you won't see them ever again, and Clara is a nobody that literally joins at the last minute.

Regarding the protagonist's final fate,

Spoiler

An interesting theory I found online is that Conway is absolutely dead or dying, and nearly everyone else but him are spirits or such. That's why you can see weird shadows during the mine of the first chapter that you can see clearly while you play as a cat during the final chapter, because cats can see the dead or some shit. That would explain why the weirdos that provide live music from time to time ignore Conway but pay attention to Shanne during the last chapter. OR why you can stumble upon that hidden but very interesting scene in the Zero where Conway sees himself as a ghost back in the mine.
Not that it matters because the whole thing is a loop, a cycle of guilt that probably never ends and whose final result probably matters little, as the malevolent Company will take over the Pueblo de Nadie as one random NPC mentions.
It's also a bit vague time-wise as it seems the flood happened a long time ago, but you find people that seemingly escaped the destroyed studio just recently in the last chapter.
It's also interesting that Conway's regrets over Charlie are referenced over, over and over during the game even by seemingly unrelated people, as if the whole thing was his personal hell.

In any case, it's an interesting experiment, even if it took FOREVER to complete. I suppose poor management is to blame and/or the three devs making too many weird experiments like the whole thing about the Ebay phone that was apparently a real thing.

I'm not sure if the ending was clear from day 1, or if it was decided later. I believe they had some idea how to end this, but they were lost on the specifics

Spoiler

I suspect the horses you see in Marquez's home are the same you see in the final chapter, as the house they're next to is the same destroyed one you can spot during chapter 5, but I'm not sure.

In any case, it was fun to play and has tons of RL references for good or bad.

Sequel when?

good one, thanks

there will be no sequel sadly

 

[lightbane]

You don't know that (unless you're actually one of the devs, kek). The studio will probably do another game for sure at some point either because they need money or because they can, although they're more artists than "professional" game devs.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

can't wait for that 2029 sequel!!!

 

[toiletwino]

I was all set to fire this up until fan(s) of David Lynch and House of Leaves started heaping praise on it.

A New York Times GOTY seal might have been the only redder flag for me.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I was all set to fire this up until fan(s) of David Lynch and House of Leaves started heaping praise on it.

A New York Times GOTY seal might have been the only redder flag for me.

this game has very little to do with Lynch and next to nothing with House Of Leaves.

keep reading the internet please.

 

[lightbane]

Despite what you may think, this game is not a woke walking simulator. It has a bit more work behind it.

 

[lightbane]

The Devs are not dead! They just released a QoL update!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/231200/view/7038615889397930405?l=english

Spoiler

Postmodern Update
The first major update since 2020, UI overhaul, adding new languages and features.

We're excited to share with you our first major update to Kentucky Route Zero since the release of Act V in 2020. This update includes a
major overhaul of the user interface
, called "Modern" mode,
new language support
and improvements to existing translations, and a sprawling rhizome of
bug fixes and improvements
.

The new "Modern" interface is designed to be
more flexible and readable
on a wider variety of devices, including
tablets
and the
Steam Deck
. But we've also overhauled and improved the "Classic" interface from the original release, and its lo-fi companion, "Retro."

With these interfaces co-existing, overlapping and criss-crossing, deconstructing the
grands récits
of human-computer interaction, and destabilizing the linguistic locus of the text through multiplication of translations, we could only call this event "The Postmodern Update".

We plan one more update in the near future, in which we plan to add line rendering improvements for high resolutions, and full multi-touch input on the Steam Deck.

Features and improvements:
-
Switch freely
between "
Modern
," "
Classic
," and "
Retro
" modes.
-
New translations
: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish.
- A new Japanese translation.
-
Steam Cloud sync
.
-
Zoom
in on details in the scene by holding the right mouse button or gamepad trigger, or pinching the screen.
- Improved
touchscreen support
makes the game 100%
hot dog compatible
.

Special thanks to Echo River Translators for the Chinese translation and Tsuchiya Ayumi for the new Japanese translation.

We're always-already grateful for your support, thank you for playing!

-jake+tamas+ben

Technical Note: This update also moves the save/settings location, as writing data to the "Documents" folder has become problematic in recent operating system versions. Your save and settings data should automatically be copied to the new location when you run the game. See README.txt / RELEASE_NOTES.txt in the game's folders for more detail.

 

[Tom Selleck]

With these interfaces co-existing, overlapping and criss-crossing, deconstructing the
grands récits
of human-computer interaction, and destabilizing the linguistic locus of the text through multiplication of translations, we could only call this event "The Postmodern Update".

 

[Verylittlefishes]

The Devs are not dead! They just released a QoL update!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/231200/view/7038615889397930405?l=english

Spoiler

Postmodern Update
The first major update since 2020, UI overhaul, adding new languages and features.

We're excited to share with you our first major update to Kentucky Route Zero since the release of Act V in 2020. This update includes a
major overhaul of the user interface
, called "Modern" mode,
new language support
and improvements to existing translations, and a sprawling rhizome of
bug fixes and improvements
.

The new "Modern" interface is designed to be
more flexible and readable
on a wider variety of devices, including
tablets
and the
Steam Deck
. But we've also overhauled and improved the "Classic" interface from the original release, and its lo-fi companion, "Retro."

With these interfaces co-existing, overlapping and criss-crossing, deconstructing the
grands récits
of human-computer interaction, and destabilizing the linguistic locus of the text through multiplication of translations, we could only call this event "The Postmodern Update".

We plan one more update in the near future, in which we plan to add line rendering improvements for high resolutions, and full multi-touch input on the Steam Deck.

Features and improvements:
-
Switch freely
between "
Modern
," "
Classic
," and "
Retro
" modes.
-
New translations
: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish.
- A new Japanese translation.
-
Steam Cloud sync
.
-
Zoom
in on details in the scene by holding the right mouse button or gamepad trigger, or pinching the screen.
- Improved
touchscreen support
makes the game 100%
hot dog compatible
.

Special thanks to Echo River Translators for the Chinese translation and Tsuchiya Ayumi for the new Japanese translation.

We're always-already grateful for your support, thank you for playing!

-jake+tamas+ben

Technical Note: This update also moves the save/settings location, as writing data to the "Documents" folder has become problematic in recent operating system versions. Your save and settings data should automatically be copied to the new location when you run the game. See README.txt / RELEASE_NOTES.txt in the game's folders for more detail.

nigga what