5/22/13
Kentucky Route Zero’s developer, Cardboard Computer, describes their creation as a, "magical realist adventure game about a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folk who travel it." Also of note, the Steam store page states it has, "a focus on characterization, atmosphere and storytelling rather than clever puzzles or challenges of skill,” and that it featured a soundtrack of old hymns and bluegrass standards.
Based on that information and several stunning screenshots, I started playing Kentucky Route Zero expecting it to be less of a game and more a piece of interactive fiction. Pretty, yet boring and requiring little meaningful interaction. Something that may be more interesting than it is fun.
And I found that preconception to hold true as I played the first of five episodes the developer has planned.
Kentucky Route Zero’s high points come from its artistic direction. Crisp vector art and use of contrast create depth. Empty space, light and shadow are used effectively to create a lonesome and ghostly atmosphere. The screen zooms and pans as the player moves about the environment in a way that arouses the mystery of what lies beyond the beam of your headlights as you drive down the highway. At its best, it evokes the everyday sense of adventure of late-night travel in unfamiliar territory with unfamiliar people, which is definitely a good thing.
In a couple segments, the player is presented a top-down view of a road map and asked to navigate to a specific location with directions that reference landmarks. Venturing off the main highway is rewarded with a vignette or moody descriptions. They help capture the feeling of a solitary delivery driver traversing unfamiliar territory at night, particularly because locations aren't displayed on the map until you're close enough for your digital headlights to shine on them. It really brought me back to my days as a pizza delivery driver, and worked very well with the established characterization.
So Cardboard Computer did a good job of creating atmosphere, but how does it fare on its other promises of characterization and storytelling? There, Kentucky Route Zero’s chords rang discordant to me. After you are done admiring the style, most of your interaction with Kentucky Route Zero is spent reading and selecting seemingly arbitrary dialogue options. Your enjoyment depends on how well you resonate with the story and your patience.
To summarize the plot, Conway needs to make an antique delivery in the dead of night to a place that isn’t on any map. To find it, a gas station attendant tells him he has to visit an implied ghost, who tells him to go to an old mine. So he goes to the mine, where he meets Shannon and they look for a highway onramp in a cave, which is ridiculous. When they don’t find anything, they return to the ghost’s house and fix her television which makes a phantom highway appear in the barn out back, the titular Kentucky Route Zero. Nothing about the way any of the characters react or interact makes sense except as a way to move the plot forward.
The player fills in the backstory of the characters through dialogue options. But without context or meaningful outcomes, most of the dialogue choices presented to the player lack impact.
In one part Shannon is having a conversation over the telephone with an unnamed individual and player has to choose her responses without hearing what is being said on the other side of the line. Without that context and with no or little variation of results, how are the player’s choices meaningful in this situation?
An especially disjointed section at the beginning of the third scene has the player choosing dialogue for both characters in the same conversation, which is confusing and potentially immersion-breaking.
Kentucky Route Zero gets high marks for demonstrating how art and music combine to create atmosphere, but with little for the player to do, I can't help but wonder if the creative minds behind it shouldn't have made an animated film as opposed to an interactive story. I certainly might have gotten the point better.
Kentucky Route Zero (Act One at least) is an experience that can be subtly personalized. But it’s not a game anymore than a Netflix can be considered a game when my internet drops and it prods me to interact with my Xbox controller to sign back in so I can continue my movie. Because if the mysteries presented don’t intrigue you, that’s about the extent of the player’s interaction with Kentucky Route Zero. Brainless mouse clicks to continue a story.
-Jim
