Experience It And Derive Your Own Conclusions

Much of Kentucky Route Zero is dependent on players' interpretation of the game's events along with the dialog choices players make while playing.  Because of this heavy reliance on player interpretation, I'm not sure spoilers impact this game as severely as they do other narrative-driven games.  However, I will be discussing a few specific events that occur in Act I of Kentucky Route Zero, so if you're on a media blackout for this game, come back and read this post after you've had a chance to experience it for yourself.

Otherwise...

Kentucky Route Zero moves at a very deliberate pace.  Like the game, main character Conway travels along the backroads of Kentucky without urgency.  All through Act I, the game's pacing has been nothing but slow, a stark contrast when stood next to most of the video and board games I've been playing recently.  This slow pacing is a thing I quickly grew to love.

My favorite moment in the game occurred when Conway had to walk up a large hill with a busted leg.  Conway stood at the bottom of the hill, I clicked once on the landing at the crest of the hill, and Conway began his slow, beleaguered trek up.  As a player, there was nothing more for me to do until Conway finished climbing.  Many games actively avoid presenting players with lulls in interaction with the game's systems for fear of losing player interest.  The developers at Cardboard Computer obviously do not share this fear.  They never shy away from design decisions that force players to slow down, and I think the game benefits because if it.  As Conway limped up the hill, I paid a special attention to the spectacular environment art and equally spectacular ambient soundtrack that had been working so hard to create a setting I enjoyed exploring.  I actually had time to digest what I was experiencing.

This game, at least what Act I had on display, is a game with little player agency.  The only decisions I was allowed to make were dialog decisions, and these decisions had absolutely no influence on the arc of the main story.  However, while the main story barreled along a set path no matter what input I provided, the dialog decisions I did make had a HUGE affect on my perception of the story the game was trying to tell me, or rather, the story I was imprinting upon the game.

A perfect example of this was an encounter Conway had toward the beginning of the game.  Here, a man at a gas station asks Conway about the dog he is traveling with.  The three choices I was given in response were:

• "His name is Hunter."
• "Her name is Blue."
• "Just some dog: I don't know his name."

Right away when presented with these choices, I knew Blue and Conway had been together a long time.  Conway is a private man of few words, but he has always opened himself up to Blue.  For 11 years, Blue has been at Conway's feet for every story he's told.  She may be old, but Blue is the most vibrant thing in Conway's life.

This is the story I chose to tell, but another player's Conway might be traveling with a strange dog he picked up off the side of the highway only hours before the encounter at the gas station.  Again, the dialog choices I made had no impact on the overall story, but given dialog options that are so disparate, something I've never seen in story-driven games, helped me craft a very vivid and personal narrative.

More than anything else, Kentucky Route Zero feels authentic to me.  The setting, events, and inhabitants are unbelievably strange, but everything included in the world feels like it has purpose.  Admittedly, Kentucky Route Zero does not offer much gameplay in the traditional sense, but it has given me a welcomingly weird (I'm talking Twin Peaks weird!) interactive world that I want to explore more of.

Cheers,

Danny

Kentucky Route Zero, an exit I would skip

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

Now Playing Kentucky Route Zero

Welcome to week 2!

From Monday, May 13 to Sunday, May 19 we will be playing Kentucky Route Zero.

From the developer's Website:

Kentucky Route Zero is a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folk who travel it .  Gameplay is inspired by point-and-click adventure games (like the classic Monkey Island or King's Quest series, or more recently Telltale's Walking Dead series), but focused on characterization, atmosphere and storytelling rather than clever puzzles or challenges of skill.

The game is developed by Cardboard Computer (Jake Elliott and Tamas Kemenczy).  The game's soundtrack features an original electronic score by Ben Babbitt along with a suite of old hymns & bluegrass standards recorded by The Bedquilt Ramblers.

Kentucky Route Zero is episodic, and will release in five acts to tell its story.  Currently, only the first act has been released, but the second act is set to release in the next couple of weeks.  After that, Act 3 will release in July, Act 4 in October, and the final act will release in January of next year.

The game is available for PC, Mac, and Linux.  You can pick up all five acts on Steam for $25, or you can buy it all DRM-free directly from the developers.  Buying directly from the developers also nets you soundtrack mp3s, Cardboard Computer's private monthly newsletter, and a Steam key for the game.

Damn this game is pretty:

See you on the roads of Kentucky!

Cheers,

Danny