From Hero to Zero
Warning: This review might contain visual spoilers.
Kentucky Route Zero is an episodic point-and-click indie game, published and developed by Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy and Ben Babbitt from Cardboard Computer, who gathered their funds on Kickstarter in 2012. Described as “surreal” or “magical realist”, the game was inspired by arts, theatre, poetry and local history. It might also have been inspired by the literature from the period of the Great Depression in America (1929–1941) or Southern Gothic genre, which takes place exclusively in the American South, and includes eccentric or grotesque characters.
Kentucky is known as the “Bluegrass state”, because of its species of grass, but also because of an american subgenre of country music. It is a land with diverse enviroments, including the world’s longest cave system. Kentucky is also known for mining coal, artificial lakes, horse racing or bourbon distilleries. All of the mentioned above are crucial to the story of the game, especially the caves. Under president Franklin D.Roosevelt, as an answer to the Great Depression, there has been introduced a resettlement program which failed. The photographic documentation of it was used as an inspiration for designing some of the locations, which adds to the authenticity.
Going back to the game — the main character, Conway, is a delivery driver working for Lysette’s Antiques. He is searching for a certain address, but encounters some mysterious places and people on his way.
The game tells about local society and what has become of it after economic crisis. There is a huge energy company, poor miners, touching stories. All of the characters we meet are outcasts in some way. They struggle to find place for themselves. That’s why they come to the Zero. It is a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky, time-warped home to the special people and creatures. It’s a road unlike any others, there is no certain way to get in or out.
The action takes place in a blend between the 1950’s and the present. Everything takes place at night, which gives us the feeling that we are in a rush, that’s its constantly getting late and Kentucky is revealing more and more of it’s secrets.
Kentucky Route Zero has parts which remind of early text rpg’s, like 1975’s Colossal Cave Adventure. What’s interesting, the Adventure takes place in the actual Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Other similarities may be that the large part of gameplay is text and understanding the history. There are games inside the game, navigated my dialogue.
There are no traditional puzzles, because the focus of the game is storytelling and atmosphere. You can control the main character by choosing his destination on the screen. You also have the possibility of choice in the dialogues. Conway travels from place to place with his truck, using a simple map.
The part that stands out the most for me is the sound. It’s nothing like I’ve heard before in a game — this music consists mainly of noise, electricity hum, sometimes distortion of human voice — all of that perfectly recorded and detailed. On the other side, there are bluegrass inspired acoustic performances by The Bedquilt Ramblers. At times, the atmospheric sound tells us more about the situation than the visual part — and evokes thoughts. The ideas of transmittors and bending the spacetime, although ephemeral, give the game a special charm.
As Kentucky Route Zero project was first published on Kickstarter, the visual concept was completely different — the characters were hand-painted, 3D style. In the process of production, the game designers decided to choose pure vector graphics — however, the artists did a great job, leaving the game graphically stunning — detailed, but balanced. The colour palette is quite narrow — the environment is mainly post-industrial, but the player is well-guided by the color accents. Parallax viewing has been used in the game several times, not only for purpose of parallax scrolling, but also by overlapping the actual scene with another character’s memories of the happening.
After finishing the game, I felt that I’ve seen the whole of it, but comparing my experiences with the internet has shown me that my choices in fact did have an influence on the storyline, and there are some parts which I missed. That’s why I can say it has a good replay value — you’re left with the feeling of “almost” understanding. The “almost” will make you want to play again.
To sum up — the game is full of real-world references, everything seems to have purpose in there. There has been a thorough preparation and research in the process of creating the game. However, the amount of references can make you feel uneasy, especially if you are not familiar with Kentucky climate. It is best to flow with the game’s slightly irrational history. I feel that it is designed to be unclear, however sometimes the level of absurd makes you feel lost. It can be perceived as a disadvantage, but maybe a treat for some of the inquiring players.
Anyway, it has been a pleasure for me to play Kentucky Route Zero, and I’m looking forward to the next, and two of the last, acts of the game. The game developers have a tough task though — they are faced with increasing pressure of players awaiting for act IV and V, and on the other hand, after the first three, it’s difficult to create something that would close all the storyline bridges and make a great finale.
