I Approve of This Game: Kentucky Route Zero

Well, what do we got here?

[UPDATE: This review mentions several times that you can buy the first act of this game for $7. Cardboard (the devs) have since decided to sell them all only as a bundle for simplicity.]

The Short Version:
Less of a game and more of a quirky piece of interactive fiction. You can't die. You can only experience. And for $7 I'd say it's well worth it. Try if you like Myst or The Walking Dead: The Game.

The Long Version:
I've been meaning to branch out from movie reviews for about a week now, if only to establish that this blog can and will cover other mediums. I just haven't known what to branch out to – lots of ideas, nothing firm.

So, to that end, I'm starting by telling you about a delightful point & click adventure called Kentucky Route Zero. It's a game that's about as odd as it sounds. You play as Conway, a delivery truck driver for an antiques shop looking to make a delivery (don't know what or to whom), and in order to do so you need to find the titular Route Zero – a highway which may or may not exist. Not exactly your normal fare for a video game, which is what I found so appealing about it.

The developers – of which there are a grand total of two – have dubbed the experience a "magical realist adventure." Since that didn't mean a whole lot to me I turned to our trusty friend Wikipedia and discovered that Magical Realism is:

"a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment."

Sounds reasonable enough. Furthermore, it turns out that the pioneer of this genre was none other than Franz Kafka. Now for those of you who don't know, Kafka was a German writer from the early 20th century whose works inspired a whole genre unto itself ("Kafkaesque"), one of the most famous examples of which being Terry Gilliam's Brazil – one of my very favourite films. That's a review for another day but needless to say, I quickly found myself in strangely familiar surroundings – like Luke on Dagobah – in this case, the quiet, leisurely, and somewhat spooky hills of Kentucky.

Next stop, Bizarro World!

Now, unless you've at least driven through Kentucky like I have, it's not something that's easy to convey in words, but without question there is a weird vibe you get in that part of America. It's a similar feeling I get when you go through West Virginia: the land seems very old, very beautiful, and hiding a bunch of secrets. Not necessarily dark ones, but spooky ones all the same. If it sounds like I'm embellishing reality to make for more intriguing writing, I apologize. But I honestly have always felt some... peculiar feelings in that part of the country. Again, nothing sinister. It's too simple, too folksy, and frankly, too religious an area to be terrified of devils hiding in the mountainsides. But I do feel that it's the sort of place where the phrase "there's something in them hills" comes from.

What allows Kentucky Route Zero to establish this familiar-yet-surreal vibe so quickly and thoroughly are three elements that set this game apart from so many other adventure games: the visuals, the music and the writing. First, I'd like to wax on a bit about the visual style.

Lights are on but nobody's home.

The art style is something very unique. In fact, it's the one thing that first caught my attention and drew me to the game. It is not a retro 8- or 16-bit, early Nintendo look as so many smaller-budget games are these days. It's also not another retro-futuristic pixel art endeavour. I like those styles as much as the next person, but they are getting a tad overused. Instead, Kentucky Route Zero opts for an absolute minimalist vector art style. Everything in the game world is constructed of basic shapes and hard lines, without any aliasing – everything looks sharp, defined, even jagged. It's a bold style to do, but the results (as you can see) are striking. It also comes with an unseen side bonus: because it's such a basic visual style, it's very simple for the computer to process, so the game runs on even the most modest PCs. Before I move on I will note that, while the style is very different from most games today, it does have roots in the past. Specifically, the creators themselves have acknowledged taking inspiration from one of my absolute all-time favourite PC games: Another World (Out of This World in North America). 

22 years old. Still awesome.

The second part of the game's trinity of great design is the audio. I said above it was "music" but that might not be the most accurate way of putting it. Certainly, there is music in this game and it's a wonderful blend of quiet electronica, folk, bluegrass and gospel. That's quite the mix. But in addition to the soundtrack that simultaneously heightens the surreal and echoes of Kentucky's past, there is a lot of very simple but very effective sound design. Like the visuals, everything about the sound design is minimalist, but it's impressive that when you're simply staring at a road map of Kentucky to navigate around, with very little in the way of visual cues to tell you what you're looking at, you still get that creeping feeling of being alone on a deserted highway at night.

Seriously, it's more effective than it looks like.

The one bit of audio you might expect to find in an adventure game however, (namely voice overs) is noticeably absent. Which brings me to the final piece of the puzzle that makes this game work so well: writing. This game is all presented through on-screen text. Don't let that scare you off, because really it reveals the true nature of this game (or as I've called it previously, an 'experience'). This game is more like reading a great book. The characters are all eccentric and offer you just enough of their backstory to pull you in, but hold enough back to know that there is a lot more going on with all of them than it seems. In fact it's the writing that becomes the most unusual, and ultimately rewarding piece of gameplay, because you're sort of the story's narrator. I don't want to give away too much, but basically your primary action in the game is choosing different pieces of dialogue. Not just for Conway, our hero, but even for other characters at times. The responses are also more intriguing than the standard yes/no, act the hero/play the villain types of responses. The words you choose begin to build out the backstory for the characters and, in a way, create your own version of the game's story. It also helps that the writing is filled with off-beat, witty remarks and statements. This is not a game that takes itself too seriously – a trap it could have easily fallen into. 

Choose Your Own Adventure: Surreal Edition

There are a few other things you should know before you embark on your journey to find the fabled Route Zero. First, as I said above, you can't die in this game. You can't get stuck. You can't lose. It's a great kind of game for people who don't normally like them. If you're a fan of adventure games, like Myst or The Walking Dead, this game differs in that there are no real puzzles to solve. Nothing impedes your progress except time. And time is something that this game takes its sweet share of. This is a leisurely-paced experience on purpose. I would not say that it's slow, but rather gives you time to drink in your surroundings and lose yourself in the world. While you can't die in the game, there are several unsual, spooky moments that keep up a bit of tension and have you looking at every detail on screen to see if you just saw something or if your eyes were playing tricks. It's not a scary game, not even slightly. Just... eerie, combined with a detached sense of humour. It's like a great ghost story that you could still tell to children and not pay for years of therapy. 

Why are we walking towards the creepy house on the hill?

That being said, those children would likely not have the slightest clue of what's going on anyway. This is not a game where you walk away with everything having made sense. It's a surreal game on purpose. It's also only the first of five acts, which are planned to be released over the course of the year, so the story is for now incomplete. The episodic format is a compelling new development in gaming, pulling you in and making you want more, much like a TV drama does. The game as it stands is quite short – around two hours – but that's not bad for $7.

If I can stand on my soapbox for a moment, these are the type of experiments that I like to support. This was developed initially after a successful Kickstarter campaign, created by two guys in their basement with a unique vision. It's a game unlike most you find out there these days and, by golly, we need fresher ideas than just another first-person shooter set in... who cares where. Lastly, I always feel a little warm and fuzzy inside knowing that I've helped support someone in their dream, as I hope people will support me in mine someday. Like I said, it was only 7 bucks. I've paid more to see two-hour movies that I hated.

I'll leave you now with a one-line pitch, given by the creators. I think it captures the spirit of the game nicely.

"Kentucky Route Zero is not a real highway, so the only way to travel it is to play this game."

This game is available for direct download here.
You can play it on PC, Mac and Linux.
System requirements are almost nonexistent.

My Name is Rick Ames
and I Approve of This Game.