Kentucky Route Zero is a Magical Experience

From the opening moment, as Conway pulls up to the Equus Oils gas station, one gets the sense that Kentucky Route Zero (KR0/KRZ) is not going to be like any other adventure game. KR0 is a more malevolent version of Haruki Murakami, building an American folklore all its own.

Our Journey to the Zero Begins

Plot & Atmosphere

KR0 is not a traditional adventure game; in fact, I don't really think it's a "game" at all. There are no puzzles, very little exploration, and the only thing that the player is really doing is choosing dialogue options along the way. The player--the one "controlling" the story--is more or less along for the ride, an audience to what is one of the strangest, most hauntingly beautiful, and unsettling adventure games (term used VERY loosely) ever made.

Kentucky Route Zero, developed by Cardboard Computer, first began in January of 2013, and as of July 2016, is currently on Act 4 of five. The 4th episode took 2 whole years to come out, and I replayed the entire game on the night it came out. I feel the game gnawing at my mind the same way Serial Experiments Lain did, and I feel inspired to write about what makes it so interesting.

KR0 starts with an antiques delivery driver named Conway stopping for gas at Equus Oils. It's his last delivery before he retires, and he's supposed to deliver to someone on Dogwood Drive. The gas station attendant, named Joseph, informs him that Dogwood Drive is located along a mysterious highway called the Zero. Joseph then asks Conway to turn the power on via the breaker in the basement as a favor to him.

So, Conway ventures down into the basement of the gas station, and there are...wait what? A group of people playing a board game, set up right in font of the breaker that you need to hit! A glow in the dark die rolls to the floor to the left, they say, but they can't hear Conway and they never acknowledge him. Conway turns his lamp off, finds the die that rolled off the table--and the group entirely DISAPPEARS! Conway, having done the favor to Joseph, goes back upstairs, and asks him about the group playing the board game in the dark basement, to no avail. (This is only the first, maybe 2 minutes of the game I'm describing, by the way.) Things sure do get strange, and fast.

What makes KR0 so excellent, beyond the aesthetic and the plot itself, is that it asks the player, beyond controlling movement, to choose characters' responses. This game isn't about being stuck, or even finding pieces of the plot (though, there are a few times later in Act 4 where the player can choose to see certain plot points or not); the game is purely focused on the narrative and the characters. That's it.The joy and beauty of this game is uncovering the mystery of the Zero and illuminating the motivations and histories of the characters through dialogue choices. And I assure you, the dialogue is excellent.

What is also very interesting is that the player's character and perspective frequently shifts, in that the player is making choices for other characters, and at one point in Act 4, what is "current" for the characters is being narrated from a future perspective via surveillance tapes and commentary, at a point, I believe, at least months into the future in terms of the game's timescale, for no other reason (that I could tell) than experimentation. It was a great technique. Beyond that, about halfway through the game, the player's perspective gradually shifts from one character to another, so that the player becomes less sure who the "main character" is. There is a reason for this, but again, "Spoilers!"

Sometimes, it's hard to see where all of this is going, or if it means anything at all. It isn't until Act 4--or, if you are paying attention, Act 2--where certain patterns begin to emerge (unlike Lain, which is 18 years old, I don't want to spoil KR0 because it isn't even finished yet, and I want people to play it for themselves), and after everything the player has seen up to the ending of Act 4, the ending becomes pretty clear (though I'm sure Act 5 will break expectations as much as the previous acts have).

Act 3 -- The Lower Depths Bar "Too Late to Love You"

The Zero

Setting and worldbuilding are crucial to fiction, from Middle Earth to Skyrim to Westeros to MYST. Kentucky Route Zero's highway, the Zero and its mechanics, call to mind the magical realism of Haruki Murakami or Catie Disabato (The Ghost Network). The Zero is weird, and it is one of the most intriguing environments that I have encountered in all of my years of gaming.  As the story goes on, the Zero extends from being a bizarre highway in the first three acts to a vast and tumultuous river in the fourth act. Dubbed the "Echo River", it is  populated by restaurants, gas stations, and flooded subway tunnels. None of this can physically exist in the "real" world, and instead inhabits its own pocket universe, or "subdimension." I don't even want to post screenshots or describe it in detail because that would ruin the experience. The Zero feels alive, lived in, populated by ordinary people. Like the best fictional worlds, it feels like it could be real, even as it also feels separate in time and space.

What's interesting about the Zero in terms of being an environment in a game is that the player has direct control over Conway's truck in the first three acts, but the fourth act becomes a Choose Your Own Adventure as you choose whether to see a destination or not, as you travel along the Echo River on a tugboat. 

Traveling Along the Echo River

Rock Paper Shotgun did not particularly like Act 4 compared to previous episodes of the game, but I have to be completely honest: I felt it was the strongest episode. Act 4 focuses almost exclusively on character development, while also containing important plot developments which I cannot spoil. 

Conclusion

The game is not finished yet, and I don't expect it to be finished until late next year (Act 4 took 2 years to complete). That said, I implore my readers to play the game at this point. There is enough to see and experience in this bizarre world that I don't think it's much of a problem to wait for Act V. There are people I personally know who definitely need to play Kentucky Route Zero. The game is frequently on sale for 50% off ($12.50), and I highly recommend picking it up when it goes on sale.

I wish that I could say more about what makes this game so special, but alas, I don't want to ruin it when it isn't even finished yet. You'll just have to see for yourself!