Kentucky Route Zero
[Posted 7 September 2024]
Kentucky Route Zero is a point-and-click game in five acts released over the long time span of 2011 and 2020. The game initially follows a former truck driver for an antique delivery company by the name of Conway and his dog (whose name and gender is dependent on player choice). He’s been hired to make a final delivery to 5 Dogwood Drive which he is informed in the game’s first scene as being somewhere off the mysterious Route Zero. Over the course of its five acts, the game becomes about a number of other things from the power of community to the ravages of capitalism. Gloriously trippy with its approach to magic realism, Kentucky Route Zero is a game best experienced entirely devoid of context on your first run. I hadn’t even known that it contained fantastical elements until my very first encounter with the questionably supernatural. While visually stunning and lyrically written, the game left me with something to be desired after initially completing the final act. I feared that I didn’t “get” it or that I had played it wrong. Either because I played it in too short of a period of time without giving it the appropriate room to dwell on or because I didn’t play it fast enough to grasp the full breadth of the story in one gulp. The more I read about the game, the more that I realize that I did in fact understand the broad strokes, but it simply failed to connect with me as neatly as it did with other players. Perhaps I will feel more of a connection with the game over time or on a future replay, but as it stands the game left me with this unsatisfied lingering want despite how much it played at my heartstrings. I regret not taking more notes during my experience and advise anyone who plays the game (because I do advise playing the game) to take notes and really let the experience linger in their thoughts for longer than you think you perhaps should.