[HN Gopher] The Weirdness of Kentucky Route Zero (2016) ___________________________________________________________________ The Weirdness of Kentucky Route Zero (2016) Author : olvy0 Score : 80 points Date : 2021-01-10 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.joshhaas.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.joshhaas.com) | platz wrote: | Neighbor, is a meditative little vignette along the lines of | Mountain (2014) or Animal Crossing. | | "You should play the new poetic game from the Kentucky Route Zero | designers - Kill Screen": | https://killscreen.com/previously/articles/cardboard-compute... | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: | Here is some text from a review of Kentucky Route Zero I wrote in | 2017. | | "Are we there yet? This game is all story with no challenges or | obstacles, just like a road trip ought to be. Immerse yourself in | an artful rendition of our very human world and step into the | dusty shoes of a man we have all seen in passing, but never | stopped to get to know. He drives for the elusive Kentucky Route | Zero - an underground road filled with legend and Americana. How | do you find the middle of nowhere?" | | For the purposes of understanding America's heartland a little | better, what's better than playing Kentucky Route Zero is | actually taking a real road trip through the flyover states. | 7thaccount wrote: | Kentucky Route Zero is an absolute masterpiece in my opinion and | is more of an experience than a true game. It really helps to | read some critical analysis of the game after playing it to to | get a better understanding and appreciation for the historical | background that is being referenced. | | The game is part adventure, part ghost story, part commentary on | the fading american dream, and part artwork. It sounds | pretentious, but it never felt that way to me. It is really hard | to describe the game and the plot. | | It is my favorite game along with Journey. | 2bitencryption wrote: | I agree with everything you wrote, so you sound like me - in | that case, try out the game Omori, which just released. It's | right up there with Journey and Kentucky Route Zero. It really | is That Good. | glogla wrote: | Innuendo Studios has a good 8 minute video essay on it: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl6OYyU4rl8 | fetus8 wrote: | Experience is absolutely the right way to describe KRZ. I feel | like it shares a lot of the same DNA as Visual Novel style | games too. I just finished Snatcher for the first time, and got | similar "feelings" while playing and reading through it all. | immigrantsheep wrote: | I love this game so much. It's a masterpiece. I played it episode | by episode first on PC and then again the whole game over a | weekend on a PS4. Fantastic. | puzzlingcaptcha wrote: | The most in-depth analysis of the themes in the first three acts | of KRZ I've seen was published by superlevel.de. Unfortunately | following a change to the website it's now only available through | web archive (and a lot of interesting photographs are sadly | missing): | | https://web.archive.org/web/20190330120931/https://superleve... | 7thaccount wrote: | Ah Kentucky Fried Zero. This is what I was referring to in my | other comment I believe. | giantg2 wrote: | Sort of interesting. I didn't think someone would make a game | like that. I grew up (partially) in the Appalachian part of PA. I | might look into playing it to see how relatable it is. | user-the-name wrote: | Also check out Night in the Woods, which was, confusingly, | inspired by Kentucky Route Zero, while also being released | before Kentucky Route Zero was completed. | [deleted] | gtfoutttt wrote: | I've had this game in my list to pick up ever since I got a ps4. | However I only ever buy discs, so maybe this is a good sign that | it will finally be available in my local store. | MrRadar wrote: | KRZ only had a limited physical release through iam8bit and it | sold out shortly after it was released last year. Though it | looks like it's also included in a collector's edition bundle | of games from the publisher, albeit at a very high cost: | https://www.iam8bit.com/products/annapurna-interactive-delux... | It's also available DRM-free from GOG and Humble Bundle (the | Steam release might also be DRM-free, but I haven't checked). | 013a wrote: | It'll probably still be very difficult to find physically, as | it only had one limited release and that sold out almost | instantly. | | Fortunately, if you're not interested in the digital PS4 copy, | you can purchase a DRM free download from their itch.io [1] | which works on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Its a game that would | run on a toaster, so not having a gaming computer isn't a | barrier. | | [1] https://cardboardcomputer.itch.io/kentucky-route-zero | the__alchemist wrote: | This game made me decide never to play an episodic game until all | episodes are out. I lost interest and track of the characters and | story during the interludes. | | This article makes me want to play the final episode; the game's | beautiful, subtle, and thoughtful in a way few developers dare. | davidklemke wrote: | I did exactly this by accident. KRZ came recommended to me by a | mate after a few episodes were out but I never got around to | playing it. I did take the dive though last year when all the | episodes were out and I'm glad I did as I think what happened | to you would certainly have happened to me! | | The final episode is definitely worth playing though. It's the | emotional climax it needed, I think. | TeaDrunk wrote: | I highly recommend playing the final episode. Interestingly I | recall the devs mentioned Trump's win and the subsequent | political tension caused a big change in the way the game was | developed and the themes they wanted to include. So I don't | know if the wait was so bad- I don't know what the last episode | was originally meant to be, but the way it is now is a | beautiful examination of the most painful, human, vulnerable | pieces of the american dream. | mherdeg wrote: | Yup. It's wonderful game and thought provoking and I just gave | up and didn't ever come back in that long long long gap before | the last episode. | sanitycheck wrote: | Possibly of interest to those who loved the music in the game... | A Junebug album: https://junebug.bandcamp.com | | (I've hard it in my playlist since discovering it exists.) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-10 23:01 UTC)