Kentucky Route Zero - Act I

“A moving truck rumbles softly to itself.” Halted near a gas station, a regular man, with a hat very reminiscent of the 30’s gets out to talk to the owner all while a warm sun prepares to set behind two seemingly naked hills. That is how the first act of Kentucky Route Zero will most likely greet you immediately after choosing to play it, saving you the trouble of having to go through a lengthy intro cinematic or some other sort of expositional technique.

As the night approaches, you start discovering what drives the character you’re playing as. Conway, a truck driver for a moving company, has to deliver certain goods to one particular address and in doing that, he must find one mysterious highway not too many know about. That is the least amount of info one can give without spoiling too much from the main story. And it’s important not to spoil it, because the story is what drives the game.

Kentucky Route Zero presents itself in the cloth of a point and click adventure. A genre based on dialogue and puzzles of varied difficulty, the first act of the game in question discards the latter, focusing on providing an engrossing story through as few elements as possible. As a player you’ll have to guide Conway through the state of Kentucky in two different instances of gameplay. One of them is represented by the main locations of the game, areas that are fully rendered, the other being a minimalistic map of the state of Kentucky. The roads here are simple white lines placed on a black background. Your car is represented by a wheel that rotates as you move along the state, the movement being done by using the mouse.

As you calmly move from place to place, you’ll encounter various locations or events that you’ll be able to inspect. Few of them will be rendered, the rest being presented to you by the age old means of text, this, perhaps, being a throwback to the time when adventure games were entirely text based. As Conway, you will have the option of choosing one of usually three ways to respond or act to the situation at hand.

The world of the game is predominantly dark, the action taking place at night. The locations you’ll visit will automatically instill a sense of gloom and murkiness, the few encounters you’ll have with some sources of light strangely adding to, instead of retracting from the feeling. The overall feel of the game is intriguing because it should normally be unsettling and unwelcoming, but somehow, Conway and the other faceless NPC’s you’ll encounter seem to be perfect decorations upon that particular canvas.

What’s more special about the game is the fact that in a time when videogames are centered around individuals who are fated to become heroes of one kind or another, often being placed in locations best described as grandiose,  it brings about characters that, in real life, few people would even bother looking at. It brings about locations that would be generally characterized as unimpressive and manages to twist them into places that grip your interest solely through what they are. When was the last time you visited an out-of-use mine in a videogame and just stopped and stared at its worn, brown walls?

Another thing the game does well is pacing. Despite carrying the obvious responsibility of reaching your destination, you’re free to roam and explore as much as you want. The rhythm of all this, coupled with the movement of the characters, the way the text gradually makes its way onto the screen and the construction of the story itself, clearly wants to make you familiar with all of it, to give you a feel of what might be coming ahead. The game evocates the way in which life trudges for most simple people and it gives such an authentic feel of it, you can’t help but be drawn yourself into Conway’s shoes. Add a slowly-increasing quantity of mystery to the table and you basically have what gives the game its magic. And there’s just enough of it.

At the end of the day, “just enough” is what describes the first act perfectly. It offers a steady introduction to Conway’s story, it introduces a handful of characters that will, no doubt, reappear later and it makes sure to let you know, that even though, the simplicity that fuels the very essence of the places you visit would be enough to drive the story, things will move in a direction you probably don’t expect them to. And this is done in such an amazingly well-thought out manner, that when you reach the end of the game, you’ll have a surprised grin on your face and a craving to see where Conway’s steps and truck will take him next.

Kentucky Route Zero - Act II

MateÈ™ Bogdan Robert, NoobFeed
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