Kentucky Route Zero: PC Edition

一张不存在的地图，一辆随时抛锚的破车，一趟送不完的货。 路边酒吧亮着灯，坐着几个不说话的人。

Kentucky Route Zero is an interactive story. There is very little actual game in there to discuss. ​It is a poetic, magical-realist experience: light on plot, but heavy on themes and imagery. I understand how it can evoke a strong emotional response, but it simply didn't work for me. While I could appreciate the framing and the soundtrack, overall it left me bored. I recognize this doesn't make it a bad story, but from my perspective, I wouldn't recommend it.

nihilism arthouse walking game. i got as far as finishing the first chapter and nothing actually happened. I guess i was hoping for something else...

KRZ is a game that is art. it could be defined as a walking sim type of game since there are no puzzles or gameplay to speak of. still. it is a game. i am consuming your media on steam. and as a game it is dreadful. there is no gameplay to speak of, which fine. it's an interactive story. but the controls are pretty tedious as well. its handles itself like the worst ps1 era third person games, with locked cameras that sometimes make you navigate through spaces you don't even see in. at one point the game even tries to do gameplay. there is a short, honest to god, driving section; but even that controls horribly. and forces you every time to get out of the car to interract with prompts that are just filler text. but fine no one is here for the gameplay. how is the story? obtuse, and in dire need of an editor. what starts out amazing, in the first act, with wonderful animations and poignant writing turns, by act IV, into what i can only describe as verbal diarrhoea that somehow says nothing. i am disappointed because act I is genuinely amazing, and i was excited to discover the rest of the game. I knew it had no gameplay but the story was more than strong enough to carry it. by act IV, i honestly stopped giving a damn about the characters or the surreal world it tries to present. its also lazily coded. interaction prompts show up from afar and disappear when you are within viewing distance only to show again when you are right on top of them. save games are auto saved, which pissed me off cause in act II there was a dialogue point that genuinely connected to me and i wanted to explore all options. but no, auto save. because downloading a saves plugin for your unity project is hard. lastly, it does not respect your time. i would say at least 1/4 of my game time is just black screens and title cards. you moved for 5 minutes. 30 seconds now of black screen, title card Act III Scene XI, black screen. it was cute initially but i grew to loathe it by the end. i don't think i will be finishing KRZ. Sorry Conway, but for the past 3 acts i barely found out anything interesting about you while the game keeps showing more superficial characters that seem to contribute with nothing towards the plot.

完全的第九艺术，像诗一样的游戏进行，可能是我玩过最接近于成功的交互小说作品，纯正的美洲魔幻现实主义在游戏里面的几乎完美的展现。幕间的设计也是非常非常的令人印象深刻，游戏里面最令我记忆深刻的是下暴雨的时候演播室的场景，整个环境的细节、氛围都做的特别好，让你完完全全沉浸在里面，然后是仙都里面交互的合成器视波效果的探洞，真的让人非常耳目一新。

I don't think this kind of game is for me, but I do feel this was well done. If you're looking for a strange narrative adventure, this will probably do the trick. I personally just didn't take away much from playing the game that I couldn't have gotten from a YouTube video essay about it.

One of the all-time greats in terms of writing in video games. Feels closer to literature than video games, in a good way. The ending made me cry.

A fascinating narrative point and click game. A surreal world with interesting characters that bring to mind games like Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper and this year's Esoteric Ebb. The narrative is not afraid to take its time and focus on the people that inhabit this world and what makes them tick. I respect the slow pacing but at times it was truly glacial with nothing important being said in certain moments. Despite that occasional frustration and some finnicky movement controls, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. It will leave me thinking about it and it's themes for some time.