Kentucky Route Zero's Opening Fails (And That's Okay)

Channel:

Monty Zander

Subscribers:

119,000

Published on March 4, 2021 4:00:04 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHCgjUjsuA

Game:

Kentucky Route Zero (2013)

Duration: 18:17

2,967 views

108

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Kentucky Route Zero is a weird, experimental, beautiful, and flawed game. Here's an analysis of how the opening stumbles in what it's trying to do, while exploring the game's relationship with theatre as a whole.

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This game is the first time in years, that I’ve interacted with an award-winning, highly praised piece of art and just didn’t get it. I understand what Kentucky Route Zero is trying to do, I understand what it’s “about,” but I don’t think it succeeds in the way it intends. Or at least, it’s opening doesn’t. As a game, it’s both banal, and transparent, and also thoroughly impossible to talk about due to its complexity.
Kentucky Route Zero is a messy game for someone to recommend, even if they love it, or were inspired by it, because it’s purpose is to be an intensely insular experience – trying to make the player look within and connect with one of the game’s particular avenues. For me, I didn’t connect with the Americana, or Conway’s personal journey, or the concentration on death and debt, despite thinking about both regularly.
I didn’t connect with much of the game’s weirdness, but it did make me consider Kentucky Route Zero’s form, and how it borrows from my second favourite art-form; theatre. And it’s this question of form which I think the game fails in.
If you’ve heard about it, or seen the trailers and thought – even for a second – that this weird little game might be right up your street, you owe it to yourself to check it out before watching this video, because whilst I’ll be walking through the opening of the game, I’ll also be discussing its presentation as a whole – specifically a section in Act 3.
So full spoilers ahead, and this is The First Ten Minutes.

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