Kentucky Dash

fun endless runner, great music and it's about kentucky. what's not to love

Review: Kentucky Dash – A Journey Through Something (Mostly) I first picked up Kentucky Dash on a whim one rainy Tuesday afternoon. The clouds hung low like the ceiling of a discount motel lobby, and the smell of distant grilled cheese somehow wafted through my apartment window. It felt like a game kind of day. You know the type. Socks on but no shoes, coffee that’s been reheated at least three times, and a soft desire to accomplish absolutely nothing. Enter Kentucky Dash, a game whose title alone carries the weight of untold promise. Kentucky. Dash. Two words that don’t really need to be together, but like peanut butter and lawn chairs, you just kind of accept it. From the opening screen, Kentucky Dash greets you with a twangy banjo loop that sounds both like a celebration and a warning. The menus load with a gentle lag—as if the game is politely asking if you really want to continue—and that’s what I appreciate about it. Too many games rush you in. Not this one. Kentucky Dash gives you time. Time to reflect. Time to think about what you had for dinner. Time to wonder if you ever returned that Netflix DVD from 2007. (You didn’t.) The gameplay itself is, in a word, enthusiastic. You dash—occasionally—across vibrant, vaguely southern landscapes, dodging hazards like emotionally unavailable roosters and mailboxes that scream at you in Old English. And just when you think you understand the rhythm of the game, BAM, it throws a raccoon-led trivia challenge at you, and suddenly you’re debating the geopolitical relevance of cornbread. I failed that level three times, but honestly, it made me think about my childhood. My grandmother used to make cornbread with molasses and a little bit of attitude. Not that sweet store-bought kind. Hers had texture. A purpose. You could build a porch with it if you needed to. Graphically, the game exists. Colors are present. Shadows behave. Sometimes the trees wave at you, but only if you've done your taxes. The main character—a sort of racing cowboy with an unclear backstory and even murkier motivation—talks exclusively in whispered metaphors. I never quite knew what he meant by "The creek don’t run backward, but sometimes the fish do," but I wrote it down anyway. That’s the kind of writing that gets under your skin like a splinter from a really thoughtful fence. Now, the controls… ah yes, the controls. I remember when games used to come with manuals. Big, heavy things with glossy pages and inexplicable lore sections written by interns pretending to be elves. Kentucky Dash has no manual, no tutorial, and no discernible HUD, but that’s part of the charm. You’re not supposed to know what you’re doing. It’s about the experience. Much like navigating a family reunion when your name tag falls off and everyone thinks you're your cousin Matt. Multiplayer mode is technically available, although I never found anyone else online. I like to think that there’s a small but loyal community of Dashers out there somewhere, dashing in unison under the glow of a CRT television, maybe in a cabin, maybe in an abandoned Shoney's. Sometimes I leave the matchmaking on just in case, while I make toast and reflect on the time I almost bought a canoe. There’s a point in the third level—maybe fourth, time is weird in this game—where you enter a field of sunflowers and everything just… stops. The music fades. The colors warm. And you realize that this isn’t just a game. It’s a statement. Not a clear one, but a statement nonetheless. Like a guy yelling "I AM ART" in a parking lot. You don’t have to understand it to feel something. And I haven’t even touched on the DLC. Well, actually I have, but only metaphorically. The downloadable content is named "Whistle County Expansion: Part 1 of 7 (Only Part 1 Released So Far)," which really tells you everything you need to know. It adds three new hats and a poem. The poem is unskippable. Final thoughts? Look, I don’t know if Kentucky Dash is a game in the traditional sense. It’s more of a mood. A vibe. An energy you don’t get from AAA titles anymore. It’s the digital equivalent of sipping sweet tea on a porch that may or may not be attached to a house. It doesn’t matter if you win. It doesn’t matter if you dash. What matters is that you were there, and you heard the banjo, and you played a game that dared to say: "Here’s a raccoon. Figure it out." 9/10, would dash again. Maybe. Probably. Unless it's raining. Then I might just stare at the title screen and think about soup.

Kentucky Dash is a wonderful fun auto runner that first I played a bit at a videogame expo. I very much enjoyed the multiplayer gameplay and the single player gameplay is great as well! When playing competitive with friends, I recommend playing custom and checking the box that says split-screen, because you can easily be left behind without it. Hope you love this and recommend it to your friends!

Cute game! It's nice to see games about Kentucky =)