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。

Уточню заранее: игра возможно покажется вовсе неплохой и заслуживающей явно большей оценки для тех, кто не ждёт от неё линчовского вайба вперемешку с роуд муви, которое будет держать в напряжении, загадках и желании раскрыть таковые. Она будет хороша для тех, кто любит бытовые спектакли, театральные постановки и в целом что-то... Даже не знаю, обычное и местами даже жизненное. Почему отрицательный отзыв? Всё просто и частично я уже упомянул выше: сначала игра затягивает своей прекрасной атмосферой сюрреалистичного захолустья и роуд муви путешествия, где мы натыкаемся на любопытных людей со своими скелетами в шкафу, и с которыми вполне себе интересно взаимодействовать. Помимо прочего, мы попадаем в довольно жуткие места и ситуации, которые изначально в целом характеризуют жанр игры как некий психологический хоррор \ мрачную драму, но уже с 3-его акта игра постепенно лишается некогда притягательной атмосферы, потихоньку уходя в примесь бытовых жизненных проблем персонажей, вечных разлогольствований насчёт этого, и откровенного бреда и образов, никак не цепляющих продолжать играть. Ну вот просто на половине игра выдыхается, сворачивает с пути, по которому шла, меняя жанр непонятно на что (и непонятно зачем). Да, можно воспринимать это как проявление артхауса и видение авторов, но я абсолютно не впечатлён в положительном смысле от подобных приёмов, посему и забросил игру на 4-ом акте.

It's hard to describe Kentucky Route Zero because the tiny details that is shown in every bit of dialouge is what makes it great, but it also makes for a rather tedious and academic description that could get lost in translation. Simply put, the game is phenomenal in terms of the depth of its themes, it holds it on its sleeve comparable to the Wall by Pink Floyd or Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Much of the negative comments and criticisms of the game often regularly go into, 'what was the point of this scene?' or 'I didn't really get it' and then refuse to elaborate what they mean by that. KRZ is a game about the substance of the story rather than its execution, it's confusing, reality-breaking and spellbound in its presentation and its tiny niches of storytelling. If you are impatient and want a heavy action flick, I would not recommend it, because the story is not about solving a great thriller or about enthralling chase sequences. It's about the decaying ways of life, the apathetic debt-driven economy and a hope for a better tomorrow in the nulling isolation you feel in your everyday life. The game demands you to engage with its themes and its patience in telling that story. That would be my number one advice for playing this game, there is really nothing else like it. Otherwise, the game runs great, soundtrack is amazing and the sceneries are fantastic. I do really hate the fact that it's pixelated though, it could be better realised if it didn't go with the 2D retro aesthetics - but that is just a minor nitpick.

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。

This has been sitting in my library for a while and I decided to give it a try... then after like an hour... put it down and forgot about the game.. Queue like 6 years later, see it again and think I want to try it again. I have not played the game all the way through and decided to just stop 4 hours in... I would ONLY recommend this game to someone who wants is absolutely enthralled with a point and click adventure/exploration game that has jumped off the artistic surreal deep-end in terms of story telling. I'll admit I was not in the right headspace for this game, but it is definitely a game you need to play from start to finish in close succession. The game is gorgeous, and honestly, that's what pushed me further for the extra 2 hours... but I cannot recommend this game for EVERYONE, just a select few that would really chase something like this. If you are interested, get it on sale, else if you're interested but on the fence? I would recommend just finding like a long play on youtube.

虽然不是很懂什么是超现实主义，但是在游玩过程中我好像逐渐理解了一切。在现实背景下出现了许多反自然反现实的疑似幻想的行为和物品但是大家只浅浅震惊了一秒就接受了它的存在，这似乎就是超现实吧。 以一种堪称精巧且非常严丝合缝的戏剧结构展现了整部作品，角色之间的关联性从口口相谈的都市传说链接在一起成为了完整的圆环，看似为无限循环的莫比乌斯环但又在循环往复的过程中碰撞出了全新的可能与未来，一个与死亡衰颓的作品的最终落脚点还是更加美好的what can we do.

Absolute theater!

This game is definitely a very slow burn and leaves itself open ended, but the buildup of all the dialogue and imagery creates a very beautiful and interconnected story about people, family, and development in southeast America. The art and music is gorgeous, too. I found the OST months ago without even realizing it was for a video game, and decided to buy the game after falling in love with the soundtrack. The amount of research, attention, and love that went into this project is super clear, and I'm very glad I finally picked up the game for myself :)

I still haven't finished the game but The more I play it, the more fascinating it becomes, and if you're someone who enjoys reading, I definitely recommend it. this is me writing this just before sleeping so please bear me. From the beginning of the game until now, I think game carries this sense of boringness within it (which, in some ways, I don't necessarily see as a negative). Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's beautiful and ok. this work of art does it's job so clean, so many other writers can't reach this level of subtlety and depth and maturity in their literature. The plot is simple. A delivery man has one final job to complete, but he can't find the route he needs to take. But the delivery itself is almost worthless. It won't be where your attention stays. (Even introducing the work like this could be considered a spoiler, so from this point onward, there are major introductory spoilers.) Your focus shifts toward identity, capitalism, art, economics, communities, the forgotten, and everything that, in one way or another, circles back to that very delivery and the road leading to it. The path it reveals from an individual to a system, and then to an entire country is far beyond what we first encounter on the surface, even if we still aren't capable of standing against it. Because we can't say and point to the true antagonist, villain isn't a person or even a corporation, but rather a system, a system that is something closer to cosmic horror... how exactly are you supposed to stand against it? it simply absorbs you. so far it's fascinating even if I'm struggling through parts of it myself?! the writing is captivating and it's in a way that there are moments where you might even lose you grasp on what's rea or true! it's parallel story telling? it's past? it's future? am I shaping the reality, the past and the memories? yet it never becomes so surreal that it's symbols and ideas stop serving their purpose. maybe there's an illusion of choice on the game but perhaps the issue exist beyond the player control, agency or urgency even?! your choices don't necessarily change the story or the cycle, but they change the emotions and identity of yourself behind the narrative. through the text you reshape characters, reality or the past. inside a collective memory?, experience? or subconscious and shared identity. it's a mechanic?! that I've either never experienced it before or have only rarely seen achieve it's purpose this effectively in storytelling and make this kind of incredibly strange feeling that Is very hard to describe. MAYBE choice doesn't actually matter, because you can't change a system simply by picking a better dialogue option and being a better person? but perhaps you can learn to observe it differently. Artistically, the game has been excellent so far. It also feels like, whatever goal the developers had, they managed to achieve it technically as well. From the camera work to the lighting, from the sound design to the silence that slowly becomes music; from environments whose ambience breathes life into the world, to the soundtrack that carries the story forward it doesn't just become important, it becomes almost sacred because of how perfectly and naturally it's used. The art style may be simple, with minimalist, flat-looking visuals, but the way it uses negative space, lighting, environments, and composition creates imagery that never feels like it needs more animation, more polygons, or anything beyond what it already is. It's not a game interested in your agency or your sense of urgency. You simply have to move at its pace. And if you're expecting another Disco Elysium, you'll almost certainly be disappointed. Go into it with absolutely no expectations. I've been listening to one of its tracks for years now. The atmosphere is incredible. It's one of the few works whose surreal, almost magical realism is handled with remarkable subtlety. Politically, it's mature, and it gives genuinely fascinating meanings to so many different ideas. Even some of its weaknesses(I don't count them as one) might become strengths depending on your taste. For example? Its abstract storytelling gives you no character whose job is to explain this alienated world to you. You have to piece everything together yourself, bit by bit. At first, everything is vague and beyond that, even confusing Or the fact that it leaves so many questions unanswered(at least by now). that's not something that would bother me, and I actually like it when done right. Even now, there are still plenty of things I've marked with question marks for myself because I simply don't understand them, or because I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this work has accomplished. But at this point, I don't even think the important question is what this game has achieved for the medium or in general. (Though maybe it challenges even those ideas to some extent. Maybe it questions our interpretation of life, the value we assign to things, our obsession with speed, and the way we slowly lose parts of ourselves beneath the pressure of systems, challenges, and the values we construct for ourselves.) The point isn't just telling a conventional or traditional story. It's about making better use of literature. It's about exploring places, people, and forgotten ordinary lives in a poetic way lives whose colors have faded for many people, where existence has been reduced to a tourist's image of the world, as if America were nothing but Hollywood instead of everything else it contains. anyway, GOOD STUFF and I fixed my grammer with slop-tool so I hope that I don't miscommunicate myself.

Maybe the reason they call it magical realism is because this game simultaneously feels absolutely magical, coming alive in my imagination with concepts that only become more and more interesting as I ponder them years later, and completely real, as every concept is as much a reflection of ordinary life, all its paradoxes and pains, grounded in what matters to us rather than ways to escape it. It's a game that gives me new ways of thinking about what's important to me, rather than new things to think about to distract myself.