Flow State

Kentucky Route Zero: A Game You Can't Win


Listen Later

This is a love letter to Kentucky Route Zero.

Kentucky Route Zero is a game you can't win. It tells you it's a tragedy.

0:00 - The most important moment of the game
0:14 - Spoiler warning
0:27 - What is Kentucky Route Zero
1:23 - Kentucky Route Zero on capitalism
4:14 - 1st Technique - Magical Realism
12:06 - 2nd Technique - Choice
22:46 - 3rd Technique - Community
28:25 - The game's final act

Kentucky Route Zero is one of the best games I played this year, and this video is why.

Actually, it is a game, but it's really a point and click game, adventure game, visual novel combo. There's a LOT of reading, but it's also one of my favorite Nintendo Switch games of 2020. Magical realism, anti-capitalism, and some serious David Lynch vibes make this one of the best games of 2020 for me. 

A game ostensibly based in rural Kentucky, you play Conway, on a search for 5 Dogwood Drive. This sends you on a route down the Zero, a mysterious highway in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky. The game tells you it's a tragedy and that your strategies are useless. It's not the kind of game you win. You can't min-max your way to a good ending. 

This is my Kentucky Route Zero review. I played the Nintendo Switch version, so all the of the Kentucky Route Zero gameplay you're seeing is from the TV Edition.

Included in this video is my cover of a hymn that is included on the Kentucky Route Zero soundtrack. If you'd like to download that yourself, watch all the way to the end for instructions. 

MY LINKS
https://MattHorton.live

Thanks to the Kentucky Route Zero unofficial Discord for the assistance.

Love Letter icon by Vectors Market and Noun Project.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Flow StateBy Matt Horton