I don’t think I could name a more beautiful game. I don’t use ‘beauty’ in the straightforward sense of Kentucky Route Zero [official site]’s appearance, although its bold geometric shapes and flat-wash colour absolutely qualifies, as does its wonderful architecture – Americana infused with magic realism. There is the soundtrack and the sounds too, ambience and steel guitar and the lonely sound of engines – gentle sonic beauty, but again that is on the surface.

In fact there is beauty woven through the core of KRZ: its love of images, its love of words, its love of the American landscape, and perhaps most of all in its preoccupation with the warmer side of the human mind. Whether that be conviviality and the coming together of sympathetic souls, or pulling solace from solitude and from the road. This has been a theme, of sorts, throughout KRZ’s first three acts, but the fourth arguably pushes it more to the fore, consciously slowing down and allowing its expanding cast to idle, to find themselves in idyllic rather than unsettling locales. This could be a good life, if they wanted it.

… [visit site to read more]

Act IV of Kentucky Route Zero [official site] is finally here, continuing the magical realist journey through subterranean Americana. It’s a pretty flipping special game. We declared the first two episodes our favourites of 2013 and 2014’s Act III was just as lovely but the wait for IV has been long. But doesn’t KRZ teach patience, to enjoy slowness and quiet? It’s here now, and that’s just fine. Settle down with a bottle of Wild Turkey for a lovely evening.

… [visit site to read more]

This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Kentucky Route Zero [official site].>

I haven t a lot of patience for dialogue in games. Weighted by exposition and lumpen characterisation, it tends to lumber, but I love the dialogue in Kentucky Route Zero. Telling a story which balances the bizarre with the everyday, it communicates so much with so few words. And the technology that lies behind them is ancient, wielded by games pretty much since their advent. But Kentucky Route Zero employs a twist of design that makes a world of difference:

THE MECHANIC: Multiple choice … [visit site to read more]

Oh, happy day! Act IV of Kentucky Route Zero [official site] is “almost done”, say developers Cardboard Computer. They have a picture of a wee boat and everything. It’s a lovely boat. It’s not that we believed Act IV wouldn’t come, as apparently some had started to mutter after more than a year between acts, it’s just grand to hear from it again and know we’re not too far from playing. Even with only two of five planned acts out, KRZ was our game of 2013.

… [visit site to read more]

I’ve been on holiday, which means I’ve spent more energy walking around and looking at things>, than I do when I’m at work. It’s a tricky thing, this holiday business. How am I supposed to enjoy the majesty of nature (and the cold pint in a country pub that waits at the end of nature) when my muscles are aching, the sweat is like an oil slick on my brow, and I’ve fallen into the habit of checking my maps every fifteen minutes because I’m convinced I’m walking in the wrong direction.

… [visit site to read more]

This article is a part of a series based on 6 months as resident speaker at VideoBrains called A Psychogeography of Games. Psychogeography is a big chewy word put together by drunk French dudes in 1955 to talk about how the landscape of our lives affects how we feel, think and act. Here, I m particularly interested in how the geography of our lives affects how we make games – the psychogeography of our games. So, in 2015, I m going on a series of walks with some of my favourite game designers, in places that have affected how they think about what they make, and turning these into talks and articles.>

This first piece is about a walk with Jake Elliott (Kentucky Route Zero [official site]). Except that because I don t fly, the first walk happened in two different continents we walked on the same day, on different continents, to similar places.

… [visit site to read more]

You know that there are adventure games, and you know that some of those adventure games are better than others. But do you know which one is best, and which one is twenty-fifth best? Well, at last you can find out, with our definitive, unimpeachable breakdown of adventure gaming’s best moments.

… [visit site to read more]

Kentucky Route Zero isn’t just gaming’s finest slice of magical realism and shaggy dog symphonies, it’s also a magnificent feat of myth-making. Like so much Americana, it straddles the line between fact and folk tale, and finds recognisable unrealities along the road to the grave. If the melancholic dramas of the main episodes take place at centre stage, the occasional interludes aren’t the entertainment in between acts, they’re happening somewhere in the wings, backstage or downriver. The latest free offering, Here And There Along The Echo, has a sinister setup – a telephone that can only dial one number – but turns out to be the closest the series has come to revealing its own absurd comedic heart.

… [visit site to read more]

Here at RPS, we’re quite fond of Cardboard Computer’s magical realist adventure. Kentucky Route Zero took the final spot in our 2013 Advent Calendar and while the wait for the third act has been longer than I would have liked, it’s good to have Conway and his companions back in my life. The new chapter of gaming’s strangest trip since Sam and Max hit the road contains a musical performance worthy of Lynch, a whiskey-soaked underworld and enough melancholic mystery to fuel a new generation of the blues. Here’s wot I think.>

… [visit site to read more]

An old time radio crackles into life, the dial set between nowhere in particular and somewhere else entirely. The voice that speaks could warble with the best of them but it catches on the hooks and snags of age. The accompaniment is the picking of a banjo and the wail of a harmonica. A boot thumping against a dusty floorboard, that’s percussion. This is how we learn that Kentucky Route Zero Act III has been released.

I actually heard about it through Twitter, at which point I loaded up my copy of the game (through Steam) and saw that the new act is already available to play, right from the menu. Guess I know what I’m doing tonight.

… [visit site to read more]