History VideoGame / KentuckyRouteZero

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Conway falls in with the skeletal brewers at High Times Distillery and disappears halfway through ''Act IV''; he will never be seen from again, even in-game, as he has sold his body and soul to High Times as part of paying off his debt to them, and his corpse will be used to flavour the whiskey like every other enslaved worker there.]] Meanwhile, [[spoiler:Shannon never finds any explanation for what happened to her cousin Weaver; likewise, Ezra's parents are never found.]] Instead, [[spoiler:the party continues Conway's quest of delivering the antiques to 5 Dogwood Drive and finally finds the location, an incomplete house in a small town with no roads, after a large storm has flooded the place. The residents are grieving over the loss of two wild horses they lovingly refer to as "The Neighbours" as well as their own town, which was created by the BigBad the Consolidated Power Company but not properly maintained -- the flooding caused by drainage ditches not properly being implemented in the company's cost-cutting build of the town[[note]]Notably, the CPC sent a worker into the town to create the ditches while simultaneously stoking the town's fear of this man as an interlocutor, which led someone from the town to kill this worker in the night[[/note]]. While some of the residents decide to pack up and leave, the core cast unpack the antiques -- revealed to be the full furnishings of a house -- into the skeletal house and as they do, decide to stay in the town and help rebuild it, together.]] The "sweet" part of this gut punch is amplified by the fact that [[spoiler:the final shot of the game, of the game's cast inside 5 Dogwood Drive, can feature anyone from just the core group the player has been following, or just secondary characters, or nearly the entire extended cast of the game, including Weaver -- all depending on the player's dialogue choices throughout the game. The furniture will be laid out to make 5 Dogwood Drive a workhouse, a kitchen, a library, a stage, a home...even just as a doghouse for Conway's dog, depending on whom, if anyone, is staying to rebuild the community.]]

* ButThouMust: Doolittle of High Times Distillery pressures Conway into starting a job there so hard that he tells Dispatch that Conway will be starting tomorrow before Conway even agrees to it. He later lays out a glass of top-shelf whisky for Conway to drink to seal the deal. Without player input, the cursor is forcibly dragged towards the Drink command...and then ''clicks it on its own.''

* CapitalismIsBad: It's the middle of a recession in a decaying section of semi-rural Kentucky. The local Consolidated Power Company controls has their fingers in every single pie through ownership of debt, and the [[spoiler:local whiskey distillery that they own, High Times, is a debtor's prison/not very subtle Hell allegory.]] The fact that [[spoiler:High Times starts each shift by giving each worker a glass of their most expensive whiskey and then expect each worker to pay it back as part of their contract says all one needs to know about them.]]

* AdvancingBossOfDoom: As the game progresses, the [[spoilers:boys from the Hard Times distillery]] edge closer and closer to the ''player'' and the party that they are leading. In ''Act I'', only evidence of their existence is mentioned. ''Limits and Demonstrations'' offhandedly mentions "those men". They are mentioned a few times in ''Act II'' before one appears before the player in ''The Entertainment''. By ''Act III'', they are ''everywhere.'' [[spoiler:Once they have Conway's body and soul, they disappear from the narrative.]]

* ButThouMust: Doolittle of High Times Distillery pressures Conway into starting a job there so hard that he tells Dispatch that Conway will be starting tomorrow before Conway even agrees to it. He later lays out a glass of top-shelf whisky for Conway to drink to seal the deal. Without player input, the prompt to drink will fade away and Conway will drink the whiskey by himself. ''With'' player input, the cursor is forcibly dragged towards the Drink command...and then ''clicks it on its own.''

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The entirety of ''Kentucky Route Zero'' takes place over the course of 24 hours, from sunset to sunset; ''Act V'' takes the most in-game time, from mid-morning to sunset. The fourth Interlude, ''Un Pueblo de Nada'', occurs around the same time as ''Act II'', while the final Interlude, [[spoiler:''Death of the Hired Man'']], serves as an epilogue at some unspecified time in the future.

** Joseph wrote down his own version of the events as a computer program. This program is archived away in an old building and isn't accessible to the player.

* RecursiveReality: Hinted at on the act selection screen.

** ''Act III'' introduces Xanadu, an ancient computer created by Lula Chamberlain, Joseph the gas station attendant and a man named Donald. The computer turns out to be [[spoiler:an immersive sim showing Donald's perspective of their parting of ways, and the story eerily mirrors everything that's happened to the protagonists of ''KRZ'' thus far.]]
** It can be suggested that the Zero is not only a loop of space, but of time.

* RealPlaceBackground: The overworld map is an actual map of Kentucky's major roads.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The entirety of ''Kentucky Route Zero'' takes place over the course of 24 hours, from sunset to sunset; ''Act V'' takes the most in-game time, from mid-morning to sunset. The final Interlude, [[spoiler:''Death of the Hired Man'']], serves as an epilogue at some unspecified time in the future.

* AllThereInTheManual: Cardboard Computer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJi33k5kznk filmed a live-action version]] of the interlude ''Un Pueblo de Nada''. Since the video purports to be the live broadcast from that evening, one can see all of the VHS tapes cut to during the evening broadcast, as well as the pirate signal that interrupts the show. The entire video adds additional context to other things seen and experienced in the second half of ''KRZ.''

* BigBad: As of ''Act III'', it appears to be [[spoiler:the Hard Times Whiskey distillery, which is colluding with the Consolidated Power Company to effectively enslave people in debt to either. Conway winds up being coerced by them by the Act's conclusion. Subverted in that neither company appears in the story again, apart from mentions of the power company and their general negligence for the well-being of the townsfolk in dialogue. Ultimately, the villain of the story is the act of exploiting the labor of people in order to build capital for a corporation while being left adrift in debt, the only mechanism of escape from which being further ingraining into said unfair exploitation. In other words, [[CapitalismIsBad the real enemy is capitalism]], and this is illustrated mainly through Conway's downfall.]]
** A minor but no less troubling one is [[spoiler:Frazier. His existence is only hinted at in ''Act V'', but combing through dialogue choices reveals that he was a citizen of that final town, and he manipulated the residents' open-mindedness[[note]]to discard unhelpful things and philosophies in order to build up more positive and supportive aspects of their own micro-culture[[/note]] to his own gain, expunging creative endeavours and knowledge he didn't like, all in attempts to consolidate power for himself. Frazier's actions ultimately fractured the town into the struggling state it is seen in when the player finally arrives there.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Conway falls in with the skeletal brewers at High Times Distillery and disappears halfway through ''Act IV''; he will never be seen from again, even in-game, as he has sold his soul to High Times as part of paying off his debt to them, and his corpse will be used to flavour the whiskey like every other enslaved worker there.]] Meanwhile, [[spoiler:Shannon never finds any explanation for what happened to her cousin Weaver; likewise, Ezra's parents are never found.]] Instead, [[spoiler:Shannon continues Conway's quest of delivering the antiques to 5 Dogwood Drive and finally finds the location, an incomplete house, in a small town with no roads after a large storm has flooded the place. The residents are grieving over the loss of two wild horses they lovingly refer to as "The Neighbours" as well as their own town, which was created by the BigBad the Consolidated Power Company but not properly maintained -- the flooding caused by drainage ditches not properly being implemented in the company's cost-cutting build of the town[[note]]Notably, the CPC sent a worker into the town to create the ditches while simultaneously stoking the town's fear of this man as an interlocutor, which led someone from the town to kill this worker in the night[[/note]]. While many of the residents decide to pack up and leave, the core cast unpack the antiques -- revealed to be the full furnishings of a house -- into the skeletal house and as they do, decide to stay in the town and help rebuild it, together.]] The "sweet" part of this gut punch is amplified by the fact that [[spoiler:the final shot of the game, of the game's cast inside 5 Dogwood Drive, can feature anyone from just the core group the player has been following, or just secondary characters, or nearly the entire extended cast of the game, including Weaver -- all depending on the player's dialogue choices throughout the game. The furniture will be laid out to make 5 Dogwood Drive a workhouse, a kitchen, a library, a stage, a home...even just as a doghouse for Conway's dog, depending on whom, if anyone, is staying to rebuild the community.]]

** The story starts and ends at horse-related artworks: the first scene of the game is set at Equus Oils, which is a gas station in a statue of a horse. The last scene is set [[spoiler:at a horse burial, with painted horse faces serving as the marker for the grave]]. During these moments, the player is asked to choose dialogue to create a poem:dirst when figuring out the password to Joseph's computer at Equus Oils in ''Act I'', and [[spoiler:at the end of ''Act V'' as Nikki reading a poem for the Neighbors' funeral.]]

* ButThouMust: Doolittle of High Times Distillery pressures Conway into starting a job there so hard that he tells Dispatch that Conway will be starting tomorrow. He later lays out a glass of top-shelf whisky for Conway to drink to seal the deal. Without player input, the prompt to drink will fade away and Conway will drink the whiskey by himself. ''With'' player input, the cursor is forcibly dragged towards the Drink command...and then ''clicks it on its own.''
* CapitalismIsBad: It's the middle of a recession in a decaying section of semi-rural Kentucky. The local Consolidated Power Company controls has their fingers in every pie through ownership of debt, and the [[spoiler:local whiskey distillery that they own, High Times, is a debtor's prison/not very subtle Hell allegory.]] The fact that [[spoiler:High Times starts each shift by giving each worker a glass of their most expensive whiskey and then expect each worker to pay it back as part of their contract says all one needs to know about them.]]

** An optional one -- you can make Conway respond to all questions about his job by saying, "It's better than being in a ditch."

* TheCorrupter: The Hard Times Distillery (and their parent company, the Consolidated Power Company) acts as this to the people forced under their employ by accruing ''any'' manner of debt, pushing them to become mindless workers without any other values. Optional dialogue introduces Doolittle as the writer of ''The Entertainment'', which paints the Hard Times crew as nefarious. Yet he appears in Act III as a loyal company man [[spoiler: and manipulator who pushes Conway into debt, showing how even the most progressive person can be corrupted by a party only interested in protecting and enriching the in-group -- an eerie analogue to real-life companies and conservatives parroting leftist terms in order to court moderates to falling in line with their ideals.]]

** Shannon's [[spoiler: parents are implied to have died in a flood at the Elkhorn Mine; and her aunt, uncle, and cousin became hopelessly in debt from a house they bought. Her aunt and uncle disappeared under mysterious circumstances, with her cousin Weaver becoming a haunting presence throughout the game.]]
** Ezra[[spoiler:'s family also vanished, leaving him to fend for himself. At some point before the game begins, Ezra befriends a giant eagle named Julian. Their history is barely even hinted at by Ezra, who is clearly attempting to cope by focusing all of his energy on how good of a friend Julian has been to him.]]
** Junebug and Johnny are [[spoiler:robots made to clear the mine from ''Act I'' but abandoned the job once they became aware of a life outside of the job.]] They have the lightest load out of the primary cast.

* EldritchLocation: The Zero is apparently a single endlessly-looping giant cavern, yet its structure, landmarks, and available locations change when you switch directions at certain landmarks. Kentucky itself isn't far behind, though at least the world itself stays the same. The Echo River in ''Act IV'' seems to have similar properties to the Zero, appearing to be a circular river endlessly flowing into itself.
* ElectromagneticGhosts: [[spoiler: The ghosts of miners in the shaft. Flickering images of them appear through the sparking of the electrical rail, but only if the lights are off]].

** Act V. The sorrow and heartbreak of having to rebuild a town causes the town's own ghosts to make themselves visible. Also, [[spoiler:5 Dogwood Drive appears fully formed after the rainstorm out of nowhere and becomes the focal point of the new community that the player creates during that Act.]]

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The entirety of ''Kentucky Route Zero'' takes place over the course of 24 hours, from sunset to sunset; ''Act V'' takes the most in-game time, from mid-morning to sunset. ''Un Pueblo de Nada'' is set roughly around the same time as ''Act I''.

* LifeImitatesArt: In-game. The second interlude ''The Entertainment'' shows a production of the titular play directed by Carrington[[note]]whom you can encounter discussing the play in Act I[[/note]] with set design by Lula Chamberlain. During the play, which is set in a bar, the bar owner Harry is concerned that the band Junebug is not showing up to perform, amongst other woes. In ''Act III'', Conway meets Junebug (a musician) and heads to a bar owned by a man named Harry, so that Junebug can perform. Once inside, he mentions that everyone at his bar had to leave -- for reasons explained at the end of play ''The Entertainment''.

* RobotGirl: Junebug and Johnny have gray skin and make mechanical noises when they walk, but it isn't fully remarked upon until late in ''Act III'' when Junebug tells Ezra [[spoiler:she and Johnny were built to clean up the mine from ''Act I''.]] Some of the early promotional materials reference her as being a robot.

* SmallReferencePools: Averted strongly! As [[http://superlevel.de/spiele/indie-spiele/kentucky-fried-zero-english-edition/ these]] [[http://superlevel.de/spiele/indie-spiele/kentucky-fried-zero-act-2-english-edition/ three]] [[https://superlevel.de/spiele/indie/kentucky-fried-zero-act-3-english-edition/ essays]] point out, KRZ takes inspiration from and makes reference to the American theatrical and literary canon and history well outside the average gamer's knowledge base.

** Carrington's dialogue in the final interlude will change depending on which Act you find him in and which location for his play you choose.
* TalkToEveryone: You progress Act V by overhearing enough conversations in the town.
* UnfazedEveryman: Conway, for all his myriad possible interpretations, will not be affected overmuch by the strange things that happen in the game. Ditto for Shannon, although in her case it's harder to justify her actions by ignorance. All of the NPCs don't seem fazed by anything that happens around them, either. Such is the backbone of MagicalRealism.

* BigBad: As of ''Act III'', it appears to be [[spoiler:the Hard Times Whiskey distillery, which is colluding with the Consolidated Power Company to effectively enslave people in debt to either. Conway winds up being coerced by them by the Act's conclusion. Subverted in that neither company appears in the story again, outside mentions of the power company and their general negligence for the well-being of the townsfolk in dialogue. Ultimately, the villain of the story is the act of exploiting the labor of people in order to build capital for a corporation while being left adrift in debt, the only mechanism of escape from which being further ingraining into said unfair exploitation. In other words, [[CapitalismIsBad the real enemy is capitalism]], and this is mainly illustrated through Conway's downfall.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Conway falls in with the skeletal brewers at High Times Distillery and disappears halfway through ''Act IV''; he will never be seen from again, even in-game, as he has sold his soul to High Times and his corpse will be used to flavour the whiskey, like every other enslaved worker there.]] [[spoiler:Shannon never finds any explanation for what happened to her cousin Weaver; likewise, Ezra's parents are never found.]] Instead, [[spoiler:Shannon continues Conway's quest of delivering the antiques to 5 Dogwood Drive and finally finds the location, an incomplete house, in a small town with no roads after a large storm has flooded the place. The residents are grieving over the loss of two wild horses they lovingly refer to as "The Neighbours" as well as their own town, which was created by the BigBad the Consolidated Power Company but not properly maintained -- the flooding caused by drainage ditches not properly being implemented in the company's cost-cutting build of the town. While many of the residents decide to pack up and leave, the core cast unpack the antiques -- revealed to be the full furnishings of a house -- into the skeletal house and as they do, decide to stay in the town and help rebuild it, together.]] The "sweet" part of this gut punch is amplified by the fact that [[spoiler:the final shot of the game, of the game's cast inside 5 Dogwood Drive, can feature anyone from just the core group the player has been following, up to most of the extended cast of the game, including Weaver.]]
* {{Bluegrass}}: There's not a lot of music in this game, but when it's not clouds of ambient music, it's bluegrass. Appropriate enough for the Bluegrass State.

** The story begins and ends with the player choosing dialogue to create a poem. First when figuring out the password to Joseph's computer at Equus Oils in ''Act I'', [[spoiler:and at the end of ''Act V'' as Nikki reading a poem for the Neighbors' funeral.]]
** The story starts and ends at horse-related artworks: the first scene of the game is set at Equus Oils, which is a gas station in a statue of a horse. The last scene is set [[spoiler:at a horse burial, with painted horse faces serving as the marker for the grave]].

* ButThouMust: Doolittle of High Times Distillery pressures Conway into starting a job there so hard that he tells Dispatch that Conway will be starting tomorrow. He later lays out a glass of top-shelf whisky for Conway to drink to seal the deal. Without player input, the cursor slowly moves towards the Drink command...and then ''clicks it.''
* CapitalismIsBad: It's the middle of a recession in a decaying section of semi-rural Kentucky. The local Consolidated Power Company controls has their fingers in every pie through ownership of debt, and the [[spoiler:local whiskey distillery they own is a debtor's prison/not very subtle Hell allegory.]]

* CompanyTown: Less a single town and more an entire rural region: The Consolidated Power Company has a hand in almost every aspect of life in this stretch of Kentucky.
* TheCorrupter: The Hard Times Distillery acts as this to the various people forced under their employ, pushing them to become mindless workers without any other values. Optional dialogue introduces Doolittle as the writer of ''The Entertainment'', which paints the Hard Times crew as nefarious. Yet he appears in Act III as a loyal company man [[spoiler: and manipulator who pushes Conway into debt.]]

** Ezra[[spoiler:'s family also vanished, leaving him to fend for himself. At some point before the game begins, Ezra befriends a giant eagle named Julian. Their history is barely even hinted at by Ezra, who is clearly attempting to cope by focusing all of his energy on how good of a friend Julian is.]]
** Junebug and Johnny are [[spoiler:robots made to clear the mine from ''Act I'' but abandoned the job once they became aware of a life outside of the job.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Hard Times Distillery in ''Act III'' and the general weirdness of the setting has quite a few allusions to [[spoiler:the afterlife, specifically the concept of Purgatory]].

* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler: Conway, in ''Act IV''. Maybe. Whatever the case, he's gone to work at the distillery with the other glowing skeletons and isn't coming back.]]

* InkSuitActor: Game composer Ben Babbitt, upright bass player Bob Buckstaff and singer Emily Cross play themselves as part of a bluegrass trio (and quasi-GreekChorus) called The Bedquilt Ramblers.

* OminousFog: Many of the outdoor scenes are set in foggy, poorly-lit areas, both adding to the subtly uncanny atmosphere and shrouding some parts of the scene until Conway gets up close (which is TruthInTelevision for nighttime fog banks in the mountains).

** Donald's perspective is told by the Xanadu computer.

* StoryBranching: How the player experiences the story depends entirely on what choices the player makes.
** As mentioned previously, how the characters experience things, or what info they decide to disclose, depends entirely on the player. This is especially so for the entirety of ''Act V'', wherein players can choose [[spoiler: whether (and how) the townsfolk decide to rebuild or leave the final town, how those townsfolk reveal their backstories and personalities that inform those decisions, and how the core cast choose to make sense of their lives in this moment, and if they also stay or leave.]]

* UnfazedEveryman: Conway, for all his myriad possible interpretations, will not be affected overmuch by the strange things that happen in the game. Ditto for Shannon, although in her case it's harder to justify her actions by ignorance. Such is the backbone of MagicalRealism.

** Among other things, Johnny and Junebug are robots (although extremely human ones). No one ever comments on this.
** There's a floor at the Bureau of Unclaimed Spaces marked "Bears". Going to it reveals a floor full of actual, living bears just sitting there. It is never remarked upon in any way and cannot be interacted with (nor do the bears do anything but turn their heads towards you). This is in an oddly designed and located (but otherwise normal) office building.
* TheUnreveal: [[spoiler: ''Act V'' ends with most of the game's mysteries unresolved. We never find out what happened to Weaver, or what happened to Ezra's family, or who ordered the antiques, or what the deal with the Hard Times Distillery is and whether it has anything to do with the Consolidated Power Company. We just find a small town with no roads that's been flooded by a rainstorm, help the locals bury some deceased horses, and convert 5 Dogwood Drive into the town's new community space. The end.]]

* TheSeventies: Set in and thematically about the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973%E2%80%931975_recession 1970s recession]].

* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: Near the end of ''Act IV'', [[spoiler:Conway is taken away by the boys from Hard Times and is now indistinguishable from the rest of them.]]

* CapitalismIsBad: It's the middle of a recession in a decaying section of semi-rural Kentucky. The local Consolidated Power Company controls has their has fingers in every pie through ownership of debt and the [[spoiler:local whiskey distillery they own is a debtor's prison/not very subtle Hell allegory.]]

** Shannon's [[spoiler: parents are implied to have died in a flood at the Elkhorn Mine, and her aunt, uncle, and cousin became hopelessly in debt from a house they bought. Her aunt and uncle disappeared under mysterious circumstances, with her cousin Weaver becoming a haunting presence throughout the game.]]

** The options for identifying sounds have minutes-long excerpts of insects, "something in the dark" and pipe organ music. After selecting the option, "Yes, this is the sound I heard," for the pipe organ music, the speaker says he isn't able to identify but that it sure is pretty. Then he plays it for us ''again'', in full.

* LifeImitatesArt: In-game. The second interlude ''The Entertainment'' shows a production of the titular play directed by Carrington[[note]]whom you can encounter discussing the play in Act I[[/note]] with set design by Lula Chamberlain. During the play, which is set in a bar, the bar owner Harry is concerned that the band Junebug is not showing up to perform, amongst other woes. In ''Act III'', Conway meets Junebug (a person) and heads to a bar owned by a man named Harry. Once inside, he mentions that everyone at his bar had to leave -- for reasons explained at the end of play ''The Entertainment''.

* MindScrew: A number of things in the game, notably the nature of 5 Dogwood Drive. [[spoiler:It's little more than a 3D outline of a house that apparently appeared during the night during the storm]]. No explanation is ever given and nobody finds it terribly odd.

* OnlyOneName: Most characters in the game (with some exceptions, like Lula Chamberlain and Shannon & Weaver Márquez) are only known by their first name, Conway included. Junebug and Johnny are the straightest examples, as they have no surnames, being androids. Cyrano's surname of Cole was only revealed in the liner notes to Junebug's album and a throwaway line of dialogue in ''Act III''.

* ProstheticLimbReveal: ''Act III'' begins with Conway coming to after taking the medication Neurypnol™ for his leg. His leg is now ''skeletal and golden'' and no-one else is dismayed by this.

** As mentioned previously, how the characters experience things, or what info they decide to disclose, depends entirely on the player. This is especially so for the entirety of ''Act V'', wherein players can choose [[spoiler: how the townsfolk decide to rebuild or leave the final town, how those townsfolk reveal their backstories and personalities that inform those decisions, and how the core cast choose to make sense of their lives in this moment, and if they also stay or leave.]]
** Stopping at some landmarks activates a dialogue-tree-based exploration of some surreal location of the Kentucky overworld or the Zero. These are often ghost-stories in miniature, like finding and searching an abandoned church with a tape deck playing hymns and sermons inside.

* VisualPun: ''Act III'' begins [[spoiler:with Conway's leg glowing and skeletal as a visual metaphor for the monetary debt he's just accumulated. Later in the Hard Times distillery everyone is a glowing skeleton due to their debt and there's some clear hell metaphor going on. At the beginning of ''Act III'', Conway has one foot in the grave.]]

* BigBad: As of ''Act III'', it appears to be [[spoiler:the Hard Times Whiskey distillery, which is colluding with the Consolidated Power Company to effectively enslave people in debt to either. Conway winds up being coerced by them by the Act's conclusion. Subverted in that neither company appears in the story again, outside mentions of the power company and their general negligence for the well-being of the townsfolk in dialogue. Ultimately, the villain of the story is the act of exploiting the labor of people in order to build capital for a corporation while being left adrift in debt, the only mechanism of escape from which being further ingraining into said unfair exploitation. This is illustrated by Conway's downfall.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: A easily skippable note from the Dramaturg in ''The Entertainment'' states that the present year is 1973.

* AnachronismStew: Shannon's brick cellphone and Joseph's personal computer shouldn't exist for at least another decade if the game is truly set in 1973. Same goes for the quiet storm and synthpop tunes on the radio. We also meet a woman who can casually travel between the US and Lithuania, which would have been hard in 1973, when it was part of the Soviet Union. Then again, robots and an eagle large enough to carry houses exist.

* BittersweetEnding: One of the most gut-wrenching of the last decade. [[spoiler:Conway falls in with the skeletal brewers at High Times Distillery and disappears halfway through ''Act IV''; he will never be seen from again, even in-game, as he has sold his soul to High Times and his corpse will be used to flavour the whiskey, like every other enslaved worker there.]] [[spoiler:Shannon never finds any explanation for what happened to her cousin Weaver; likewise, Ezra's parents are never found.]] Instead, [[spoiler:Shannon continues Conway's quest of delivering the antiques to 5 Dogwood Drive and finally finds the location, an incomplete house, in a small town with no roads after a large storm has flooded the place. The residents are grieving over the loss of two wild horses they lovingly refer to as "The Neighbours" as well as their own town, which was created by the BigBad the Consolidated Power Company but not properly maintained -- the flooding caused by drainage ditches not properly being implemented in the company's cost-cutting build of the town. While many of the residents decide to pack up and leave, the core cast unpack the antiques -- revealed to be the full furnishings of a house -- into the skeletal house and as they do, decide to stay in the town and help rebuild it, together.]] The "sweet" part of this gut punch is amplified by the fact that [[spoiler:the final shot of the game, of the game's cast inside 5 Dogwood Drive, can feature anyone from just the core group the player has been following, up to most of the extended cast of the game, including Weaver.]]

* AnachronismStew: Shannon's brick cellphone and Joseph's personal computer shouldn't exist for at least another decade if the game is truly set in 1973. Same goes for the quiet storm and synthpop tunes on the radio. Then again, robots and an eagle large enough to carry houses exist.

* BittersweetEnding: One of the most gut-wrenching of the last decade. [[spoiler:Conway falls in with the skeletal brewers at High Times Distillery and disappears halfway through ''Act IV''; he will never be seen from again, even in-game, as he has sold his soul to High Times and his corpse will be used to flavour the whiskey, like every other enslaved worker there.]] [[spoiler:Shannon never finds any explanation for what happened to her sister Weaver; likewise, Ezra's parents are never found.]] Instead, [[spoiler:Shannon continues Conway's quest of delivering the antiques to 5 Dogwood Drive and finally finds the location, an incomplete house, in a small town with no roads after a large storm has flooded the place. The residents are grieving over the loss of two wild horses they lovingly refer to as "The Neighbours" as well as their own town, which was created by the BigBad the Consolidated Power Company but not properly maintained -- the flooding caused by drainage ditches not properly being implemented in the company's cost-cutting build of the town. While many of the residents decide to pack up and leave, the core cast unpack the antiques -- revealed to be the full furnishings of a house -- into the skeletal house and as they do, decide to stay in the town and help rebuild it, together.]] The "sweet" part of this gut punch is amplified by the fact that [[spoiler:the final shot of the game, of the game's cast inside 5 Dogwood Drive, can feature anyone from just the core group the player has been following, up to most of the extended cast of the game, including Weaver.]]

** Shannon's parents and sister became [[spoiler:hopelessly in debt from a house they bought. All parties but Shannon disappeared under mysterious circumstances, with her sister Weaver becoming a haunting presence throughout the game.]]

* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:Shannon's sister, Weaver. Maybe.]]

* GoldenEnding: As much as one can achieve one. In ''Act V'', it's possible to choose [[spoiler:whether Ezra will stay in the final town with Flora or not; or if he decides to join Junebug and Johnny, who have been dicussing whether they should become his foster parents since ''Act III'', or not. Choosing no to both options suggests he will go back to the Museum of Dwellings to live with Julian and wait for his parents to return.]] Players can also choose [[spoiler:if some of the townsfolk decide to stay and rebuild or pack things up and move after the big storm.]] Also, individual player decisions made across the length of the game will affect who appears in the final scene of the game, including [[spoiler:Weaver appearing seated beside her sister Shannon on the front steps of 5 Dogwood Drive.]]

* SlowTransformation: [[spoiler:Conway's body starts transforming into a glowing skeleton identical to those of the boys at the Hard Times Distillery over the course of ''Acts III'' and ''IV''. He disappears amongst other skeletons midway through ''Act IV'', never to return again.

** Conway was once [[spoiler:Lysette's husband as well as her driver, but his descent into alcoholism drove her away. She remarried Ira and had a child named Charlie, and nearly 20 years later, Charlie accidentally falls off a roof that Conway was supposed to repair, had he not been passed out drunk at the time. Some unspecified time later, Conway finds that Ira has also died and Lysette has been steadily growing more senile.]]
** Shannon's parents and sister became [[spoiler:hopelessly in debt from a house they bought. All parties but Shannon disappeared under mysterious circumstances.]]
** Ezra[[spoiler:'s family also vanished, leaving him and his giant eagle Julian to fend for themselves. Their history is barely even hinted at by Ezra, who is clearly coping by focusing all of his energy on how good of a friend Julian is.]]

* DecoyProtagonist: Conway is the first character you have control over, and it's his job that starts the plot, but the game soon becomes about the ensemble of characters. [[spoiler:The climax of ''Act III'' sees Conway wrest control of himself away from the player, and he remains out of the player's hands until he completely disappears midway through ''Act IV'' into the hands of Hard Times Distillery.]]

** The dialogue choices throughout the game that determine who appears at 5 Dogwood Drive in the closing shot of the game. It's extremely complicated, as it could be just the core cast at the end, or everyone including the townsfolk surrounding 5 Dogwood Drive as well. [[spoiler:Even Weaver Marquèz.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Conway falls in with the skeletal brewers at High Times and disappears halfway through '''Act IV'''. Shannon continues Conway's quest of delivering antiques to 5 Dogwood Drive and finally finds the location in a small town after a large storm floods the place. While most of the residents decide to leave, the core cast unpack the antiques -- the full furnishings of a house -- and as they do, decide to stay in the town and help rebuild it, together.]]

* BottleEpisode: Each of the five Interludes. It's also possible to spend the vast majority of ''Act IV'' onboard the ''Mucky Mammoth'' instead of visiting the locations at each port.

* GoldenEnding: As much as one can achieve one, in a game where the dialogue options are more about how people say their piece or think about things than meaningful in-game choices. It's possible to choose [[spoiler:whether Ezra will stay in the final town with Flora or not; or if he decides to join Junebug and Johnny, who have been dicussing whether they should become his foster parents since ''Act III'', or not. Choosing no to both options suggests he will go back to the Museum of Dwellings to live with Julian and wait for his parents to return.]] Players can also choose [[spoiler:if some of the townsfolk decide to stay and rebuild or pack things up and move after the big storm.]]

* BigBad: As of ''Act III'', it appears to be [[spoiler:the Hard Times Whiskey distillery, which is colluding with the Consolidated Power Company to effectively enslave people in debt to either. Conway winds up being coerced by them by the Act's conclusion. Subverted in that neither company appears in the story again, outside mentions of the power company and their general negligence for the well-being of the townsfolk in dialogue.]]

* BottleEpisode: Each of the five Interludes.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Everyone has secrets to hide. [[spoiler:Conway was a drunken drifter who found some comfort as a driver for an old antiques dealer, only to walk off in disgrace and come back to find that the man and his son had both died and the wife was growing steadily more senile. Shannon's parents and sister became hopelessly in debt from a house they bought and all disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Ezra's family also vanished, leaving him and his giant eagle to fend for themselves. Junebug and Johnny are robots made to clear the mine from ''Act I'' but abandoned the job once they became aware of a life outside of the job.]]

* DecoyProtagonist: Conway is the first character you have control over, and it's his job that starts the plot, but the game soon becomes about the ensemble of characters. [[spoiler:Conway completely disappears midway through ''Act IV'', slowly succumbing back to alcoholism, spurred on by meeting the brewers of Hard Times.]]

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The entirety of ''Kentucky Route Zero'' takes place over the course of 24 hours, from sunset to sunset. ''Un Pueblo de Nada'' is set roughly around the same time as ''Act I''.

* RealTime: Played with. The episodes are fairly short so one could easily see this trope in play, as the entire game takes place over one summer's night. In '''Act III'', however, [[spoiler: Conway and Shannon's visit to the distillery seems to take much longer then Junebug and Ezra waited for them to return]].

* {{Retirony}}: At one point in ''Act II'', Conway, stumbling through the woods with a badly injured leg, can be made to say that the trip to 5 Dogwood Drive will be his final delivery for Lysette's Antiques. [[spoiler:Conway disappears from the story midway through ''Act IV'', condemned to live out his existence in the Hard Times Distillery after falling back on old habits.]]
* RobotGirl: Junebug and Johnny have gray skin and make mechanical noises when they walk, but isn't obviously one until late in ''Act III'' when Junebug tells Ezra she and Johnny were built to clean up the mine from ''Act I''. Some of the early promotional materials reference her as being a robot.

* InkSuitActor: Game composer Ben Babbitt and singer Emily Cross play themselves as part of a bluegrass trio (and quasi-GreekChorus) The Bedquilt Ramblers.
* InterfaceSpoiler: Averted. The final interlude is grayed out until ''Act V'' is completed.[[note]]If still grayed out, one need only to replay Act I, Scene I and immediately re-enter Equus Oils upon departure and talk to Carrington to unlock the interlude.[[/note]]

* StoryBranching: Stopping at some landmarks activates a dialogue-tree-based exploration of some surreal location of the Kentucky overworld or the Zero. These are often ghost-stories in miniature, like finding and searching an abandoned church with a tape deck playing hymns and sermons inside.

* BigBad: As of ''Act III'', it appears to be [[spoiler:the Hard Times Whiskey distillery, which is colluding with the Consolidated Power Company to effectively enslave people in debt to either. Conway winds up being coerced by them by the Act's conclusion.]]

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Everyone has secrets to hide. [[spoiler:Conway was a drunken drifter who found some comfort as a driver for an old antiques dealer, only to walk off in disgrace and come back to find that the man and his son had both died and the wife was growing steadily more senile. Shannon's parents and sister became hopelessly in debt from a house they bought and all disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Ezra's family also vanished, leaving him and his giant eagle to fend for themselves. Junebug is a robot made to clear the mine from ''Act I'' but abandoned the job.]]

* DecoyProtagonist: Conway is the first character you have control over, and it's his job that starts the plot, but the game soon becomes about the ensemble of characters. [[spoiler:And as of ''Act IV'' Conway is either dead or [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie near enough to it]], laving Shannon to complete the delivery in his stead.]]

** In ''Here & There Along the Echo'', placing the phone down on the receiver and waiting several minutes will eventually give the player a few phone calls. These calls are cryptic and feature AlternateRealityGameG-like puzzles.

* InterfaceSpoiler: Averted. The final interlude is grayed out until ''Act V'' is completed.

* LifeImitatesArt / RecursiveReality: The second interlude ''The Entertainment'' shows a production of the titular play directed by Carrington[[note]]whom you can encounter discussing the play in Act I[[/note]] with set design by Lula Chamberlain. During the play, which is set in a bar, the bar owner Harry is concerned that the band Junebug is not showing up to perform, amongst other woes. In ''Act III'', Conway meets Junebug (a person) and heads to a bar owned by a man named Harry. Once inside, he mentions that everyone at his bar had to leave -- for reasons explained at the end of play ''The Entertainment''.

* MediumBlending: Storytelling medium; KRZ is an adventure game but all its text, dialogue, and descriptions are written in stage play format and the areas have a distinct theater set design to them. ''The Entertainment'' is even told from the first-person perspective of a pantomime character within an in-universe stage play.

* OnlyOneName: Most characters in the game (with some exceptions, like Lula Chamberlain and Shannon & Weaver Márquez) are only known by their first name, Conway included. Junebug and Johnny are the straightest examples, as they have no surnames, being androids. Cyrano's surname of Cole was only revealed in the liner notes to Junebug's album.

* ProstheticLimbReveal: ''Act III' begins with Conway coming to after taking the medication Neurypnol™ for his leg. His leg is now ''skeletal and golden'' and no-one else is dismayed by this.

* RealTime: Played with. The episodes are fairly short so one could easily see this trope in play, as the entire game takes place over one summer's night. In chapter 3, however, [[spoiler: Conway and Shannon's visit to the distillery seems to take much longer then Junebug and Ezra waited for them to return]].
* {{Retirony}}: At one point in ''Act II'', Conway, stumbling through the woods with a badly injured leg, can be made to say that the trip to 5 Dogwood Drive will be his final delivery for Lysette's Antiques.
* RobotGirl: Junebug has gray skin and makes mechanical noises when she walks but isn't obviously one till late in ''Act III'' when she tells Ezra she was built to clean up the mine from ''Act I''. Some of the early promotional materials reference her as being a robot.

* SouthernGothic: It's the South during an economic recession.