History VideoGame / KentuckyRouteZero

* {{Defictionalization}}:
** The phone number dialed in ''Here & There Along the Echo''[[note]]which can also be found in ''Act II'', printed on the back of the brochure for the Bureau of Secret Tourism[[/note]] is a working Kentucky-area number, with all of the same prompts. It's unknown if the real phone number records your input like the virutal number suggests. Cardboard Computer's webpage for ''H&TATE'' includes a link to a long-finished eBay auction for a phone that "only" dials one number. The phone sold for $315 USD.
** The synthpop band Junebug released a full album, titled ''[[https://junebug.bandcamp.com/ Too Late to Love You]]'', in October of 2020.

* 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.

* TheAlcoholic: One possible interpretation for Conway. [[spoiler:He falls back into the habit in ''Act III''.]]

* 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.

* {{Bluegrass}}: There's not a lot of music in this game, but when it's not ambient noise, it's bluegrass. Appropriate enough for the Bluegrass State.

* BreatherEpisode: The Interludes, which appear one after each act. Most of them are lightharded, with occasional forays into absurdity or horror.
* ButThouMust: Doolittle of High Times Distillery pressures Conway hard enough into starting a job there that he tells dispatch that Conway will be starting tomorrow, and 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.''

Conway is a humble deliveryman, working for an antique store delivering good-quality old stuff to those who want it. He's driving through the long Kentucky night, with only his old, straw-hat-wearing dog for company. He's got a shipment to deliver to someplace called "Dogwood Drive." He doesn't know how to get there, and it's not on any maps. Shannon is the child of a mining family. She repairs [=TVs=] in the back of a bait shop to make ends meet. Her family's been suffering financial troubles since the mine closed down. Joseph, the man at the gas station, says the way to Dogwood is to take the Zero -- the one and only route that goes under Kentucky.

* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Act III's song, ''Too Late to Love You.''
* TheAlcoholic: One possible interpretation for Conway. [[spoiler:He falls back into the habit in Act III.]]

* 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.]]

* 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 in Act III's conclusion.]]

** 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.]]

* CapitalismIsBad: It's the middle of the Great 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.]]

** An optional one -- you can make Conway respond to all questions about his job by saying "It's better than being in a ditch."
** Another optional one -- when you make Conway inquire about other characters hobbies and whatnot "[field of study, e.g. topology]. Ok."

* CelebrityParadox: The second interlude released between acts shows a production of a play called ''The Entertainment'' with set design by Lula Chamberlain. In the beginning of Act 3 a scene set directly in the aftermath of the play occurs with Johnny and Junebug turning out to be the titular entertainment. The trope comes into play when Lula Chamberlain herself shows up later in the same act.
* CentralTheme: the burdens of capitalism and debt; the decline of rural America; community and found families; memories and remembering; and the power of art.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: It's hard to tell with all the MagicalRealism, but the operator of ''Here and There Along the Echo'' has a catalog of different types of water, which includes warm water and water in a cup. His service also contains an entire section about what to do if you're currently holding a snake.
* 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.

* 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.]]

* 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]].
* 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.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: Keep trying to catch the attention of the tabletop gamers in the basement of the Equus, and one of the players will notice that winning the game seems impossible, and the GM will in response talk about degeneration into madness and how the game "is supposed to a tragedy."]]
* GhostStory: The game takes inspiration from Appalachian folklore, in which ghosts, poltergeists, and other strange and uncanny beings and happenings figure heavily. True to form, there's a ''lot'' of apparently paranormal activity going on in little out-of-the-way places.
* GiantFlyer: Act II features Julian, a bald eagle large enough to carry away houses.
* 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.]]

* InterpretativeCharacter: Conway and Shannon in chapter 1, Lula and Ezra in Chapter 2. Some basic details about their lives are given. The rest can be made up by the player through the dialogue trees as you go along.

* LastNameBasis: Carrington is only referred to by his last name — unlike nearly all other characters, who are known by first name only.

* 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.

* TheNewTens: Set in and thematically about the Great Recession.

* PaintingTheMedium: Text becomes translucent and shaky whenever ''Route Zero'' is spoken, or when listening becomes difficult, such as a static-filled radio.

* 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.

** Come Act III and pretty much everyone gets that there's something ''off'' about "the boys from Hard Times". [[spoiler: Of course, you'd expect walking, glowing skeletons would warrant more of a description than "off", so the trope's still in-force]].

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Pretty much everything in the game. The sole exception seems to be [[spoiler: The strangers, as they do terrify some of the cavern researchers]].

** 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.]]
* 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.]]

* {{Gamebook}}: 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.

A MagicRealism mix of AdventureGame, InteractiveFiction, and ChooseYourOwnAdventure, ''Kentucky Route Zero'' is an episodic game developed by Cardboard Computer for PC. The game was first revealed in Website/{{Kickstarter}}, and ran a successful campaign, followed by a trailer and the first act's release in January 7, 2013. The fifth and final Act released in January 28, 2020 alongside the ''TV Edition'', a "definitive edition" containing all the acts and interludes, released also on consoles.

* ChooseYourOwnAdventure: 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.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The side character [[https://openartsphilly.com/articles/who-lula-chamberlin Lula Chamberlain]] was an obscure real life avante-garde artist from Kentucky. The first interlude, Limits and Demonstrations is a virtual exhibit of her actual work.

* 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. The references are so obscure even the articles cited fail to realize Lula Chamberlain was a real person.

A MagicRealism mix of AdventureGame, InteractiveFiction, and ChooseYourOwnAdventure, ''Kentucky Route Zero'' is an episodic game developed by Cardboard Computer for PC. The game was first revealed in Website/{{Kickstarter}}, and ran a successful campaign, followed by a trailer and the first act's release in January 7, 2013. The fifth and final Act released in January 28, 2020 alongside the ''TV Edition'', a "definitive edition" containing all the acts and interludes, released also on consoles. The game marks the intersection between the AdventureGame and Midwestern ghost stories. This ain't your traditional, freaky GhostStory, mind--this one's more of a kind to make you sit back, and think about your life.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kr0tved.png]]

* 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.]]

* ShoutOut:
** Shannon's last name is a reference to Creator/GabrielGarciaMarquez, as is the name Remedios, shared with a character from his novel ''Literature/OneHundredYearsOfSolitude''.
** Some of the exhibits at the museum are references to other adventure games/creators, ones the devs considered touchstones in the genre:
*** [[invoked]] ''Portal'' (not the Valve game, [[NamesTheSame but an earlier, unrelated adventure game with the same title]])
*** ''VideoGame/MondoMedicals''
*** ''VisualNovel/DigitalALoveStory''
*** Anna Anthropy
*** ''VideoGame/CartLife''
*** ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' (of course)
** Judging by the location of the entrance, the Zero is somewhere in or near Mammoth Cave. This is also the inspiration for the setting of ''VideoGame/ColossalCave''. Both feature a location called "The Hall of the Mountain King".
** Act III opens with the characters waiting at a fallen tree. It wouldn't explicitly be a [[Theatre/WaitingForGodot Godot]] reference if another character didn't quote the play minutes later.
** One of Donald's assistants, a woman named Roberta who enjoys fairy tales, is a tribute to Roberta Williams, creator of the highly influential "VideoGame/KingsQuest" series of adventure games.

* BookEnds: 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.]]

* MindScrew: A number of things in the game, notably the nature of 5 Dogwood Drive. [[spoiler:It little more then 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.

** 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, and help the locals bury some deceased horses. The end.]]

----A

----

* 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 while Act V remains to be seen, it seems as of Act IV that Conway is either dead or [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie near enough to it]].]]

* GiantFlyer: Chapter 2 features Julian, a bald eagle large enough to carry away houses.
* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies: Conway, in Act IV. Maybe. Whatever the case, he's gone to work at the distillery with the other glowing skeletons and most likely won't be coming back.]]

* 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, and help the local bury some horses. The end.]]

That can go there with you\

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

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