The game is unashamedly "artsy" which is the kind of thing I normally stay away from, but yeah, it does look great and it is also really well-written and presented.
In contrast to the few major locations like the gas stations, minor places or events in Kentucky Route Zero are designed as elegant (and atmospheric) little text adventures. In this update, I'm going to show some of them off.
Take Buffalo Creek RECC on Shady Land Church Road, for example.
Conway looks in through a window.
A sinewy shadow obstructs the view through the window.
Let's try the door, then.
Conway enters the front door.
The floor is loosely covered in dirt. Parts of the carpet have rotted with exposure to rain. Wild mushrooms grow in some corners of the room.
The wall behind the front desk has been mostly rotted away; it looks fragile.
> Push through the back wall.
Leave the building.
Conway pushes through the moldy back wall.
Conway finds himself what may once have been a conference room. The floor has fallen away in places, and filled with a dark green mire. The walls of the conference room are decayed and damaged.
> Push through another wall.
Leave the building.
Conway pushes through the wall.
After a moment of silence, the frog chorus resumes.
Next stop: a diner on Gotts Hydro Road.
Conway tries the door.
The door swings open easily. A bell rings nearby. The interior of the diner is pitch black.
Walk in.
> Wait a moment to adjust to the darkness.
Leave.
Conway stands in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
A bit of errant light from the nearby highway creeps through the open door, and gradually Conway is able to make out a few figures inside:
Two old men in trucker hats sit in a corner booth, with a checkers board set on the table between them.
A young woman standing behind the counter in an apron must be a waitress.
The cook stares blankly from the kitchen.
The door slams shut, and the room is dark again.
> Sit down at the counter.
Try to open the door and leave.
Conway walks in the direction of the counter.
He hits his knee on something hard and metallic, winces quietly, and then carefully finds his way to a stool. He places his hand on the counter.
A cup of coffee would do it. Black ... oily, even. Hot, familiar dinner coffee. Conway runs his hand down the menu. The surface is uniformly flat, and slick with condensation.
He feels a warm hand against his cheek, and freezes. Her fingers run across the stubble of his chin. He feels like apologizing. She leans forward, and so does he --
(What more did you expect?)
Next event: a swarm of dragonflies.
The truck jerks toward the shoulder, nearly run off the road by a swarm of dragonflies. Their wings beat briefly in the headlights, and disappear into the night.
This particular dragonfly event ends here, but we can follow the dragonflies to the next one, on Griderville Road:
The dragonflies vary their pace. As the truck approaches, they scatter.
After a minute or two, Conway can hear a swelling whine to the southeast.
We investigate, coming across a lonely house.
There are no lights on in this house. A stencil on the mailbox reads: "2880 Beaker Blvd." And below, written in marker: "NO SOLICITORS. I WORK FOR LONG HOURS AND RETIRE EARLY."
Is this where the whine came from? Maybe, maybe not.
Next drive-by location: Barren River RECC.
Conway looks in a window. The windows are too dirty to see anything inside but a few dim shapes. Furniture, maybe, or livestock.
Front door it is, then.
Conway steps through the front door.
The room feels empty with no furniture other than the built-in front desk, host to a disconnected telephone and a few empty beer cans. Meandering lines of color have been spraypainted along the walls.
Behind the desk, a hallway leads into darkness.
> Pick up the telephone.
Enter the hallway.
Leave the building.
Conway lifts the telephone receiver to his ear.
There's no dialtone. The phone is disconnected.
> Listen closer.
Put the phone down.
Conway steps into the hallway.
The hallway passes several smaller office doors. It quickly disappears into darkness. Something is glowing in the distance, barely.
> Walk to the dark end of the hall.
Try an office door or two.
Return to the front desk.
Conway walks to the dark end of the hall.
The door at the far end of the hallway is tightly closed, but a warm glow bleeds in from its edges.
We open the door.
Conways opens the door at the end of the hallway.
The handle is loose, and the door swings open easily. The hallway fills with warmth, light, and the smells of smoke and coffee.
About a dozen men and women sit around a campfire in the middle of a large room. Cubicle walls have been cut into pieces: some leaning up against the walls, and some arranged into stacks of firewood.
One of the women waves to Conway, and offers him an empty chair. It's missing wheels, but it's comfortable and easily adjustable to his height. Someone takes a pot hung above the fire and pours coffee into a styrofoam cup. Conway accepts it, and they all return to watching the fire.
Set theme: hospitality.
Next stop: a guitar player.
A young man in gray-stained clothes sits by the side of the road. He is playing a worn guitar. To his left is a blue mug, and to his right a weathered dog.
Listen.
> Pet the dog.
Conway pets the dog. The dog closes its eyes and pretends to be asleep.
The young man strums absently on the guitar, hums tunelessly, and occasionally mumbles a word.
Put a dollar in the cup.
> Listen.
As he walks back to his truck, Conway finds that he can hardly remember a word the young man spoke.
Let's also check out the nearby church.
A large LED display glows in the parking lot:
"LIGHT OF THE LAST GREAT AWAKENING BAPTIST CHURCH"
Enter the church.
> Listen.
Drive away.
Conway stands and listens to the chorus.
The muffled chorus drones at a steady volume, repeating the same two verses without rest.
> Enter the church
Conway approaches the church doors.
The front doors of the church are modest and worn. They are locked.
The doors are locked, but we are stubborn.
> Walk around to the rear of the building.
Conway walks to the rear of the building.
A ramp leads up from a few dusty metal trash cans to the church's back door.
> Look in the trash cans.
Enter the church's back door.
Go back to the front of the building.
Conway opens a few of the trash cans and looks in.
One has a bit of something leafy and rotten stuck to the bottom of it. Another is full of unlabeled videotapes.
> Enter the church's back door.
Conways pushes open the plastic doors and walks through.
Vacant pews sprawl unevenly into the church. A small raised stage lies to Conway's right, bare except for a tape recorder.
The tape recorder's power cord runs to an outlet near Conway's feet.
> Unplug the tape recorded.
Go back to the kitchen.
Forgive us, o god worshipped here by the mechanical chorus.
Conway unplugs the tape recorder.
The singing stops. The lights fail.
And our last stop today: an airplane.
This one is animated and not just text, even though it is a side scene too.
Truly a labor of Sisyphus.
Just look at these wheels.
And look at these men.
Still, they continue to drag the airplane...
...until eventually fading out of sight. I guess we're done here.
So much for the random world exploration for this update. I must admit the tone of the exploration and the way the world is packed with little events are really well done. They are, of course, pointless side-things, but still.
Next time, we advance the plot, and maybe go on some more text adventures too.