Notes From Along Kentucky Route Zero [Spoilers] 

as a recovering academic i am profoundly grateful for this video

I never wanted anyone other than you to cover this game. It's so singularly "Americana", and given that you travel a lot, this would be to your liking. I also highly recommend playing "Where Water Tastes Like Wine"

The ending of act 5 had me bawling like a baby, and I've never really been able to articulate why. This video does an excellent job of it.

It is a cliche but this game really feels personal to me. I played it earlier this year during the months prior to being forced to leave the US, the country I had called home for 8 years, because COVID took away the job that kept me legal in the country. I got around midway through Act 4 and just couldn't go on any more. I gave it up for the exact reason I love it. The game's portrayal of average people being swept away by forces out of their control through a distinctively off-Broadway theatre lens juxtapose the mundane and ubiquitous nature in this experience in the grand scheme and its farcical theatricality for the individuals going through it. When the main crew found themselves literally drifting down a river, hoping to be back on track but only running into other drifters, the game ceased to be a distraction or escapism for me and I found myself having no more headspace for it when the last shred of stability was swept away right under me. So thank you for talking about this game, although I'm not sure if I'm ready to listen to what you have to say.

4 minutes into this video I decided I needed to play this game. I'll watch the rest after, whenever that is.

I'm here from an errant comment in Jacob Geller's "the future of writing on games" and I could not be more excited for this new video! :)

krz does show why the whole " if you want a story read a book." mind set is short sighted. there are just some stories that can only be told in a video game format.

...and for the next hour and 15 minutes, life is perfect with Noahs sweet voice, a cool night and a lawn chair, i'm released from all of the stresses and sadness fo quarantine. On behalf of every single one of the 140,000 people, thank you Noah, for the beautiful content that makes my day.

NOAHHH. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO COVER DISCO ELYSIUM? P.S. (About the patreon update) Please stop thinking that you owe us anything. We are here for the ride. People who have disposable income and are willing to give it to you will continue to do so, until they don't. We are not your employers. Letting us know that you don't really depend on that money anymore is nice, but it won't change anything. I don't know if I'm in the minority here ( i think i'm not) but your audience doesn't care about the technical aspect of your videos. I definitely don't care about better production qualities. You said it yourself. Your seemingly ''amateurish'' approach to making video essays is the reason so many people were drawn to your content in the first place. It makes it more personable. You managed to turn your shitty mic and audible mouse clicks ,in your older videos, into a part of your ''character'' with your exceptional writing and insights. Please take your time with the uploads and focus on whatever it is you're struggling with. I'm thankful for your content and I hope to see more, whenever you feel like it. Stay safe

Oh my god. YES! You cannot imagine how happy I am now that you covered this beautiful, beautiful sad gem. Thank you. This means a lot.

Noah: "I'm feeling self-conscious about a drop in the quality of my work and I'm feeling obligated to explain myself to my supporters." Me: "Noah Caldwell-Gervais on a bad day, during a slump, after taking a massive blow to the head from a rampaging baboon with a cricket bat, would still be top three video game critics on the planet." Jokes aside, Noah, I hope you're doing well. Absolutely love your work, even on the rare occasion I disagree with you or find some problems with it. You're a brilliant thinker, a captivating writer, a great narrator, and a rare voice of conscience and humanity in a community that is far too often a toxic hell. Don't let the bastards get you down.

"Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, we've all come to look for America"

Noah, after watching yet another excellent video (you never fail to disappoint in the quality of your retrospectives) and reading your Patreon update in full, I think it's important more now than ever to express the long-lasting support which I've had for you and your content. In the RU-vid landscape of banality and lackluster critical skills, your videos have always stood out as complete exceptions to everything I and many others expect of the usual gaming critique video. You've been far too hard on yourself recently, and I understand that the pressures of work and life, and your admirable need to feel accountable to your viewers, has taken a toll on you, but know that on this commune of the internet there's no shortage of petty critics and empty castigation for the sake of it. Keep doing what you're doing, and know that all the financial and community support that we put behind you is entirely voluntary, and that we expect you to work at your own pace and do whatever you like. I personally as a fan of you and your work demand nothing of you but to be yourself and do what you like, and I'm sure many others agree. Know that, regardless of where your self-destined creative or personal trajectory takes you, you will always have a pool of support because we recognize your talent and the special distinction with which your videos stand as works on game criticism and analysis.

This is the best video essay I've ever seen. It's sparked many interesting conversations between me and my friends, and stuck with me through the days since I've watched it. Thank you so much for putting everything you have into something that has undeniably reached people!

This is literally the only video that matters now tbh

This was pure literal comfort food to me, like a home made grilled cheese sandwich accompanying a hot bowl of tomato soup, warm & wonderful commentary Noah, thank you.

Grew up out in Harrodsburg, KY. This game hits hard, and got me good. Something about being down in a humid holler is very dreamlike. They nailed it. I don't think a game has ever got me feeling so many emotions so heavy. Great video, really had me putting together some of the pieces I hadn't connected before.

I remember watching a playthrough of KRZ’s first act when it first came out and being intrigued, but because of the wait time in between acts and interludes, it slowly faded from my mind. Nearly a decade later, I paused this video at 4:15, bought the game, and played it in all one go. I absolutely do not regret it. Might be one of my favorite games of the decade.

A road trip game through the American back roads laid out in the form of poetry released over the span of seven years using Spanish American visual storytelling techniques? Is this the gaming equivalent of Noah's spirit animal?

I've been a fan of the Slyvia Plath quote "Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars-to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording..." for a while. To me KRZ was a great embodiment of this.

"It's a diss on the player that has to trickle down through, like, seven layers of academic pretense to reach you, it's amazing" might be my new favorite line in any video essay.

Okay you convinced me. I'll be back once I finish the game

When you described poetry as the thoughts and feelings of a moment condensed into a few words, it was a revelation for me. I never saw it that way before. Thanks for teaching me something new today.

Wow. If you announced this video a year ago I would've marked it on my calendar and counted the days in anticipation. And out of nowhere, here it is on my subscription list. Cheers brother

My favorite thing about KRZ is that the part that touched me the most is The Entertainment. Sometimes the image of the bar will pop into my head and I can't get it out and I will want to cry and I can't figure out why. I love The Entertainment in ways I cannot explain.

Take heed, acolytes. The Noah has bestowed the eminence of His word upon us. Rejoice.

Kentucky Route Zero touched me in so many ways, I have never ever felt the way I do about a game then I do about KRZ. Thank you so much for this video. It is so personal to me and I don't even know how to explain how I feel about it. The last sentence you said in this video about Kentucky Route Zero is so correct. I hope the guys from Cardboard Computer see this video.

Talk about perfect timing! I just completed K:RZ the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it.

This has got to be the most American game ever made. Two episodes in (so as to be able to watch this video) and we've had: -enigmatic old dudes -crushing debt -sad drunks -dodgy painkillers -abandoned mines -repairing old machines -driving around in a beat up truck with an old dog It's like they set out to make a game for you specifically to make a video about.

I've been watching some of your older videos recently and I have to say: you've come a long long way in terms of quality. From the writing to the deliver, everything has improved so much. Great work!

There's too much on-point analysis in this to mention. Every time I come back to this video, it stirs the same emotions in me as playing the game does. Thank you

KRZ + NCG is a match made in heaven

I bought this game in like November '19. I guess I best go back and finally complete it. I'll be back here once I do that!

Oh, Noah, I genuinely love your content. It just. Moves me. I mean that.

Thank you for continuing the work you do, Noah. I just finished reading your address to your Patreon supporters and this is the perfect way to follow that small slice of communication.

such beautiful beautiful work. your insistence on viewing kentucky route zero through a poetic frame is deeply appreciated-it’s a game that is a poem, and that’s part of what makes it great. your emphasis on the theatrical elements the game pulls on and then executes uniquely within the medium of a video game made me appreciate The Entertainment all the more-i was listening in the car and literally yelled “holy shit!” when you talked about how the perspective of the interlude could only be accomplished in a video game, even if the framing is the very old medium of theatre. one of my favorite videos of yours.

I’ve had this video on my Watch Later playlist for over a year now, since I first discovered Noah’s videos. I’m so glad that I waited to finish playing KRZ to watch it, even when I thought I had given up on finishing it after accidentally clearing my save file and had to start all over again. I don’t have much time for video games these days, but I eventually picked it back up again and I’m so glad that I did because this game is amazing! And I’m excited to finally get to hear Noah’s thoughts about it

Any location is bound by reference to a point in time as much as any landmarks. The earth is spinning, circling a solar system, circling a spiral galaxy, that is moving toward something and away from something else, and constantly expanding. Every destination is a mirage.

On this episode: Noah goes full meta by just playing and talking about KR0. So happy we're finally here.

This videos was actually excellent, not contrived aloofness but a real artistic breakdown of varying components. I believe I spent a week after finishing the game trying to piece together what it meant to me and to have you linearly unpack that was a joy.

Aww. Really wanted to watch this. But I am gonna listen to that advice because of Noah’s glowing recommendation. He usually has a good feeling for those sorta things.

Normally I watch the videos all the way through, but this was so heavy, I had to take a break. You do some powerful work Noah.

Finally had a chance to watch this having played through the game myself, and I was delighted to see we ended up with different final house layouts.

Finally finished the video. That ending quote has given me a lot to think on - thank you man

Love your content. Thank you for putting so much love and care into your analysis! Your hard work is much appreciated.

Dear Noah, Ive watched your videos for years. Your stuff is great. When I started watching I was just a student. Im now a professional and there is no chance I will ever possibly have the time or patience to play this game. Thank you for your thoughtful observations on it and bringing it to my attention. You're great. Keep it up. love, a fan

noah’s probably the first person i’m willing to indulge on the whole “don’t watch this video until you’ve played the game” thing. someone watch my seat, i’ll be back in a few weeks.

Started Hooting and Hollering when I got the notification let’s GOOOOOOO

America never was any of the things it promised. You could search and search and search for it, but you'll never find it. It didn't get lost or misplaced, it was never there. The only way forward is to create something new.

Holy. Hell. Your analysis of Act V and why the emotions didn’t exactly click hit DEEP. Just, wow.

Noah, your personal struggle with your relationship to your viewers and especially your patrons is so fascinating to me. Under a lens critical of the "parasocial relationship", the concept that a one-directional relationship can exist between viewer and viewed, that takes the character of a social relationship where one person puts in emotional energy and the other doesn't know the first exists, your attitude and experience is like a perfect inversion of that principle. I hope you wont be offended by my presumption to psychoanalyze you now, it's really all in good faith, and like 99% based on things that you have said at least once. In your recent patreon post you spoke at length about your struggle with your relationship with your patrons, that essentially took the character of your anxieties at fulfilling the contract your perceive yourself as having written in exchange for money. That is, that seemed to view your responsibilities as being indebted to 800 some creditors with contracts each hanging over your head. This is a terribly interesting way of rationalizing a situation in which you receive money from anonymous people, simply because they choose to give it to you. The character of this relationship in your mind is obviously opaque to me, but from the depth of your essay on the topic I feel I have reckoned something approximating the truth, but also, maybe not. Anyway, assuming it is, the most common form of the parasocial relationship is that of the superfan. A person essentially connects to the personality of a cultural producer, and begins to take their content as a form of social relationship. They feel that they know the producer as if they knew someone in real life, who they had obligations to and expectations of. The producer, by contrast, is unaware of the fans existence except by their amalgamated support. In your case, the viewer may or may not carry on this relationship, but the Noah is carrying on an imagined relationship of his own. It seems to me that youve decided each and every one of us is someone who has equal insight into you, equal privilege to you, equal demands of you, and you in turn have an obligation to them and expectation of their support, I mean somewhere in there you actually expect to be supported for making good content I hope. At any rate, this relationship is imaginary. You don't know the vast majority of your patrons on an individual basis, and to attempt to would be beyond your capacity as a human being. I think part of this rationalization is incorporated from the criticism you describe, that your "leaching off patrons." This is, literally by the nature of patreon, impossible. And yet, that someone had suggested it, and you took it as having meaning because someone felt it was true, made it true in your mind. That is, you incorporated their criticism as a rational data point in the graph of your relationship with patrons. This is clearly in error. Patreon, by its very design, cannot be parasitic. A parasitic relationship is one in which one party takes resources from the other, to the others detriment and against the others will. In an ideal world, we all agree, we would each be free of parasites. Patreon precludes parasitism because there is simply no circumstance in which you can keep peoples money against their will. One could argue you could conduct parasitism by taking their money and running, but even then, that assumes there is some contract that you can be held to. This relationship is imagined, mostly by you, and partly by other people. But ultimately, from within my own subjective mind, I am going to say with objectivity that no relationship exists except between you and patrons that you actually know personally and talk to. Outside of that, no obligation can exist except the extremely abstract obligation that you are being patronized as an artist, and you should probably make something interesting, or at least something that you hope will be interesting. Besides that, you have no more a relationship to me as a donor than you have to a garbage man for paying into the government that writes his checks.

By far one of my favorite games of all time. *some spoilers to follow* I'd started on part 3, and those who played will recall its iconic ballad (which you partially write) - Too Late to Love Me. As a glorified teen in college, I'd read it as a kind of spurning rebuke toward earlier rejection, the song I'd want to pull out years down the line when so and so would come crawling back to me looking for the affections they'd rejected from me (embarrassing to remember being so naive and self-centered) As I found my heart, and had it broken, it became, for me, a lament indeed, of what I'd wanted to happen and how it couldn't quite be there. Of lost possibilities and lack of direction. Now it resounds of metaphor - as I wonder if the 'love that stole my heart away' was indeed even another person, and I expect its meaning to continue changing. In just one song is written a lifetime of experience, and I can but wonder what it meant to the people who wrote it first, and to all those of you who played it in your way. An unparalleled experience - an American classic - no better fit for Noah Caldwell-Gervais~

Over the past two months I've slowly listened through most of your backlog, and your improvement is palpable and something I'm really happy to see. I look forward to every new video of yours, and your sharp writing and quick, 1950's-newscaster-like delivery make your videos unlike anybody else's. Thank you for learning from your mistakes. Thank you for making these videos. I can't wait to see the next one!

Noah, thank you for the phenomenal review. Just the same with some of your other videos, this one isn't really about a game, rather it's about the message and the experience of said game. Every time one of your uploads hits my subscription box, I start preparing myself, looking to steal a couple of hours of any given day to have a sit and watch your meditations in their entirety. Your videos always leave me feeling something different from whatever it was I felt before watching them. So by your own metrics for measuring the effectiveness of art, congratulations on yet another undisputably successful essay!

Thank you so much for this. I finished the game last night and it left me feeling so many things all at once. At first this mess of emotions left me aimlessly wondering, I kept searching for some definite explanation of the game, some great metaphor I missed, a revelation that would make sense of why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. But there's none. There's no need for one. It all felt right, and that's all that matters.

I'm currently stuck in several ways. Listening to this video, as with all the previous ones, makes me feel like a door has opened, a passage deep into the inner workings of a known or unknown work and in the exploration of it I feel free even if only for a hour or two.

I finally played this, just so i could finally watch Noah's new video. Conroy's ending was so bitter and beautiful and i didnt know i could feel those things at the same time.

To reinforce your point about how personal this game is: The strongest aspect of my KRZ experience *not* discussed in this video is the animal and vehicle companions. Conway has the old truck and Homer (I immediately decided the dog must be his companion and must have the name of an ancient epic poet). Ezra has Julian. Junebug and Johnny have their bike. Cate and Will have the tugboat with an animatronic mammoth. The people of nothing collectively have the horses, "The Neighbors". These animals and vehicles are as old and run-down and storied and magically realist as the people they travel with. In particular, horses are often vehicles themselves, you start the game with Conway's truck in a horse-themed gas station, and you end the game at a funeral for The Neighbors after Conway, his truck and the dog have all been left behind and/or taken away. You said "it's hard to immediately connect with" the funeral because it's about horses you've never met. I was connected to it long before the funeral even started, probably from the very moment I realized what Ron was dragging out of the water.

For the works I connected to Kentucky Route Zero, it was Night in the Woods and Over the Garden Wall. I'd describe, and have described, Kentucky Route Zero as an uncle work to Night in the Woods: both have similar concerns, of the recession, of a town and a dream's slow, painful, but inevitable death, but different perspectives, the former is old, worn, tired, forlorn, the latter bristles with a youthful, disaffected energy; it's the difference between a twenty-something and a thirty- , maybe forty-something's perspective. Kentucky Route Zero reminds me of Over the Garden Wall in the same way the Zero, and really all of goddamn Kentucky in this game, reminds me of the Unknown, and here I feel Zero is more of a father work to the miniseries. Over the Garden Wall has this neat divide between the normal and the Unknown, but it paints its world with vignettes the same that Zero paints its world. It's an old world, nostalgic even, a turned world, but ultimately a world safe for kids watching Cartoon Network. Zero's Unknown has been gentrified, bureaucratized, or it never really was a separate thing to the land and its many people, just a reflection of it where lives and livelihoods can be made below ground as easily as above. Both works thrive on Americana, OtGW recalls the Antebellum and the early Industrial period with its fashion and steamboats and bayous while Zero recalls a broader but more recent stretch of time with the open-floor offices of the Bureau of Reclaimed Spaces and the audacious horse's head at Equus Oils (and it too has a steamboat!), but there's a distance in OtGW that just isn't there in Zero.

I'm so happy that this game is being covered, it's been one of my favorites over the course of its release

I really hope Noah will review Pathologic 2 at some point. It is such a weird and thought provoking game with a setting and themes I have rarely, if ever seen, in a video game (or at least presented in such a way as it is in Pathologic).

"It's really no different than scrying the disemboweled guts of a ferret to try to tell the future, except it has to be formatted as a grant proposal" is a new contender for my top 3 sentences I didn't expect existed.

NOAH, drunk and lost my job (But doing okay) - Just want to let you know your content has changed my life, and I truly appreciate all that you do. Hope you're doing well man, I truly appreciate you

Just thanks. You think and write beautifully and it's a pleasure to hear.

Now a good number of years ago I watched an LP of this game, back when only act one existed. What stuck with me most was the style and, the mood and the visuals. They are very abstract and not always easy to work with but very much strike a cord with you.

This might be your best video yet, congratulations. Absolutely beautiful and deep dissection of such an important work

Noah, you writing is phenomenal, the way you work the words are really inspiring to me. If I had the money I'd support your work more directly. Thanks for the video, as always.

This is the only video game I've stopped a video of yours to play before watching the rest. I'm extremely glad I did. One of the strongest examples of this is that my "5 Dogwood Drive" looks different than yours did. Not that mine is "better", it's just that mine is, well, mine. My characters ended up different than yours based on the decisions we made for them. Interactive media is the best.

i started this video before finishing the game and then thought "nah, i actually really like this game and want to see it through before watching the video." i am so, so grateful i made that decision. kentucky route zero is hands down the most beautiful game i ever played and i'm so glad i got to experience it blind

hi noah idk if you read comments and this is just a drop in the ocean, but keep up the good work. thanx...

One of the best video essays I've ever watched. I have such a newfound appreciation for this game.

that's a hell of an intro. you successfully persuaded me to play it before i watch, though, so the rest will have to wait

Love your work Noah!

Jacob Geller sent me

Would really love to have an edited-for-print version of these video essays - along with citations and notes - in book form.

After watching this (again) I suddenly realized more references. The mammoth of the boat = mammoth cave in kentucky. Lake Lethe = lethe was the greek personification of "oblivion" or "forgetfulness". Great stuff

Always happy when I get to watch a new video from you. Really enjoy your work, thank you! Stay safe and healthy!

The scope of the literary works that you bring into these reviews always amazes me. I’m not someone who has really spent much time in art, and art analysis, so my perspective is often quite limited. Having someone bring in references into the review so that I can share in the connections is always pleasant to me. I get to stand on the shoulders of giants for a little while, and see a view that I do not see myself, and the landscape is amazing, since I hardly ever see it on my own. In my own field, I stand among the giants, and can see so much more than many of the people I work with, and they often express amazement at just how far and what I can see. But I see it all the time… it is for me, boring. Known. Explored. The fascination of seeing beyond my horizons through another lifting me up to see the things I don’t get to see, is great.

I've never had even the briefest inclination to play this game, and I'm only 4 minutes into your video, but this? This is why I subscribe and tell my friends to.

Nice to see a review of the game that says something other than "Uh, capitalism bad..." While critiques of certain aspects of America are here fore sure, I felt there was a lot more to the game that that. Thank you shining a light on some of them.

Damn I can't watch this one yet. I have to go play this. I'll be back! I usually ignore spoiler warnings because that sort of thing doesn't bother me, but I feel more compelled with this one

I bought this game when this video released. I finished it today and came back to watch it. It took me three years…

I bought this game and then later that day Noah drops this video. Not superstitious but if I was I might have seen it as a sign or something. I binged the game so I could hear Noah talk about it, and he is great as always, bringing insights I never would have arrived at on my own. This game is something really special. That Lynch-style uncanny tone is something I imagine would be hard to get right, but KRZ nails it. As long as I live I will never forget that scene in the bar when Junebug and Johnny play. What an incredible moment.

Fantastic work as always.

DAAAAMN Now I gotta go back and finish KRZ. I waited for years to play it when it came to consoles but just never found the energy to really sink into it. I'll play it soon and come back to this video.

And a thumbs up before the video even loads as a thanks for providing me with an hour of thoughtful conversation on a rainy Thursday.

There's a Japanese road trip novel/movie called Adrift in Tokyo that had a bit of a similar plot outline for Conway, where the main character wanders around for several days with a guy on his way to turning himself in after killing his wife in an impassioned rage. That one has less of a somber or critical tone than KR0, but I liked both.

Man I feel like having a drink with noah would be one helluva highlight.

Noah, you always find the words that seem impossible to find. Is that a gift? I don't know. I imagine it's difficult to do so consistently (not to mention for several hours at a time). Nevertheless, I am eternally grateful for it. Just like Kentucky Route Zero makes us homesick for places we've never been, your writing makes me homesick for essays I could never write. Thanks again.

thank you for recommending this game it was truly an incredible experience

Act V's hymn made me cry great gut-wrenching sobs that took me by surprise, and you eloquently explained to me why that might have been. Thanks :)

omg i can't get enough of your voice. it feels like taking a bite of an apple, but also chalk? but in a good way. how can a voice make me hungry. this is. unprecedented.

it's been three years, and I've still not over the 'loss' of Conway. That seen hurt my in a way I still fail to really articulate to this day and none of the ways I try to rationalize it just feels pointless. it just gutted me.

Oh, this is why I couldn't get to sleep.

I was considering buying this game for some time before you published this video, and when I saw that you had, I immediately bought it and have been slowly digesting it since. It has taken me this long as I almost exclusively play this in 20 minute chunks during my tram ride to and from work. I'm roughly half way through Act III and I adore what this game has offered so far. I'm constantly finding myself thinking, "Wow, this is fantastic", with 'fantastic' pronounced, even in my head, with the twang of your voice I've come to also greatly enjoy listening to over the past few months. I do not try to analyze it through any lense as this game is strangely personal. Strange in that it seems to connect with so many people in that personal way. Not unlike Nier: Automata or even Undertale. But as each scene closes my excitement for the next chapter is matched by my excitement to find out what you have to say about it. This is all to say that your writing and presentation deeply enrichens my experience with videogames as a medium. And much like this game, it might not hold any abundance of value in a history book, but it means a lot to me. And if I am to one day make history, these are kinds of things that will give me the strength to do so.

It's poetic and nostalgic because the characters are oblivious, but the decay still surrounds them.

"...I really do love this country, but what I love most about it are always the things that it's told me it wanted to be and so much more rarely what it is in practice... Yet, I keep looking for America. I know it's here somewhere..." Poignant.

Always happy to see a new video from this channel

YES!! I HOPED AND WISHED YOU WOULD MAKE THIS. now time to replay it in one sitting

I played the game. I watched your video. We have different meanings, but I think they're all true.