with Jason Boyd (Host), Jeremy Andriano, and Riley Wilson

Broadcast Date: April 9, 2026

Writer: Jason Boyd

Producer: Jeremy Andriano

Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero is an episodic tale featuring an eclectic range of characters drawn into a truck driver’s quest to make a final delivery. The game is set along a predominantly rural stretch of Interstate 65 in Kentucky, which is the main road on the game’s map. The area covered by the map has as its centre Mammoth Cave National Park. The game essentially is in the form of a road trip, a quest, an odyssey. The work takes inspiration from fiction, from theatre, from film, and from early computer games: it is an unabashedly artistic work. Some issues this episode explores is Kentucky Route Zero‘s quality as a game, as a story, and as a work of art: what kind of game play does it offer? Does it have a story to tell, and if so, what is it? Is it an exemplar of the claim that games can be art?

All music clips are quoted from the Kentucky Route Zero soundtrack.

Sources and Resources

• Cardboard Computer. Kentucky Route Zero.
• Favis, Elise. “Kentucky Route Zero is Soulful, Evocative and One of the Most Important Games of the Last Decade.” Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2020.
• Ganszyniec, Artur. “In Praise of Slow Gaming.” Medium, 23 Jun. 2019.
• Grayson, Nathan. Interview with Jake Elliott. Rock Paper Shotgun, 22 Jan. 2013. 
• —–. “What Lies Ahead for Kentucky Route Zero” [Interview with Jake Elliot, Part 2]. Rock Paper Shotgun, 23 Jan. 2013. 
• Hall, Charlie. “Breathe In The Road: Cardboard Computer and Kentucky Route Zero.” Polygon, 11 Apr. 2013.
• Highway 0, the Kentucky Route Zero Wiki.
• Hughes, William. “Kentucky Route Zero on the Switch is a Beautiful, Sometimes Infuriating Dream.” A.V. Club, 31 Jan. 2020.
• Kuhar, Andrew. “How the Creators of Kentucky Route Zero Ended Their Seven-Year Saga.” Polygon, Jan. 28, 2020.
• Mitchell, Alex. “Defamiliarization and Poetic Interaction in Kentucky Route Zero.” Well-Played: A Journal on Video Games, Value, and Meaning, vol. 3, no. 2, 2014, pp. 167-85.
• Smith, Ryan. Interview with Jake Elliott. The Gameological Society, 22 Jan. 2013.
• Smith, Zadie. “This is How it Seems to Me.” The Guardian, 13 Oct. 2001.
• VanOrd, Kevin. Review of Kentucky Route Zero. Gamespot, 11 Jan. 2013.
• Walker-Emig, Paul. “A Story Told in Five Acts: The Making of Kentucky Route Zero.” Gamesradar+, 6 Feb. 2020.
• Wolf, Gary. “The Curse of Xanadu.” Wired, 1 Jun. 1995. 
• Wood, James. “Hysterical Realism.” Prospect Magazine, 20 Nov. 2000.