By: Mandy J Watson on 4 February 2011 Category: Games > Features

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A secret highway in Kentucky is the setting for the magical realist adventure Kentucky Route Zero, an independent game that is being developed by a small team in the US. The game's artist recently released a few screenshots of character and object renderings, some of which we are featuring in this showcase.

Kentucky Route Zero is a magical realist adventure game that is being developed for Mac OS and Windows (and possibly also Linux). It is currently in an early preparation phase and is being funded via a Kickstarter project. Although the pledge phase only ends this Sunday (6 February 2011) the project successfully met its goal a few weeks ago and any additional funds that are pledged will be channelled into making more 3D objects and hiring extra help, so you if you have a few dollars to spare consider pledging to help make this game an even richer experience.

The game is being developed by Jake Elliot (Cardboard Computer), who is responsible for the design, programming, and writing, and Tamas Kemenczy, who is working on the art and design. They are using the game engine Unity Pro for the development/coding environment and the open-source content-creation suite Blender 2.5 to design the objects, characters, and environments in 3D.

The following are some of the renderings and screenshots of concept models that Tamas recently posted in his Flickr stream. (They have been reposted here with permission.) You can click on any of them [look for the zoom icon] to go directly to their Flickr page to see a high-res version and more detail. These specific renderingss come from the trailer, which was released a few weeks ago, and they show development of some of the characters and objects that are expected to be in the game. In order to speed up development Tamas has been working directly in Blender so they apparently (and unfortunately) don't have any hand-drawn concept art (I asked). All the items, props, and scenery are being made from scratch and Tamas often uses "miscellaneous found photographs", in Jake's words, for reference.


I've been told that there will be seven main characters in the game. So far we've been introduced to Conway the antique-furniture delivery man, Junebug the robotic country singer, and the young boy Ezra. There will also be "a fairly large cast of minor characters", to quote Jake again, one of whom is Julian the eagle, who you also saw in the trailer.































If you pledge $40 [?] or more in the Kickstarter campaign you will receive a copy of the game once it's ready. Other offerings include beautifully designed postcards and posters. If you have as much as $500 [?] to spare you can even have your own unique antique designed as a 3D object that will appear in the game. [Update: Around the time this article went live the remaining personalised objects pledges were all snapped up, so you're out of luck if you want one.]


You can view the full set of Blender screenshots here in Tamas Kemenczy's Flickr set. It includes more angles of character renderings (especially Julian), more objects, and an interesting wireframe and scene called "MuseumSkyLight".

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On The Internet

Kentucky Route Zero: Kickstarter | Flickr Set | Vimeo

Jake Elliot: Official Site | Blogger

Tamas Kemenczy: Official Site | Delicious | Facebook | Flickr | GitHub | Launchpad | Tumblr | Twitter | Vimeo

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