That goes right down to the sound design, which Babbitt now works on in conjunction with the music. Partly, that’s down to Babbitt’s use of old standards, the reworked folk songs that appear throughout the game, but it’s also to do with the subtle imperfections in the music the audio feels alive, like a mirror to the characters. There’s a timeless quality, a sense of warmth and wear it’s a digital product that feels analogue in nature. The backdrop to those early recording sessions goes some way to explaining the mood of the game and the contribution Babbitt’s soundtrack makes to it. I made all the early Kentucky Route Zero stuff there.” He was really into that stuff, so he didn’t even have a computer down there. “And at the time Theo was primarily an analogue tape engineer. The scene in Chicago at that time felt pretty open and supportive.”īabbitt’s friend Theo Karon set up a recording studio in the basement of the shared house where he lived for six years, “a little place where many different projects would start springing up,” he continues. “And in the meantime making music with all these other people outside of school and playing a lot of shows and touring. “I loved being there and having the opportunity to curate a curriculum for myself,” he recalls. He enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met Jake Elliott and Tamas Kemenczy, the two developers with whom he would form Cardboard Computer. I came back and I decided I did want to study music.” “Some of those trips changed my thinking about things. The next year he left town and started travelling, picking up volunteering work he even wound up on a sheep farm in Iceland.
He was, in his own words, a “terrible student”, but a friend of his owned a studio where he began working when he wasn’t touring with his band outside of the city. “It’s a nice way to work, and it results in this massive collection of things over years and years from many different places.”īabbitt dropped out of high school at 17 and left his home in the suburbs to live in Chicago. And then sometimes years later it makes sense to use it in a particular place,” he says. “The way that I work is just to generate lots of material kind of all the time, not necessarily knowing what to do with it or where it will go. The patchwork approach is one that composer and Cardboard Computer co-founder Ben Babbitt cultivated outside of his video game projects. The game’s soundtrack is just as multi-faceted, moving effortlessly between serene Eno-esque soundscapes, beatless synth workouts, and lilting folk music. A bear might wander through an open-plan office, or a ghost ship populated by cats might float past on the river. But the weighty subject matter is handled lightly, punctuated by bizarre flourishes. Characters are ensnared by debt and poor working conditions economic decline has left an entire region marginalised. It’s a parallel reality governed by a different set of rules. Kentucky Route Zero is a dreamlike version of contemporary America filtered through a playful, Lynchian surrealism. But it’s much more than those archaic terms can muster. Some would call it a point-and-click adventure game. In this game, it’s a picture of control. Disappointment is embedded in Act IV of Cardboard Computer’s acclaimed episodic journey. In any other video game, this finale would be considered an anti-climax. Two of the lead characters are talking over it. The latest act of Kentucky Route Zero finishes on a theremin solo. Lewis Gordon talks to the game’s composer Ben Babbitt about how he embarked on his journey and how the latest episode has helped him find his voice in the most unlikely place.
The indie game’s unique blend of stylized visuals and haunting music made it an instant cult hit, and the latest installment, which arrived in June, is the series’ best to date.
Kentucky Route Zero was met with critical acclaim when its first episode appeared in 2013.
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