What's so distinctive about KRZ it that, aside from all the other great things about it, it so fluently speaks the language of video games and confidently, appr

What's so distinctive about KRZ it that, aside from all the other great things about it, it so fluently speaks the language of video games and confidently, appropriately leverages the conventions of its sub-genre, as compared with other "art games" like Gone Home (which I enjoyed, mind you!) that live in their medium only superficially. Label either what you will, but IMO KRZ's among the best examples of what the properties of video games in particular can contribute to the expression and experience of art. Gone Home could be translated to an (admittedly elaborate and large) interactive art installation (think haunted house, but less haunted, or like an escape room but bigger) and I'm pretty sure it'd be better for it—the immersive nostalgia of Gone Home wants you to feel and smell it, IMO... but you can't. It doesn't even do any of the media-blending that something like Thirty Flights of Loving does that'd make it tough to subject it to this kind of transformation. On the other hand I have trouble imagining any similar removal from the video game medium for KRZ turning out well. I don't even know where you'd start, or what you might change it into without making it something else entirely, likely inferior. Consider also many of the Twine games and their cousins, which could just as well be choose your own adventure books—the "game" part may matter, the "video" barely does. KRZ? It both must be a video game, and isn't middling-quality (but possibly fun!) genre fiction. Very few video games tick both those boxes.