Preview: ‘Open Roads’ delves into a different type of nostalgia

Tess, left, and Opal ride in a car in 'Open Roads'. The road trip adventure game features voice work from Kaitlyn Dever who plays Tess and Kerri Rusell, who stars as Opal. — Annapurna Interactive/TNS

When gamers talk about nostalgia, sprite-heavy graphics, chiptune music and enormous square telvisions often come to mind, but for the developers of Open Roads, it means crafting a world from their collective past. They recreate their memories and put it in a video game.

That project happens to be a mother-daughter road trip adventure, featuring Keri Russell as the mother Opal and Kaitlyn Dever in the role of the daughter Tess. It takes place in two decades ago in 2003. The era becomes obvious as players explore the world in the girl’s first-person perspective. They see a creamsicle-colored iMac sitting on the desk. A hulking CRT television sits atop a dresser. Everyone still reads the newspaper.