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Usually, if a bird stumbles upon an deserted lighthouse, it might perch, rest momentarily, make a deposit, and take off. That's not the case in Keeper, an upcoming over-the-shoulder adventure puzzle game created by Double Fine Productions; in this world, the lighthouse sprouts tiny limbs, forms a friendship with the bird, and embarks on an daring hike.

While a recent sneak peek at the gaming convention clarified some questions, it also ignited a curiosity to discover additional details about this absurdist lighthouse-meets-bird tale. Therefore, we connected with Lee Petty, the visionary lead behind Keeper, to illuminate on his team's vibrant creation.

A Unique Journey Experience

Although fundamentally designed as an exploration title, Petty states that Keeper aims to provide a unique gameplay through a combination of dreamlike graphics, world mystery, approachable puzzles, and, most notably, the lack of words. He refers to the game a “palate cleanser,” a short adventure unlike any title you’ve played before.

“Keeper conveys fewer details than a typical game,” he notes. “It was important for us to let the player unwind and not worry about making mistakes; just pause to try and accept the weirdness.”

As a result, Keeper is not merely a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Set in a post-civilization world devoid of humans, you will explore the world as a sentient lighthouse joined by a bird sidekick named Twig, but you can’t die, there are no skill trees, and there is no need to farm for items.

Gameplay Mechanics and Environmental Interaction

“When we began to design the puzzles, we wanted to craft puzzles that felt deeply woven into the world and the characters there. In a standard adventure game, you might find a obstacle first,” Petty clarifies. “You're like, oh, I cannot enter through this door, and you typically understand that, because there are people there telling you so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we wanted to really establish this sense of an peculiar, evocative world and not tell you exactly what it's about. Our puzzles function a little differently, so you often sort of stumble upon them without knowing what you're supposed to be doing.”

Artisanal Aesthetics and Limited Controls

To give the game a “handmade” atmosphere, Keeper steers clear of using numerous variations of the same concept. “We do that to some extent, as it's not like everything is done only one time and thrown away,” Petty explains, “but there is a lot of distinct setup. Every few steps away, you encounter something distinctly new from the remainder of the game.”

When asked about maintaining player’s interest without of failure and clear objectives, Petty stands firm: “I believe we captivate the player's attention through the surprising. You're not really sure what's going to happen around each corner.”

This curated method is additionally evident in Keeper’s limited set of interactions. To navigate through its surrealist world, you don’t need only a handful of buttons, as the lighthouse’s main way of interacting with the world is through its headlight, which has a standard mode and a concentrated mode. For instance, you can direct it at plants to make them grow, beam toward a creature to make it squint, and use it to reveal secrets and tackle puzzles.

Companion Dynamics and Gameplay Variety

Twig, the lighthouse’s reliable bird companion, is usually perched on the lighthouse, from where he’ll sometimes take flight to show the path forward or activate secrets. Apart from these automatic movements, the lighthouse can also direct the bird to do actions like lifting objects, operating levers, or — perhaps the most interesting one — connecting itself to creatures.

The latter is a great illustration of how Keeper’s streamlined approach to the input scheme nevertheless offers a wide variety of interactive features. The various environments, items, and creatures open the way to unique interactions, and particularly metamorphosis.

“For example, there's a moment where a sort of pink pollen, which resembles cotton candy, gets stuck to the lighthouse, rendering it less heavy. For that portion of the game, the lighthouse can jump, hover, and move around,” Petty explains. “A breath of fresh air from being anchored to the ground. So we try to vary the pace up in a lot of different ways.”

Narrative Devoid of Words

But hopping around and interacting with their surroundings is not the sole task assigned upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must also express a story of friendship, bonding, and overcoming obstacles together as they journey toward a breathtaking mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must do so without using words — and without the kind of expressions and facial expressions a human character could have used.

While Petty assures that players will experience greater emotion than one would expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, specifically, who plays a major role in expressing emotions. “When they're riding along on the lighthouse, players have a whole button dedicated to just expressing with the bird, and often it will mirror the mood of that area,” he states.

“For instance, when you get in a kind of unsettling or darker area, the bird will crouch and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you hit the expression button, instead of a cheerful chirp or directing you, it'll sort of look around and duck down.”

Threats and Friendly Creatures

By “darker area,” Petty is talking about the menace that derives from something called the “Wither,” a hostile ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig proceed on their journey, they’ll see more and more of this purple, corrosive substance, which sometimes take the form of brambles, creepers, and insects. “It's what Twig is flying away from,” Petty clarifies.

Unlike the Wither, most creatures in Keeper are actually amicable. When Twig expresses at one of the odd critters, for example, it may emote back and perhaps create an background sound — in the absence of words, sound effects and music are another tool used to tell Keeper’s story.

Narrative Conclusion and Inspiration

This manner of wordless storytelling makes me wonder if Keeper’s narrative concludes in a cryptic conclusion, but Petty reassures that there will be a middle ground. “It's not a total mystery, but because it's wordless, it's inherently subject to interpretation. We did intentionally want to allow some room for that as that's my favorite thing about art; the discussions that occur once people play something,” he notes, “But we do provide defined narrative arcs and closure.”

One glance at Keeper’s icy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and unusual rock formations will reveal that natural scenery formed one of the primary influences for this human-less tale. As Petty shares, the scenery isn’t just inspired by ordinary locations: “I live in California and there's a lot of really cool mountains around here,” he explains. “Near where I live, there's an abandoned Mercury mine that was abandoned like a century ago, and they've turned it into walking paths; that's one of my big inspirations. It's not anything extraordinary, but what makes it interesting is the many hills, and as you're climbing up, you occasionally discover old pieces of machinery that you're not even sure what they were for.”

“They sort of look like weird monuments, just resting within nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I reflect at the game and the remains of humanity in there, I can see the direct connection to me trekking around all that stuff.”

Symbolic Significance and Final Reflections

Although Petty humorously calls the lighthouse protagonist