Typically, if a bird discovers an abandoned lighthouse, it may land, relax momentarily, leave a mess, and fly away. That's not the case in Keeper, an upcoming third-person adventure puzzle game developed by Double Fine Productions; here, the lighthouse sprouts tiny limbs, forms a friendship with the bird, and embarks on an daring hike.
Although a latest preview at Gamescom clarified some questions, it also sparked a desire to discover additional details about this surreal lighthouse-meets-bird story. Therefore, we connected with the creative director, the visionary lead behind Keeper, to shed light on his team's colorful creation.
A Unique Journey Experience
Although at its core designed as an adventure game, Petty states that Keeper aims to deliver a distinctive experience through a combination of dreamlike visual style, world mystery, accessible puzzles, and, importantly, the lack of words. He calls the game a “refreshing break,” a short adventure different from anything gamers have experienced before.
“Keeper conveys less than a standard game,” he notes. “It was important for us to let the player unwind and not worry about making mistakes; just pause to try and embrace the weirdness.”
Consequently, Keeper is not merely a series of challenges, nor is its exploration highly objective-driven. Set in a post-apocalyptic world without humans, players traverse the world as a living lighthouse accompanied by a bird companion named Twig, but there is no death, the game lacks skill trees, and you’ll never have to grind for items.
Puzzle Design and World Integration
“When we set out to create the puzzles, we wanted to develop puzzles that felt deeply integrated into the world and the inhabitants there. In a standard adventure game, you may find a obstacle first,” Petty explains. “For instance, oh, I cannot enter in this door, and you typically understand that, since there are characters there telling you so with dialogue.”
“But in our game, we aimed to truly establish this sense of an unusual, evocative world and not reveal precisely what it's about. Our puzzles function a little differently, so you frequently sort of stumble upon them without understanding what you're supposed to be doing.”
Handmade Feel and Limited Interactions
To give the game a “handmade” atmosphere, Keeper steers clear of using numerous iterations of the same concept. “We implement that to some extent, as it's not like each element is done only one time and discarded,” Petty elaborates, “but there is a great deal of distinct setup. Every few steps away, you encounter something distinctly new from the remainder of the game.”
When asked about sustaining gamer’s attention in the absence of failure and defined objectives, Petty is adamant: “I think we captivate the player's attention through the surprising. Players aren’t entirely sure what's will occur around each corner.”
This curated approach is also noticeable in Keeper’s restricted set of interactions. To navigate through its dreamlike world, players require more than a few buttons, as the lighthouse’s main way of engaging with the world is through its beacon, which has a standard mode and a focused mode. For example, you can aim it at plants to make them flourish, shine toward a creature to make it squint, and use it to reveal secrets and tackle puzzles.
Partner Dynamics and Gameplay Variety
Twig, the lighthouse’s trusty bird companion, is typically perched on the lighthouse, from where it will occasionally fly off to show the path forward or trigger secrets. Apart from these automatic movements, the lighthouse can also command the bird to perform things like raising objects, pulling levers, or — perhaps the intriguing one — connecting itself to creatures.
The latter is a prime example of how Keeper’s streamlined approach to the input scheme still provides a wide variety of interactive features. The various environments, items, and creatures open the way to distinctive interactions, and especially metamorphosis.
“For example, there's a segment where a sort of pink pollen, which looks like cotton candy, gets attached to the lighthouse, making it lighter. For that segment of the game, the lighthouse can jump, hover, and navigate,” 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 various ways.”
Storytelling Devoid of Words
But hopping around and interacting with their environment isn’t the only task assigned upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must also express a story of friendship, bonding, and surmounting obstacles as a team as they travel toward a magnificent mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must accomplish this without using words — and without the kind of expressions and emotional cues a person might’ve used.
While Petty assures that gamers will get to sense 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 says.
“For example, when you get in a somewhat unsettling or gloomier area, the bird will hunker down and coil around the top of the lighthouse. And if you press the expression button, instead of a cheerful tweet or guiding you, it will sort of glance about and duck down.”
Dangers 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 continue their journey, they’ll see more and more of this violet, vitriolic substance, which sometimes take the form of brambles, vines, and bugs. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty clarifies.
In contrast to the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are in fact amicable. When Twig expresses at one of the odd critters, for example, it might emote back and possibly produce an background sound — in the absence of words, audio cues and music are another tool used to narrate Keeper’s story.
Narrative Closure and Influences
This method of non-verbal storytelling raises the question if Keeper’s narrative ends in a ambiguous conclusion, but Petty assures that there will be a balance. “It's not a total mystery, but because it's without dialogue, it's naturally open to interpretation. We purposely want to leave some room for that because that's my favorite thing about art; the discussions that occur once people experience something,” he says, “But we include specific narrative arcs and closure.”
A quick look at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and unusual rock formations will tell you that natural scenery formed one of the primary inspirations for this human-less adventure. As Petty tells, the scenery isn’t just based on ordinary locations: “I reside in California and there's a lot of really cool mountains around here,” he explains. “Close to 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 nothing super remarkable, but what adds intrigue is the numerous hills, and as you ascend, you occasionally come across remnants of machinery that you can’t identify what they were for.”
“They sort of look like strange monuments, just sitting within nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I reflect at the game and the remains of humanity in there, I can see the clear connection to me trekking around all that stuff.”
Symbolic Meaning and Closing Reflections
While Petty humorously refers to the lighthouse main character
