Usually, when a bird finds an abandoned lighthouse, it sits down, relaxes a bit, maybe leaves a number two, and then flies off. Not so in Keeper, an upcoming third-person puzzle adventure game developed by Double Fine Productions; here, the lighthouse grows little legs, becomes BFFs with the bird, then sets off on an ambitious hike.
Although an exclusive Keeper preview at Gamescom answered some of my questions, it also instilled a desire to learn more about this absurdist lighthouse-meets-bird tale, so I sat down with Lee Petty, creative director of Keeper, to shine a light on his team’s colorful creation.
While fundamentally built as an adventure game, Petty tells me that Keeper is intended to provide a unique experience through a combination of a surreal visual style, the mystery of its world, the accessibility of puzzles, and, most notably, the absence of words. He calls the game a “palate cleanser,” a short adventure unlike the ones you’ve played before.
“Keeper communicates less than a typical game,” he says. “It was important for us to let the player relax a bit and not worry about messing up; just take a moment to try and embrace the weirdness.”
Consequently, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration very goal-oriented. Set in a post-apocalyptic realm without humans, you will explore the world as a living lighthouse accompanied by a bird sidekick named Twig, but you can’t die, there are no skill trees, and you’ll never have to grind for items.
“When we set out to design the puzzles, we wanted to create puzzles that felt very integrated into the world and the characters there. In a typical adventure game, you might find a problem first,” Petty explains. “You’re like, oh, I can’t get in this door, and you usually understand that, because there are people there telling you so with dialogue.”
“But in our game, we wanted to really create this sense of an unusual, evocative world and not tell you exactly what it’s about. Our puzzles work a little differently, so you often kind of wander into them without understanding what you’re supposed to be doing.”
To give the game a “handmade” feel, Keeper avoids using many variations of the same concept. “We do that to some extent, as it’s not like everything is done exactly once and thrown away,” Petty explains, “but there is a lot of unique setup. Every short distance away, you see something very different from the rest of the game.”
I point out that it may be harder to keep the player’s attention in the absence of failure and clear objectives, but Petty is adamant: “I think we captivate the player’s attention through the unexpected. You’re not really sure what’s going to happen around each corner.”
This curated approach is also noticeable in Keeper’s limited set of interactions. To find your way through its surrealist world, you don’t need more than a few buttons, as the lighthouse’s primary way of interacting with the world is through its headlight, which has a default mode and a focused mode. For example, you can aim it at plants to make them grow, shine toward a creature to make it squint, and use it to uncover secrets and solve puzzles.
Twig, the lighthouse’s trusty bird companion, is usually perched on the lighthouse, from where he’ll occasionally fly off to show the path forward or trigger secrets. Apart from these automatic movements, the lighthouse can also direct the bird to do things like lifting objects, pulling levers, or — perhaps the most interesting one — attaching itself to creatures.
The latter is a great example of how Keeper’s minimalistic approach to the control system still offers a wide variety of gameplay mechanics. The various environments, items, and creatures open the way to unique interactions, and especially metamorphosis.
“For example, there’s a moment where a sort of pink pollen, which looks like cotton candy, gets stuck to the lighthouse, making it lighter. For that segment of the game, the lighthouse can jump, float, and move around,” Petty says. “A breath of fresh air from being stuck to the ground. So we try to vary the pace up in a lot of different ways.”
But hopping around and fiddling with their surroundings isn’t the only task bestowed upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must also convey a story of friendship, companionship, and overcoming obstacles together as they journey toward a magnificent mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must do so without using words — and without the type of gestures and facial expressions a human character might’ve relied upon.
While Petty assures me that I’ll get to sense more expression than I might expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, in particular, who plays a major role in conveying emotions. “When they’re riding along on the lighthouse, you actually have a whole button dedicated to just emoting with the bird, and a lot of times it will reflect the emotional tenor of that area,” he says.
“For example, when you get in a kind of tense or darker area, the bird will hunker down and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you hit the emote button, instead of a playful chirp or directing you, it’ll kind of look around and duck down.”
By “darker area,” Petty is referring to the threat that derives from something called the “Wither,” a malevolent ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig continue their journey, they’ll see more and more of this purple, vitriolic substance, which may occasionally take the form of brambles, vines, and insects. “It’s what Twig is flying away from,” Petty explains.
Unlike the Wither, most creatures in Keeper are actually friendly. When Twig emotes at one of the odd critters, for example, it might emote back and possibly create an ambient noise — in the absence of words, sound effects and music are another tool used to tell Keeper’s story.
This manner of non-verbal storytelling makes me wonder if Keeper’s narrative ends in a cryptic conclusion, but Petty assures me there will be a balance. “It’s not a complete mystery, but because it’s wordless, it’s inherently open to interpretation. We did intentionally want to leave some room for that because that’s my favorite thing about art; the discussions that happen after people experience something,” he says, “But we do provide specific narrative arcs and closure.”
One glance at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, elaborate cave systems, and odd rock formations will tell you that natural scenery formed one of the main inspirations for this human-less tale. As Petty tells me, the scenery isn’t just inspired by any old place: “I live in California and there’s a lot of really cool mountains around here,” he says. “Near where I live, there’s an old Mercury mine that was abandoned like a hundred years ago, and they’ve turned it into hiking trails; that’s one of my big inspirations. It’s nothing super remarkable, but what makes it interesting is the many hills, and as you’re climbing up, you occasionally come across old pieces of machinery that you’re not even sure what they were for.”
“They sort of look like weird monuments, just sitting among nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I look back at the game and the artifacts of humanity in there, I can see the direct connection to me hiking around all that stuff.”
While Petty jokingly calls the lighthouse protagonist an “obvious choice,” it does make a lot of sense. “There’s an aspect to this game that’s about change and overcoming your obstacles. In the case of the lighthouse, in the context of our post-human game, it’s this leftover artifact of the old world that no longer has a function; there are no ships coming in, so it’s remained inert for a long time,” he says.
“For me, that was a really cool metaphor. How has [the lighthouse] changed? Well, first it has to walk, and now its lights are used for something entirely different. A lot of that is about stimulating new growth, but there are lots of other things the light can do over the course of the game … I thought it’d be fascinating to use light in an “aiming” sort of way, but it’s not a weapon, you’re not shooting anything. Besides some obvious metaphors about bringing light to darkness, it’s also an unusual choice to try and make people care about a lighthouse.”
That brings me to my final question, and arguably the most important one: If Lee Petty could go on a real-life hike as either the lighthouse or the bird, which would he pick?
“Well, I’ll answer this in the nerdiest way possible, which is when I play Dungeons and Dragons or roleplay games, I always play rogues and thieves. So, as agility and hiding in shadows are my core,” he says, “I would play the bird because the bird is much more agile and can escape danger more quickly than the lighthouse, which I think is better if you’re into playing tanks or stronger characters. It’s the bird for me.”
