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Typically, if a bird stumbles upon an abandoned lighthouse, it might land, relax momentarily, make a deposit, and take off. That's not the case in Keeper, an upcoming over-the-shoulder adventure puzzle game developed by Double Fine Productions; in this world, the lighthouse sprouts little legs, becomes BFFs with the bird, and sets off on an ambitious hike.

While a recent sneak peek at the gaming convention clarified some questions, it also sparked a curiosity to discover additional details about this surreal lighthouse-meets-bird tale. Therefore, we connected with the creative director, the visionary lead behind Keeper, to shed light on his team's vibrant creation.

An Unconventional Journey Gameplay

Although at its core designed as an exploration title, Petty states that Keeper aims to provide a distinctive gameplay through a blend of surreal graphics, enigmatic setting, approachable puzzles, and, importantly, the absence of words. He refers to the game a “refreshing break,” a short adventure different from anything you’ve played before.

“Keeper conveys less than a standard game,” he says. “It was important for us to let the player unwind and not worry about making mistakes; just take a moment to attempt and accept the unusual aspects.”

Consequently, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Taking place in a post-civilization realm without humans, players traverse the world as a sentient lighthouse joined by a bird companion named Twig, but you can’t die, there are no skill trees, and you’ll never have to farm for items.

Puzzle Design and World Integration

“When we began to design the puzzles, we wanted to craft puzzles that felt very integrated into the world and the inhabitants there. In a standard adventure game, you may encounter a problem first,” Petty explains. “You're like, oh, I can't get through this door, and you typically grasp that, since there are people there telling you so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we wanted to really create this sense of an peculiar, evocative world and not tell you exactly what it's about. Our puzzles work a bit uniquely, so you often sort of stumble upon them without understanding what you need to be doing.”

Handmade Feel and Limited Interactions

To give the game a “crafted” feel, Keeper avoids using numerous variations of the identical concept. “We implement that to a degree, as it's not like each element is done exactly once and discarded,” Petty explains, “but there is a great deal of unique setup. Every short distance away, you encounter something distinctly new from the rest of the game.”

In response about sustaining gamer’s attention without of failure and clear objectives, Petty is adamant: “I think we engage the player's attention through the unexpected. You're not really sure what's going to happen around each corner.”

This curated approach is additionally evident in Keeper’s limited set of interactions. To navigate through its surrealist world, players require only a few buttons, as the lighthouse’s main way of interacting 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, beam toward a creature to make it react, and use it to uncover secrets and solve puzzles.

Companion Mechanics and Gameplay Variety

Twig, the lighthouse’s reliable bird companion, is typically perched on the lighthouse, from where he’ll sometimes fly off to show the path forward or activate secrets. In addition to these scripted movements, the lighthouse can also direct the bird to do things like raising objects, operating levers, or — perhaps the intriguing one — connecting itself to creatures.

The latter is a great illustration of how Keeper’s streamlined design to the control system nevertheless provides a broad range of interactive features. The various environments, items, and creatures open the way to distinctive interactions, and particularly metamorphosis.

“For example, there's a moment where a type of rosy dust, which resembles cotton candy, gets attached to the lighthouse, making it lighter. For that segment of the game, the lighthouse can leap, float, and move around,” Petty says. “A welcome change from being anchored to the ground. So we aim to change the rhythm up in a lot of various ways.”

Narrative Without Words

But exploring and fiddling with their environment isn’t the only task bestowed upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must also convey a story of friendship, bonding, and overcoming obstacles together as they travel toward a breathtaking mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must accomplish this without using words — and without the type of gestures and emotional cues a person might’ve relied upon.

Although Petty confirms that gamers will get to sense more expression than one would expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, specifically, who plays a major role in conveying emotions. “When the bird is perched on the lighthouse, you actually have a dedicated button assigned for just emoting with the bird, and often it will reflect the emotional tenor of that location,” he states.

“For instance, when you enter a somewhat tense or gloomier area, the bird will crouch and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you press the expression button, rather than a playful chirp or guiding you, it will kind of glance about and duck down.”

Dangers and Friendly Creatures

By “gloomy zone,” Petty is referring to the threat that derives from something called the “Wither,” a hostile ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig continue their journey, they’ll see increasing amounts of this violet, corrosive substance, which sometimes appear as of brambles, creepers, and bugs. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty explains.

Unlike the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are actually amicable. When Twig emotes at one of the peculiar critters, for instance, it might respond and perhaps produce an ambient noise — in the absence of words, audio cues and music are an additional tool used to narrate Keeper’s story.

Narrative Conclusion and Influences

This method of non-verbal storytelling makes me wonder if Keeper’s narrative ends in a cryptic ending, but Petty reassures that there will be a middle ground. “It's not a total mystery, but since it's wordless, it's inherently open to interpretation. We did intentionally aim to leave some room for that as that's my most loved thing about art; the discussions that occur after people experience something,” he notes, “But we include specific narrative arcs and closure.”

One glance at Keeper’s icy mountaintops, elaborate 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 shares, the scenery isn’t just based on any old place: “I live in California and there's a lot of really cool mountains in this region,” he explains. “Close to where I live, there's an old Mercury mine that was left like a century ago, and they've turned it into walking paths; that's one of my big inspirations. It's not anything super remarkable, but what adds intrigue is the many hills, and as you're climbing up, you sometimes discover old pieces of machinery that you're not even sure what they were for.”

“They kind of resemble 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 clear connection to me hiking around all that stuff.”

Symbolic Meaning and Final Thoughts

Although Petty humorously refers to the lighthouse protagonist