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Typically, if a bird stumbles upon an abandoned lighthouse, it might land, rest momentarily, leave a mess, and fly away. Not so in Keeper, an upcoming over-the-shoulder puzzle adventure game developed by Double Fine Productions; in this world, the lighthouse grows tiny limbs, forms a friendship with the bird, and embarks on an ambitious hike.

While a latest sneak peek at the gaming convention clarified some questions, it also sparked a desire to discover additional details about this absurdist 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.

An Unconventional Journey Experience

While at its core designed as an exploration title, Petty explains that Keeper aims to deliver a unique gameplay through a blend of dreamlike graphics, enigmatic setting, accessible puzzles, and, importantly, the absence of words. He calls the game a “refreshing break,” a short adventure unlike any title gamers have experienced before.

“Keeper conveys fewer details than a standard game,” he says. “It was important for us to let the player unwind and not worry about making mistakes; just pause to try and embrace the unusual aspects.”

As a result, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic world devoid of humans, you will explore the world as a sentient lighthouse joined by a bird sidekick named Twig, but there is no death, 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 aimed to craft puzzles that felt deeply woven into the world and the characters there. In a typical adventure game, you might encounter a obstacle first,” Petty explains. “You're like, oh, I cannot enter in this door, and you typically understand that, because there are characters there telling you so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we wanted to truly establish this sense of an peculiar, atmospheric world and not reveal precisely what it's about. Our puzzles function a bit uniquely, so you often sort of wander into them without knowing what you're supposed to be doing.”

Artisanal Feel and Limited Controls

To impart the game a “handmade” atmosphere, Keeper avoids using many iterations of the same concept. “We do that to a degree, as it's not like each element is created exactly once and thrown away,” Petty explains, “but there is a lot of distinct setup. Every short distance away, you encounter something distinctly new from the remainder of the game.”

When asked about sustaining player’s interest in the absence of failure and clear objectives, Petty is adamant: “I believe we engage the player's attention through the surprising. You're not really sure what's will occur around each corner.”

This thoughtfully designed approach is additionally noticeable in Keeper’s limited set of interactions. To find your way through its dreamlike world, you don’t need more than a handful of buttons, as the lighthouse’s primary way of interacting with the world is through its headlight, which has a standard mode and a concentrated mode. For instance, you can aim it at plants to make them flourish, beam toward a creature to make it squint, and use it to reveal secrets and tackle puzzles.

Companion Mechanics and Gameplay Variety

Twig, the lighthouse’s trusty bird friend, is typically sitting on the lighthouse, from where he’ll occasionally fly off to indicate the path forward or activate secrets. In addition to these scripted movements, the lighthouse can additionally command the bird to perform actions like raising objects, operating levers, or — maybe the intriguing one — attaching itself to creatures.

The last example is a great example of how Keeper’s minimalistic approach to the input scheme nevertheless offers a broad range of interactive features. The various environments, items, and creatures open the way to distinctive interactions, and particularly metamorphosis.

“For instance, there's a moment where a type of pink pollen, which resembles cotton candy, gets stuck to the lighthouse, rendering it less heavy. For that segment of the game, the lighthouse can leap, hover, and move around,” Petty explains. “A welcome change from being anchored to the ground. So we try to change the rhythm up in a lot of different ways.”

Narrative Without Words

But hopping around and interacting with their surroundings isn’t the only task assigned upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must also convey a story of companionship, companionship, and overcoming obstacles together as they travel toward a breathtaking mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must do so without using words — and without the kind of gestures and emotional cues a human character might’ve relied upon.

While Petty assures that gamers will experience more expression 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, you actually have a whole button assigned for just expressing with the bird, and a lot of times it will reflect the emotional tenor of that location,” he states.

“For example, when you enter a kind of unsettling or gloomier area, the bird will crouch and coil around the top of the lighthouse. And if you hit the expression button, instead of a cheerful tweet or guiding you, it will kind of glance about and duck down.”

Dangers and Friendly Creatures

By “darker area,” Petty is referring to the threat that derives from something called the “Wither,” a malevolent ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig proceed on their journey, they encounter increasing amounts of this violet, corrosive substance, which may occasionally appear as of brambles, vines, and bugs. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty explains.

In contrast to the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are in fact friendly. When Twig expresses at one of the odd critters, for example, it might emote back and perhaps produce an ambient noise — in the absence of words, sound effects and music are an additional tool used to narrate Keeper’s story.

Narrative Closure and Influences

This manner 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 complete mystery, but since it's wordless, it's naturally open to interpretation. We purposely aim to leave space for that as that's my favorite thing about art; the discussions that occur after people experience something,” he says, “But we do provide specific narrative arcs and closure.”

A quick look at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and odd rock formations will reveal that the outdoors served as one of the main inspirations for this human-less adventure. As Petty tells, the scenery isn’t just based on ordinary locations: “I live in California and there's a plenty of amazing mountains around here,” he explains. “Near where I live, there's an old Mercury mine that was abandoned like a century ago, and it has been converted into walking paths; that's one of my big inspirations. It's not anything super remarkable, but what adds intrigue is the numerous hills, and as you ascend, you sometimes discover old pieces of machinery that you're not even sure what they were for.”

“They sort of resemble strange monuments, just sitting among nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I reflect at the game and the artifacts of humanity in there, I can see the direct connection to me trekking around all that stuff.”

Symbolic Meaning and Final Thoughts

While Petty jokingly refers to the lighthouse main character