The Game's Lead Designer Urges Players to Embrace the Weirdness of a Walking Lighthouse

Usually, when a bird stumbles upon an deserted lighthouse, it may land, relax briefly, make a deposit, 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 grows little legs, becomes BFFs with the bird, and embarks on an daring hike.

While a latest preview at Gamescom answered some questions, it also sparked a curiosity to learn more about this surreal lighthouse-meets-bird story. Thus, we connected with the creative director, the visionary lead behind Keeper, to illuminate on his team's vibrant creation.

A Unique Journey Gameplay

Although fundamentally built as an adventure game, Petty explains that Keeper aims to deliver a unique gameplay through a combination of surreal graphics, enigmatic setting, approachable puzzles, and, most notably, the absence of words. He refers to the game a “palate cleanser,” a brief adventure unlike anything gamers have experienced before.

“Keeper conveys fewer details than a typical game,” he notes. “It was essential for us to let the player relax and not worry about messing up; just pause to try and accept the unusual aspects.”

Consequently, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Set in a post-apocalyptic world without humans, players traverse the world as a sentient lighthouse joined by a bird companion named Twig, but you can’t die, the game lacks skill trees, and there is no need to grind for items.

Puzzle Design and Environmental Interaction

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

“But in our game, we wanted to truly create this sense of an peculiar, atmospheric world and not tell you exactly what it's about. Our puzzles function a little differently, so you frequently sort of wander into them without understanding what you need to be doing.”

Artisanal Feel and Minimalist Interactions

To impart the game a “handmade” feel, Keeper steers clear of using many iterations of the identical concept. “We do that to a degree, as it's not like each element is created only one time and discarded,” Petty elaborates, “but there is a great deal of distinct setup. Every few steps away, you see something distinctly new from the rest of the game.”

In response about sustaining gamer’s attention in the absence 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 will occur around each corner.”

This curated approach is also evident in Keeper’s limited set of interactions. To navigate through its dreamlike 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 direct it at plants to make them grow, shine toward a creature to make it squint, and use it to uncover secrets and solve puzzles.

Partner Dynamics and Diverse Interactions

Twig, the lighthouse’s reliable bird companion, is typically sitting 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 actions like lifting objects, pulling levers, or — maybe the most interesting one — connecting itself to creatures.

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

“For example, there's a moment where a sort of rosy dust, which looks like cotton candy, gets stuck to the lighthouse, making it less heavy. For that portion of the game, the lighthouse can leap, float, and move around,” Petty explains. “A breath of fresh air from being anchored to the ground. So we aim to vary the pace up in a lot of various ways.”

Narrative Devoid of Words

But exploring and interacting with their environment isn’t the only task bestowed upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must additionally express a story of friendship, bonding, and overcoming obstacles together as they journey toward a magnificent mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must accomplish this without using words — and without the type of expressions and facial expressions a person could have used.

While Petty assures that players will experience more expression than might expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, specifically, who is instrumental 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 often it will reflect the mood of that location,” he says.

“For instance, when you enter a kind of tense or gloomier area, the bird will hunker down and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you hit the emote button, instead of a cheerful tweet or directing you, it'll 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 hostile ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig proceed on their journey, they’ll see increasing amounts of this violet, corrosive substance, which may occasionally take the form of thorns, vines, and bugs. “It's what Twig is flying away from,” Petty clarifies.

Unlike the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are in fact friendly. When Twig emotes at one of the peculiar critters, for example, it may emote back and perhaps produce an ambient noise — without of words, sound effects and music are an additional tool used to tell Keeper’s story.

Narrative Closure and Inspiration

This manner of wordless storytelling raises the question if Keeper’s narrative ends in a cryptic conclusion, but Petty assures that there will be a balance. “It's not a complete mystery, but since it's without dialogue, it's naturally open to interpretation. We purposely want to allow some room for that as that's my most loved thing about art; the conversations that happen after people play something,” he notes, “But we include defined narrative arcs and closure.”

One glance at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and odd rock formations will reveal that natural scenery served as one of the primary inspirations for this human-less adventure. As Petty tells, the scenery isn’t just inspired by ordinary locations: “I reside in California and there's a plenty of amazing mountains in this region,” he explains. “Near where I live, there's an old Mercury mine that was left like a century ago, and they've turned it into hiking trails; that's one of my big inspirations. It's nothing super remarkable, but what adds intrigue is the many hills, and as you're climbing up, you occasionally come across old pieces of machinery that you can’t identify what they were for.”

“They kind of resemble strange monuments, just resting 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.”

Metaphorical Meaning and Final Thoughts

While Petty jokingly refers to the lighthouse main character