The Game's Lead Designer Urges Gamers to Welcome the Weirdness of a Hiking Lighthouse

Usually, if a bird stumbles upon an deserted lighthouse, it may land, rest momentarily, leave a mess, and fly away. That's not the case in Keeper, an forthcoming over-the-shoulder adventure puzzle game created by Double Fine Productions; in this world, the lighthouse sprouts tiny limbs, forms a friendship with the bird, and sets off on an ambitious hike.

Although a latest preview at Gamescom answered some questions, it also ignited a desire to learn more about this surreal lighthouse-meets-bird story. Thus, we connected with Lee Petty, the creative director behind Keeper, to illuminate on his team's colorful creation.

An Unconventional Journey Experience

While at its core built as an exploration title, Petty explains that Keeper aims to deliver a unique gameplay through a blend of surreal graphics, world mystery, approachable puzzles, and, most notably, the absence of words. He refers to the game a “palate cleanser,” a short adventure unlike any title 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 take a moment to attempt and embrace the weirdness.”

As a result, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly objective-driven. Set in a post-civilization realm without humans, players traverse 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 farm for items.

Puzzle Design and Environmental Interaction

“When we set out to create the puzzles, we aimed to develop puzzles that felt deeply woven into the world and the characters there. In a standard adventure game, you might encounter a problem first,” Petty clarifies. “For instance, oh, I cannot enter through this door, and you typically understand that, because there are people there telling you so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we wanted to truly establish this feeling of an peculiar, atmospheric world and not reveal exactly what it's about. Our puzzles function a bit uniquely, so you frequently sort of stumble upon them without understanding what you're supposed to be doing.”

Handmade Aesthetics and Limited Controls

To impart the game a “handmade” atmosphere, Keeper steers clear of using numerous iterations of the same concept. “We do that to some extent, as it's not like each element is created only one time and discarded,” Petty elaborates, “but there is a lot of unique setup. Every short distance away, you encounter something very different from the rest of the game.”

In response about maintaining gamer’s attention in the absence of failure and defined objectives, Petty is adamant: “I think we engage the player's attention through the surprising. Players aren’t entirely sure what's going to happen around each corner.”

This thoughtfully designed method is additionally noticeable in Keeper’s restricted set of interactions. To navigate through its dreamlike world, you don’t need only a handful of buttons, as the lighthouse’s main way of engaging 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 flourish, beam toward a creature to make it squint, and use it to uncover secrets and solve puzzles.

Companion Dynamics and Gameplay Variety

Twig, the lighthouse’s reliable bird companion, is usually sitting on the lighthouse, from where it will sometimes take flight to indicate the path forward or activate secrets. In addition to these automatic movements, the lighthouse can also command the bird to do things like raising objects, operating levers, or — maybe the most interesting one — attaching itself to creatures.

The last example is a prime illustration of how Keeper’s minimalistic approach to the input scheme still offers a broad range of gameplay mechanics. The various environments, items, and creatures pave the path to distinctive interactions, and especially metamorphosis.

“For instance, there's a segment where a sort of pink pollen, which resembles cotton candy, gets stuck to the lighthouse, making it lighter. For that segment of the game, the lighthouse can leap, float, and navigate,” Petty explains. “A breath of fresh air from being stuck to the ground. So we aim to vary the rhythm up in a many different ways.”

Storytelling Devoid of Words

But hopping around and fiddling 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 surmounting obstacles together as they journey toward a magnificent mountain peak. To add to the challenge, they must accomplish this without using words — and without the kind of gestures and facial expressions a person could have used.

Although Petty assures that players will get to sense greater emotion than one would expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, in particular, who is instrumental in conveying emotions. “When the bird is perched on the lighthouse, you actually have a dedicated button dedicated to just emoting with the bird, and often it will mirror the mood of that area,” he states.

“For instance, when you get in a somewhat unsettling or darker area, the bird will hunker down and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you hit the expression button, rather than a cheerful chirp or guiding you, it will kind of look around and duck down.”

Threats and Friendly Creatures

By “darker area,” Petty is talking about the menace that stems from something called the “Wither,” a malevolent ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig proceed on their journey, they’ll see increasing amounts of this violet, corrosive substance, which sometimes appear as of brambles, vines, and insects. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty clarifies.

Unlike the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are in fact friendly. When Twig expresses at one of the peculiar critters, for instance, it might respond and perhaps 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 Inspiration

This method of wordless storytelling makes me wonder if Keeper’s narrative ends in a ambiguous conclusion, but Petty reassures that there will be a balance. “It's not a complete mystery, but because it's without dialogue, it's naturally subject to interpretation. We did intentionally aim to leave space for that as that's my most loved thing about art; the discussions that occur once people play something,” he notes, “But we do provide defined narrative arcs and closure.”

One glance at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and unusual rock formations will tell you that natural scenery formed one of the main influences for this human-less adventure. As Petty shares, the scenery isn’t just based on any old place: “I reside in California and there's a plenty of amazing mountains around here,” he says. “Near where I live, there's an old Mercury mine that was left like a century ago, and it has been converted into hiking trails; that's one of my major inspirations. It's not anything super remarkable, but what makes it interesting is the many hills, and as you're climbing up, you occasionally discover old pieces of machinery that you can’t identify what they were for.”

“They kind of look like strange monuments, just resting within 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 hiking around all that stuff.”

Metaphorical Meaning and Closing Thoughts

Although Petty humorously calls the lighthouse main character