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Usually, if a bird stumbles upon an deserted lighthouse, it may land, relax momentarily, make a deposit, and take off. That's not the case in Keeper, an forthcoming over-the-shoulder adventure puzzle game developed by the development studio; here, the lighthouse grows tiny limbs, forms a friendship with the bird, and embarks on an ambitious hike.

While a latest sneak peek at Gamescom clarified some questions, it also ignited a desire to learn more about this absurdist lighthouse-meets-bird story. Therefore, we connected with Lee Petty, the creative director behind Keeper, to illuminate on his team's colorful creation.

An Unconventional Journey Experience

Although at its core designed as an adventure game, Petty explains that Keeper aims to provide a distinctive gameplay through a blend of dreamlike graphics, enigmatic setting, accessible puzzles, and, most notably, the lack of words. He calls the game a “palate cleanser,” a short adventure different from any title gamers have experienced before.

“Keeper communicates 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.”

As a result, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Set in a post-civilization realm without humans, players traverse the world as a living lighthouse accompanied by a bird companion named Twig, but there is no death, there are no skill trees, and you’ll never have to grind for items.

Gameplay Mechanics and World Integration

“When we set out to design the puzzles, we aimed to craft puzzles that felt deeply integrated into the world and the characters there. In a typical adventure game, you may encounter a obstacle first,” Petty explains. “For instance, oh, I cannot enter through this door, and you typically grasp that, because there are characters there explaining so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we aimed to truly establish this feeling of an unusual, atmospheric world and not reveal exactly what it's about. Our puzzles function a little differently, so you often sort of wander into them without understanding what you're supposed to be doing.”

Handmade Feel and Limited Interactions

To impart the game a “crafted” atmosphere, Keeper steers clear of using numerous variations of the identical concept. “We implement that to some extent, as it's not like everything is created exactly once and thrown away,” Petty elaborates, “but there is a great deal of unique setup. Every short distance away, you see something distinctly new from the rest of the game.”

When asked about sustaining gamer’s attention in the absence of failure and defined objectives, Petty stands firm: “I think we engage the player's attention through the unexpected. Players aren’t entirely sure what's going to happen around each corner.”

This curated approach is additionally evident in Keeper’s restricted set of interactions. To find your way through its surrealist world, players require more than a few buttons, as the lighthouse’s main way of engaging with the world is through its headlight, which has a standard mode and a focused mode. For instance, you can aim it at plants to make them flourish, beam toward a creature to make it react, and use it to reveal secrets and solve puzzles.

Partner Dynamics and Diverse Interactions

Twig, the lighthouse’s trusty bird friend, is typically perched on the lighthouse, from where it will sometimes fly off to show the path forward or trigger secrets. Apart from these scripted movements, the lighthouse can also direct the bird to perform things like raising objects, pulling levers, or — perhaps the most interesting one — attaching itself to creatures.

The last example is a prime example of how Keeper’s streamlined design to the input scheme nevertheless provides a wide variety of gameplay mechanics. The diverse environments, items, and creatures open the way to distinctive interactions, and especially metamorphosis.

“For instance, there's a moment where a type 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 leap, float, and navigate,” Petty explains. “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.”

Narrative Devoid of Words

But hopping around and fiddling with their surroundings is not the sole task assigned upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must additionally express a story of companionship, bonding, and overcoming obstacles as a team as they travel toward a magnificent mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must do so without using words — and without the kind of expressions and emotional cues a person could have used.

Although Petty confirms that players will get to sense more expression than might expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, in particular, who is instrumental in conveying emotions. “When they're riding along on the lighthouse, players have a dedicated button assigned for just emoting with the bird, and often it will reflect the mood of that area,” he states.

“For instance, when you get in a somewhat tense 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 playful chirp or directing you, it will kind of glance about and duck down.”

Threats and Friendly Inhabitants

By “gloomy zone,” 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 brambles, creepers, and insects. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty explains.

Unlike the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are in fact amicable. When Twig expresses at one of the peculiar critters, for instance, it may emote back and possibly create an background sound — without of words, audio cues and music are another tool used to narrate Keeper’s story.

Story Closure and Influences

This manner of wordless storytelling raises the question if Keeper’s narrative concludes in a ambiguous conclusion, but Petty assures that there will be a balance. “It's not a complete mystery, but because it's without dialogue, it's naturally open to interpretation. We did intentionally want to leave space for that because that's my most loved thing about art; the discussions that happen once people experience something,” he notes, “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 served as one of the primary inspirations for this people-free tale. As Petty tells, the scenery is not only based on ordinary locations: “I live in California and there's a plenty of amazing mountains around here,” he says. “Close to where I live, there's an old Mercury mine that was abandoned like a hundred years ago, and they've turned it into walking paths; that's one of my major inspirations. It's not anything super remarkable, but what makes it interesting is the numerous 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 resemble weird monuments, just sitting among nature, with nature taking back 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

While Petty humorously refers to the lighthouse protagonist