With how much I adore Psychonauts 2, it’s not a stretch to say that I was very much looking forward to whatever Double Fine did next. Despite this, I hadn’t heard a peep about Keeper. In fact, I didn’t even know it existed until the other week. I don’t know if the game will be able to find that much of an audience, as it’s very much an artistic game and favors visuals and vibes over complex game systems and an extended playtime. But this is a game that truly feels special, as its incredible art direction, clever game design, and sublime pacing make for a very unique few hours.
It’s sort of difficult to tell exactly what Keeper even is at first glance. Looking at screenshots will mostly show pictures of a wrecked lighthouse on legs shining light on things and while this does give a pretty accurate inkling of what much of the game is like, context is necessary to make much sense of it. The game begins with the lighthouse crumbling to the ground. By some miracle it’s granted legs, so it starts walking. It’s also joined by a bird named Twig on its adventures. The game’s world is beset upon by Wither, which is slowly strangling the life out of the planet. It’s up to the lighthouse and Twig to stop it.
I wasn’t expecting to really care for the game’s narrative. I mean, just look at the plot. Also, there’s absolutely no dialog or voice acting of any sort. The entire story is presented wordlessly and, surprisingly, I thought this worked wonderfully. I actually ended up having some affection for both the lighthouse and Twig as the game went on. It takes some serious talent to make a story like this actually work and while the game does get off to a bit of a slow start, it really picks up in some unpredictable ways as it goes on.
Keeper is billed as a “puzzle-adventure” and that’s certainly not wrong, but just like looking at screenshots, you can’t really get a good idea of what’s offered here from that alone. The game is divided into multiple acts and while the basics are consistent, the way you travel to accomplish your goals changes radically. For the most part, you’ll move forward in a linear fashion until you’re brought to a stop by something in need of your assistance or some goal to accomplish. These goals have a few steps that you can do in whatever order you wish.
For instance, early on you come across a tree creature missing its eyes. You have to go and collect them for it so that it can help you move forward. You’ll often be grabbing little trinkets or items that facilitate this as you go. Usually this means that you’ll be shining your light on something to activate it or you’ll command Twig to interact with an object. Your light interacts with the environment in a few ways; it can remove certain barriers, get a creature’s attention, or even activate an object that affects time. But all of this is varied, so don’t expect to do the same thing ad nauseam. There are certainly puzzles in Keeper, but they’re usually simple and fairly easy to figure out. They are usually quite creative, however.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but the way you play the game changes up pretty wildly, as you’re actually not really playing as a lighthouse as much as the little spotlight responsible for shining light on things. The first part of the game has you controlling it via the lighthouse, but later the game switches this up. The game is played from various fixed camera angles, so you have no camera control. You move based on the camera position, so you can find yourself going the wrong way on occasion as you move about the world. While the lighthouse itself is slow and not particularly mobile, you’ll actually be moving around a good deal later on. Indeed, certain sections have some very quick, more demanding movement going on that can almost arguably make the game a platformer.
I did have some control issues with Keeper, as I played it via the Xbox PC app. This way, the game was incapable of being played with seemingly any controller that isn’t an official Xbox One controller. No matter what I tried, this couldn’t be fixed, so I ended up playing the game on mouse and keyboard. This was far from ideal and became particularly annoying later on, but the gameplay is also simple enough that this didn’t ruin the experience or anything. Suffice to say, though; if you’re on PC, want to play on a controller, and don’t have an Xbox controller, definitely don’t buy it on the Xbox app or play it through Game Pass.
Visually, Keeper is one of the best-looking games I’ve ever played. It’s the sort of game where I kept repeatedly taking screenshots since it simply it looks that good. The game looks like a living painting and its scenes pop with gorgeous colors and astounding design. Every aspect of it is just packed to the brim with character to the point that each and every area feels like a wonder in some way. There’s just so much artistry here and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game of this sort with a budget like this behind it considering everything is beautifully realized in 3D.
This does come at a cost, however, as the PC version has some performance issues. The game is capped at 60 frames per second but some areas stuttered quite a bit for me even though my frame rate was rock solid due to framegen being on. Oftentimes the game just didn’t feel smooth, so I’d wager some optimization work needs to be done. Cumulatively, the stuttering and less-than-optimal controls did degrade the experience somewhat, even though Keeper never stopped amazing me.
You’ll probably roll credits in fiveish hours (the Xbox App didn’t record my playtime, so I’m unsure as to how long it took me), so Keeper is far from a long game. But it did feel exactly as long as it needed to be. It lasted long enough to tell this specific story and keep things surprising, but not long enough to get boring or wear out its welcome in any way. This is simply one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played and it’s a testament to Double Fine’s talent, despite some unfortunate technical hiccups.
With how much I adore Psychonauts 2, it’s not a stretch to say that I was very much looking forward to whatever Double Fine did next. Despite this, I hadn’t heard a peep about Keeper. In fact, I didn’t even…
With how much I adore Psychonauts 2, it’s not a stretch to say that I was very much looking forward to whatever Double Fine did next. Despite this, I hadn’t heard a peep about Keeper. In fact, I didn’t even know it existed until the other week. I don’t know if the game will be able to find that much of an audience, as it’s very much an artistic game and favors visuals and vibes over complex game systems and an extended playtime. But this is a game that truly feels special, as its incredible art direction, clever game design, and sublime pacing make for a very unique few hours.
It’s sort of difficult to tell exactly what Keeper even is at first glance. Looking at screenshots will mostly show pictures of a wrecked lighthouse on legs shining light on things and while this does give a pretty accurate inkling of what much of the game is like, context is necessary to make much sense of it. The game begins with the lighthouse crumbling to the ground. By some miracle it’s granted legs, so it starts walking. It’s also joined by a bird named Twig on its adventures. The game’s world is beset upon by Wither, which is slowly strangling the life out of the planet. It’s up to the lighthouse and Twig to stop it.
I wasn’t expecting to really care for the game’s narrative. I mean, just look at the plot. Also, there’s absolutely no dialog or voice acting of any sort. The entire story is presented wordlessly and, surprisingly, I thought this worked wonderfully. I actually ended up having some affection for both the lighthouse and Twig as the game went on. It takes some serious talent to make a story like this actually work and while the game does get off to a bit of a slow start, it really picks up in some unpredictable ways as it goes on.
Keeper is billed as a “puzzle-adventure” and that’s certainly not wrong, but just like looking at screenshots, you can’t really get a good idea of what’s offered here from that alone. The game is divided into multiple acts and while the basics are consistent, the way you travel to accomplish your goals changes radically. For the most part, you’ll move forward in a linear fashion until you’re brought to a stop by something in need of your assistance or some goal to accomplish. These goals have a few steps that you can do in whatever order you wish.
For instance, early on you come across a tree creature missing its eyes. You have to go and collect them for it so that it can help you move forward. You’ll often be grabbing little trinkets or items that facilitate this as you go. Usually this means that you’ll be shining your light on something to activate it or you’ll command Twig to interact with an object. Your light interacts with the environment in a few ways; it can remove certain barriers, get a creature’s attention, or even activate an object that affects time. But all of this is varied, so don’t expect to do the same thing ad nauseam. There are certainly puzzles in Keeper, but they’re usually simple and fairly easy to figure out. They are usually quite creative, however.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but the way you play the game changes up pretty wildly, as you’re actually not really playing as a lighthouse as much as the little spotlight responsible for shining light on things. The first part of the game has you controlling it via the lighthouse, but later the game switches this up. The game is played from various fixed camera angles, so you have no camera control. You move based on the camera position, so you can find yourself going the wrong way on occasion as you move about the world. While the lighthouse itself is slow and not particularly mobile, you’ll actually be moving around a good deal later on. Indeed, certain sections have some very quick, more demanding movement going on that can almost arguably make the game a platformer.
I did have some control issues with Keeper, as I played it via the Xbox PC app. This way, the game was incapable of being played with seemingly any controller that isn’t an official Xbox One controller. No matter what I tried, this couldn’t be fixed, so I ended up playing the game on mouse and keyboard. This was far from ideal and became particularly annoying later on, but the gameplay is also simple enough that this didn’t ruin the experience or anything. Suffice to say, though; if you’re on PC, want to play on a controller, and don’t have an Xbox controller, definitely don’t buy it on the Xbox app or play it through Game Pass.
Visually, Keeper is one of the best-looking games I’ve ever played. It’s the sort of game where I kept repeatedly taking screenshots since it simply it looks that good. The game looks like a living painting and its scenes pop with gorgeous colors and astounding design. Every aspect of it is just packed to the brim with character to the point that each and every area feels like a wonder in some way. There’s just so much artistry here and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game of this sort with a budget like this behind it considering everything is beautifully realized in 3D.
This does come at a cost, however, as the PC version has some performance issues. The game is capped at 60 frames per second but some areas stuttered quite a bit for me even though my frame rate was rock solid due to framegen being on. Oftentimes the game just didn’t feel smooth, so I’d wager some optimization work needs to be done. Cumulatively, the stuttering and less-than-optimal controls did degrade the experience somewhat, even though Keeper never stopped amazing me.
You’ll probably roll credits in fiveish hours (the Xbox App didn’t record my playtime, so I’m unsure as to how long it took me), so Keeper is far from a long game. But it did feel exactly as long as it needed to be. It lasted long enough to tell this specific story and keep things surprising, but not long enough to get boring or wear out its welcome in any way. This is simply one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played and it’s a testament to Double Fine’s talent, despite some unfortunate technical hiccups.
by Andrew Farrell
