Words like austere, isolated, or purposeful may come to mind when you consider the essence of a lighthouse, as one so frequently does. However, have you ever found them endearing, eccentric, or even charming? The developer Double Fine’s ambient puzzle platformer, Keeper, deftly reinterprets the sometimes overlooked seaboard structure as a charmingly sentient scout traveling through a living universe. Keeper delivers a mind-blowing journey that stays with me long after the credits have rolled. It does this by fusing a vintage adventure game gameplay with a kaleidoscope art style, all the while concealing an emotional narrative beneath its visual extravaganza.
A seabird named Twig is lured to a dormant lighthouse on the edge of a legendary island after becoming separated from its flock while escaping a swarm of malevolent batlike creatures. The unexpected visitor awakens the dormant lighthouse, which is alone and stagnant, and sends out a beam of warm light to ward off the evil swarm. The soul-stirring bond that develops between this unusual pair as they battle the island’s unsettling sickness, traverse its odd biomes, and try to ascend its possessed, claw-like summit is the central theme of Keeper’s narrative. I was completely engrossed in their predicament, even though Keeper had no language for the whole six-hour runtime, which is evidence of how dynamic the two seemed while moving.
The fact that Keeper is among the most graphically stunning games I’ve ever played also helps. Like an ant farm, the island’s topography is undulating and confused, with the tall summit in most frames, taunting you with its closeness. With jagged coral, abandoned cave buildings, and colorful twisting vines that overlap like features in a Where’s Wally book, every nook and cranny of its bizarre, painterly world conceals enormous wells of depth. Keeper’s use of fixed camera angles is especially creative and creates a cinematic ambiance that was previously fostered by games such as Silent Hill and Grim Fandango.
In order to convey a sense of size and peril, Keeper uses visual cues like crumbled homes and rewilded cityscapes rather than providing an explicit explanation of the mythology underlying its post-apocalyptic, legendary setting. The locations you wander through also work well together, with a shift in the color scheme and orchestration signaling a new section or checkpoint more frequently than a loading screen. You may immerse yourself more fully in Keeper’s breathtaking landscapes thanks to this HUD-less method, which also encourages you to experiment with your abilities and find hints of mythology scattered around.
With the HUD-less method, you may immerse yourself in breathtaking scenery.
Speaking of engaging with the outside world, you make good use of your lighthouse abilities, which are comparatively restricted. To knock down obstacles, you can blast beams of light and sprint through them. You can also use levers to open doors or send your bird friend to pluck vines. The initial route is rather straightforward and entails utilizing your light to grow vines into bridges or scare monsters into dropping important goods that you need to advance. However, Keeper gradually gets harder, adding a good mix of platforming and logic puzzles that need you to piece together a few interactions to advance.
In one such problem, I had to locate and pull several concealed levers to make a way through a tumbling waterfall. I had to run about the area and use my beam to lower platforms, grow patches of alien flora, and destroy fuzzy brain-like nodes to detect the levers.
You can use these abilities to affect the Seussian plants and animals around you, such as making trees change color or tremble with life, although not all of the reactions you can elicit have a specific use in the game. In other places, as you pass by the margins of paths, curious creatures respond with cute animations. It is impossible to exaggerate how nearly all of Keeper’s screenshots appear to be works of art.
The world alters in a way that keeps things interesting, even if your base skills mostly stay the same throughout the narrative. Who says you couldn’t teach an old building new tricks? For instance, your simple torch can eventually activate bizarre monuments that twist time forwards and backwards, temporarily transforming Twig into an egg that can weigh down pressure plates or a ghost that can fly through walls and move cogs.
If this sounds a little strange, that’s because it is, but in the context of Keeper’s fascinating world, everything makes sense. It certainly helps that Keeper carefully incorporated each new element into the plot and the overall worldbuilding, with a few essential interactions at the beginning of each new location serving as unobtrusive tutorials. Like the revolutionary puzzle game Myst from Cyan World, Double Fine skillfully guides you through the upcoming riddles without giving away too much, which keeps the action moving forward without completely removing you from the main plot.
Magnificent music enhances the jaw-dropping vistas.
However, there is no urgency to reach the mountain’s summit. There are many breathtaking things to behold along the road, and the journey is half the fun of Keeper. Every level is a unique microcosm bursting with individuality. In addition to the aptly named Horologe, a steampunk-esque city with a Grecian-like vibe to its architecture, you will see the ethereal Pollen Fields, which are dotted with cotton candy shrubs and cliff faces that resemble splodges of paint someone has carelessly brushed their hands through. With their scratchy textures and brush stroke details that accentuate the natural, handmade look, these places are frequently confusing.
They are further supported by a stunning soundtrack by composer David Earl, whose dreamy, sparkling melodies create a tense atmosphere by balancing spooky and peaceful elements.
But that’s not all—each region is home to its own fauna, which includes narrow cylindrical dragons with coats resembling braided quilts, tall multi-eyed whales, and rocks with legs. Using my lighthouse torch to “tap at the glass” in an attempt to find reactions, this plethora of strangeness made me feel like a child at an aquarium. The concept that permeates every aspect of this philosophical tale is that, despite their strange designs, the creatures all blend in with the Keeper’s environment as though they have evolved there over ages to live.
Although you have to read between the lines to comprehend the ideas at play, they aren’t really complicated. The concepts of evolution and isolation are discussed in As a Lonely Lighthouse, but more significantly, your personal experiences will undoubtedly have a deliberate impact on how you interpret each conversation-free sequence or challenge. In my opinion, Keeper explored friendship, adaptability, and the unique strength of self-belief in a planet striving to survive under an oppressive regime. It might have a different meaning for you. However, at times, I found myself wishing for more tangible responses to its queries, much like when I gaze at a picture.
Verdict
Keeper is a gorgeous puzzle game that skillfully strikes a balance between its delicious gameplay and a touching narrative, making it a surreal picture come to life. Each scene is framed by a pulsating, driving score, and the levels are brimming with interesting objects to gaze at and life to interact with. The front-runners may not say a word. However, they have a spirit that quickly wins you over thanks to skillfully done animations and a soundboard full of endearing chirps and creaks. Adorable in concept, Keeper is a short film that offers a trippy look at life and is definitely worth seeing at least once in your lifetime.
