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Usually, if a bird stumbles upon an deserted lighthouse, it might perch, rest briefly, leave a mess, and fly away. Not so in Keeper, an upcoming over-the-shoulder puzzle adventure game created by Double Fine Productions; here, the lighthouse grows tiny limbs, becomes BFFs with the bird, and embarks on an daring hike.

While a latest preview at the gaming convention answered some questions, it also sparked a desire to learn more about this absurdist lighthouse-meets-bird story. Thus, we sat down with Lee Petty, the visionary lead behind Keeper, to illuminate on his team's vibrant creation.

A Unique Adventure Experience

While fundamentally built as an exploration title, Petty states that Keeper aims to provide a unique experience through a blend of dreamlike visual style, world mystery, accessible puzzles, and, most notably, the lack of words. He refers to the game a “palate cleanser,” a short adventure different from anything you’ve played before.

“Keeper conveys less than a typical game,” he notes. “It was important for us to let the player relax and not stress about messing up; just take a moment to try and accept the weirdness.”

Consequently, Keeper isn’t just a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic world devoid of humans, players traverse the world as a sentient lighthouse joined by a bird sidekick named Twig, but you can’t die, there are no skill trees, and you’ll never have to grind for items.

Puzzle Design and World Integration

“When we began to design the puzzles, we wanted to craft puzzles that felt very woven into the world and the characters there. In a standard adventure game, you may encounter a obstacle first,” Petty explains. “For instance, oh, I cannot enter through this door, and you usually grasp that, since there are characters there explaining so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we aimed to really establish this feeling of an peculiar, atmospheric world and not tell you exactly what it's about. Our puzzles work a bit uniquely, so you frequently kind of wander into them without understanding what you need to be doing.”

Artisanal Aesthetics and Limited Controls

To give the game a “handmade” atmosphere, Keeper avoids using numerous variations of the same concept. “We implement that to some extent, as it's not like each element is done only one time and discarded,” Petty explains, “but there is a great deal of distinct setup. Every short distance away, you see something very different from the rest of the game.”

When asked about maintaining player’s attention in the absence of failure and clear objectives, Petty stands firm: “I believe we captivate the player's attention through the surprising. Players aren’t entirely sure what's will occur around each corner.”

This curated approach is additionally evident in Keeper’s restricted set of interactions. To navigate through its surrealist world, you don’t need more than a handful of buttons, as the lighthouse’s primary way of interacting with the world is through its beacon, which has a standard mode and a focused mode. For example, you can aim 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 trusty bird friend, is typically perched on the lighthouse, from where it will sometimes fly off to show the path forward or trigger secrets. In addition to these scripted movements, the lighthouse can also direct the bird to perform actions like raising objects, operating levers, or — perhaps the most interesting one — connecting itself to creatures.

The latter is a great illustration of how Keeper’s minimalistic design to the input scheme nevertheless provides a wide variety 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 type of rosy dust, which resembles fairy floss, gets attached to the lighthouse, rendering it lighter. For that portion of the game, the lighthouse can leap, float, and move around,” Petty says. “A breath of fresh air from being anchored to the ground. So we aim to vary the pace up in a many different ways.”

Storytelling Without Words

But hopping around and fiddling with their surroundings isn’t the only task bestowed upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must also convey a story of friendship, companionship, and surmounting obstacles together as they journey toward a breathtaking mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must do so without using words — and without the kind of gestures and emotional cues a person might’ve relied upon.

Although Petty assures that gamers will get to sense more expression than one would expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, specifically, who plays a major role in expressing emotions. “When the bird is perched on the lighthouse, players have a whole button assigned for just emoting with the bird, and a lot of times it will reflect the mood of that area,” he says.

“For instance, when you get in a somewhat unsettling or gloomier area, the bird will crouch and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you press the expression button, instead of a playful chirp or directing you, it will sort of look around and duck down.”

Threats and Benevolent Creatures

By “darker area,” Petty is talking about the menace 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 purple, corrosive substance, which sometimes appear as of thorns, vines, and bugs. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty clarifies.

In contrast to the Wither, the majority of creatures in Keeper are in fact friendly. When Twig emotes at one of the odd critters, for example, it might respond and perhaps create an ambient noise — without of words, audio cues and music are an additional tool used to tell Keeper’s story.

Narrative Conclusion and Influences

This manner of wordless storytelling raises the question if Keeper’s narrative concludes in a cryptic ending, but Petty reassures that there will be a middle ground. “It's not a complete mystery, but since it's wordless, it's inherently open to interpretation. We purposely want to leave some room for that as that's my favorite thing about art; the discussions that happen after people play something,” he says, “But we include specific narrative arcs and closure.”

A quick look at Keeper’s icy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and unusual rock formations will reveal that natural scenery served as one of the primary influences for this people-free adventure. As Petty shares, the scenery is not only based on ordinary locations: “I live in California and there's a lot of really cool mountains around here,” he explains. “Near where I live, there's an abandoned Mercury mine that was abandoned like a century ago, and it has been converted into hiking trails; that's one of my big inspirations. It's not anything extraordinary, but what makes it interesting is the numerous hills, and as you're climbing up, you occasionally discover remnants of machinery that you can’t identify what they were for.”

“They kind of resemble strange monuments, just sitting within nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I look back at the game and the remains 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 protagonist