On first blush, Double Fine’s Keeper is an odd bird. And no, I’m not talking about Twig, the bird companion to your player-controlled Lighthouse. It’s odd in that you take control of an anthropomorphic lighthouse with a bird companion and set off on an adventure together.
More unlikley a pair you’d not find; Banjo and Kazooie they’re not. Brought to life in the typical Double Fine style, Tim Burton meets 90s Saturday morning cartoons meets The Muppets, Keeper is just as strange visually as it is thematically and structurally.
However, the odd premise, kooky visuals and acid trip art style belie Keeper’s true nature. Essentially, Keeper is an atmospheric and emotionally resonant walking simulator, albeit one where the character doing the walking is a lighthouse. I don’t say this to disparage Keeper, quite the opposite in fact. I adored my time with Keeper and hugely enjoyed its easy pace, gorgeous (yet totally bonkers) visuals and the overall vibe. Sometimes all you need is a simple game like Keeper to wash over you and to experience a bit of respite from the day-to-day.
Keeper Review
Keeper begins when Twig, in a frenzied effort to escape from The Wither (a dark force that has taken hold in this land), crashes into a long-forgotten lighthouse and…wakes it up? With its beam of light activated, the storm is dissipated, and Twig and the Lighthouse become fast friends. From here, they set off together, journeying towards the highest mountain peak.
Honestly, Keeper’s narrative is deliberately obtuse and open for interpretation. Inspired by Creative Lead Lee Petty’s hikes during COVID, Keeper imagines a world post-humans and post-language. This world is inhabited only by plants and animals, and without human intervention, they’ve flourished and thrived. Even without people and without dialogue, Keeper excels at demonstrating friendship, companionship and genuine heartfelt connections; even between a walking lighthouse and a weird muppety seagull looking thing.
Along the way on the journey to the mountain, the lighthouse and Twig won’t just be walking and taking in the sights. Keeper also features a vast number of “puzzles.” I put ‘puzzles’ in inverted commas because the puzzles are trivial, even at their hardest. Again, this is not a criticism of Keeper, far from it. I really loved the ease with which the puzzles were integrated into exploration and never once even approached becoming a chore.
You may be required to do some light lateral thinking or perform a series of steps in the correct sequence in order to proceed, but by and large, you’ll be using the game’s basic mechanics to explore the world, and in doing so will have completed a puzzle. It’s breezy, fun and best of all, doesn’t create any barriers to entry. It’s highly unlikely that anyone is going to get stumped by any of the puzzles Keeper throws at you and yet…there’s still a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment when you’re done.
At somewhere between 6-8 hours, Keeper does a brilliant job of maintaining your engagement through the exploration of its world and constantly changing and evolving mechanics. Early on, as the lighthouse, you’re able to aim the beam of light and hold down RT for a more intense beam. You use these for clearing away certain obstacles as well as making flowers, mushrooms, and other flora and fungi spring to life. It’s like when the forest god in Princess Mononoke takes a step and flowers spring to life.
As you progress, you’ll make use of Twig to collect objects, move levers and turn cogs. Gradually, these mechanics will come together in more complex ways, but you’ll still never be faced with a real head scratcher. One section of Keeper sees the lighthouse manipulating time by illuminating icons related to sunrise, noon and sunset. Illuminating sunrise sends the world backwards in time and sunset forwards with noon falling somewhere in the middle…obviously. These shifts in time have a drastic effect on Twig, and it’s in this section that Keeper really highlights its ability to combine atmospheric world building, puzzle solving and a connection to the emotional/spiritual.
The world of Keeper and its mechanics continue to evolve right the way through its runtime, but I shan’t say more lest I spoil the surprises and joy of discovery for you. I’ll just say that when you think Keeper has shown you its last trick, there’s still plenty more hidden up its sleeve. Keeper will continue to delight and surprise you with how much game and how much story it wrings from such a simple, if bizarre, concept.
I ran into the occasional issue on Xbox Series X with Keeper. Nothing game-breaking, but it does suffer from a bit of a dodgy framerate here and there, and there were occasions of pop-in and clipping. That being said, for the majority of my playthrough, Keeper was blemish-free. One thing that does take some getting used to is the camera. While not fixed, it’s entirely controlled by the game. As the player, you have no way to move the camera, change its perspective or shift it to where you think you need it.
At first, I didn’t think I was going to be able to handle not having control, but Keeper is something of a curated experience, and the camera being used to show you what you need to see really does work well…once you’re accustomed to it. Just go with it and you’ll have a much better time, which is actually a mantra you can and should apply to Keeper overall. It’s weird and confusing, colourful and wild but if you just settle in and go with the flow, you’re bound to have a really chill time.
I went into Keeper with no expectations and walked away having had a truly wonderful and relaxing gaming experience. You can’t die in Keeper, nor can you fail. All you need to do is keep pushing forward, and you’ll make your way through.
And while there’s no dialogue and no hard and fast narrative to speak of, with much of what does occur open to interpretation and up for debate, Keeper will make you feel. At one point, the lighthouse and Twig become separated, and the sadness I felt that a walking building and its seagull pal had lost each other was palpable. Similarly, when they were reunited, the joy brought tears to my eyes. This is a game that allows you to project yourself onto it, to see what you want and need and to feel things you’d not normally feel while gaming.
For a cosy game to play, cuddled up on the couch and to unwind after a long day, look no further than Keeper. For a game inspired by the pandemic, Keeper is a beacon of light and hope in what was (and continues to be) a very dark period indeed.
Keeper was reviewed on Xbox Series X using digital code provided by Xbox Australia.
