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Typically, when a bird discovers an abandoned lighthouse, it may perch, rest momentarily, leave a mess, and fly away. Not so in Keeper, an forthcoming third-person adventure puzzle game created by the development studio; in this world, the lighthouse sprouts tiny limbs, becomes BFFs with the bird, and sets off on an ambitious hike.

While a latest preview at the gaming convention clarified some questions, it also ignited a curiosity to learn more about this surreal lighthouse-meets-bird tale. Thus, we sat down with Lee Petty, the creative director behind Keeper, to illuminate on his team's colorful creation.

An Unconventional Journey Experience

Although fundamentally designed as an exploration title, Petty explains that Keeper aims to provide a distinctive experience through a blend of surreal graphics, world mystery, approachable puzzles, and, importantly, the lack of words. He calls the game a “palate cleanser,” a short adventure unlike anything gamers have experienced before.

“Keeper conveys fewer details than a typical game,” he notes. “It was important for us to let the player unwind and not worry about messing up; just take a moment to attempt and embrace the unusual aspects.”

Consequently, Keeper isn’t just a series of challenges, nor is its exploration very objective-driven. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic realm devoid of humans, players traverse the world as a living lighthouse accompanied by a bird companion named Twig, but you can’t die, the game lacks skill trees, and there is no need to grind for items.

Puzzle Design and World Integration

“When we set out to design the puzzles, we aimed to develop puzzles that felt deeply woven into the world and the inhabitants there. In a standard adventure game, you might find a obstacle first,” Petty clarifies. “For instance, oh, I can't get through this door, and you usually understand that, since there are people there explaining so with dialogue.”

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

Artisanal Aesthetics and Limited Controls

To give the game a “crafted” atmosphere, Keeper avoids using numerous iterations of the same concept. “We implement that to some extent, as it's not like everything is done exactly once and discarded,” Petty elaborates, “but there is a great deal of unique setup. Every few steps away, you see something distinctly new from the rest of the game.”

In response about maintaining gamer’s interest in the absence of failure and defined objectives, Petty stands firm: “I believe we captivate the player's attention through the surprising. You're not really sure what's going to happen around each corner.”

This curated method is additionally evident in Keeper’s limited set of interactions. To navigate through its surrealist world, you don’t need only a few buttons, as the lighthouse’s primary way of interacting with the world is through its beacon, which has a standard mode and a concentrated mode. For example, 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 tackle puzzles.

Partner Dynamics and Gameplay Variety

Twig, the lighthouse’s reliable bird companion, is typically sitting on the lighthouse, from where it will sometimes take flight to show the path forward or trigger secrets. Apart from these automatic movements, the lighthouse can also direct the bird to perform actions like raising objects, pulling levers, or — maybe the intriguing one — attaching itself to creatures.

The last example is a great illustration of how Keeper’s minimalistic design to the input scheme still offers a broad range of gameplay mechanics. The diverse environments, items, and creatures open the way to distinctive interactions, and particularly metamorphosis.

“For instance, there's a segment where a sort of pink pollen, which looks like cotton candy, gets stuck to the lighthouse, making it lighter. For that portion of the game, the lighthouse can leap, hover, and move around,” Petty explains. “A breath of fresh air from being anchored to the ground. So we try to vary the rhythm up in a many different ways.”

Storytelling Devoid of Words

But exploring and fiddling with their environment is not the sole task bestowed upon the lighthouse and its bird; they must additionally convey a story of friendship, bonding, and overcoming obstacles together as they travel toward a magnificent mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must accomplish this without using words — and without the kind of gestures and emotional cues a person might’ve relied upon.

While Petty confirms that gamers will experience more expression than might expect from a lighthouse, it’s the bird, in particular, who plays a major role in expressing emotions. “When the bird is perched on the lighthouse, players have a dedicated button assigned for just expressing with the bird, and often it will mirror the mood of that location,” he states.

“For example, when you get in a kind of unsettling or darker area, the bird will crouch and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you press the expression button, rather than a cheerful tweet or guiding you, it will sort of glance about and hide.”

Dangers and Benevolent Inhabitants

By “gloomy zone,” Petty is referring to the menace that stems from something called the “Wither,” a hostile ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig continue their journey, they encounter more and more of this violet, corrosive substance, which sometimes appear as of thorns, vines, and bugs. “It's what Twig is escaping,” Petty explains.

In contrast to the Wither, most creatures in Keeper are in fact friendly. When Twig expresses at one of the odd critters, for example, it may emote back and perhaps create an background sound — without of words, audio cues and music are an additional tool used to narrate Keeper’s story.

Narrative Closure and Inspiration

This method of wordless storytelling makes me wonder if Keeper’s narrative ends in a cryptic conclusion, but Petty reassures that there will be a middle ground. “It's not a total mystery, but because it's without dialogue, it's naturally open to interpretation. We purposely want to allow space for that as that's my favorite thing about art; the conversations that happen after people play something,” he notes, “But we include specific narrative arcs and closure.”

A quick look at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, intricate cave systems, and odd rock formations will tell you that natural scenery served as one of the primary influences for this human-less adventure. As Petty tells, the scenery isn’t just inspired by ordinary locations: “I live in California and there's a lot of really cool mountains in this region,” he says. “Near where I live, there's an abandoned Mercury mine that was left like a century ago, and they've turned it into hiking trails; that's one of my big inspirations. It's nothing extraordinary, but what adds intrigue is the many hills, and as you're climbing up, you sometimes come across remnants of machinery that you're not even sure what they were for.”

“They kind of resemble strange monuments, just sitting within nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I reflect at the game and the remains of humanity in there, I can see the direct connection to me hiking around all that stuff.”

Metaphorical Meaning and Final Reflections

While Petty humorously refers to the lighthouse protagonist