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Typically, when a bird stumbles upon an deserted lighthouse, it might land, relax momentarily, make a deposit, and take off. Not so in Keeper, an forthcoming third-person adventure puzzle game developed by the development studio; in this world, the lighthouse sprouts tiny limbs, forms a friendship with the bird, and sets off on an daring hike.

While a recent preview at the gaming convention clarified some questions, it also sparked a desire to learn more about this surreal lighthouse-meets-bird tale. Therefore, we sat down with Lee Petty, the creative director behind Keeper, to shed light on his team's colorful creation.

A Unique Journey Gameplay

Although fundamentally built as an exploration title, Petty explains that Keeper aims to deliver a unique experience through a blend of dreamlike graphics, enigmatic setting, accessible puzzles, and, importantly, the absence of words. He refers to the game a “refreshing break,” a brief adventure different from anything gamers have experienced before.

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

As a result, Keeper is not merely a sequence of challenges, nor is its exploration highly goal-oriented. Taking place in a post-civilization world devoid of humans, players traverse the world as a living lighthouse accompanied by a bird sidekick named Twig, but there is no death, there are no skill trees, and you’ll never have to farm for items.

Gameplay Mechanics and Environmental Interaction

“When we set out to design the puzzles, we wanted to craft puzzles that felt deeply integrated into the world and the inhabitants there. In a typical adventure game, you may find a problem first,” Petty clarifies. “You're like, oh, I can't get through this door, and you usually grasp that, because there are people there telling you so with dialogue.”

“But in our game, we wanted to really establish this feeling of an unusual, evocative world and not reveal precisely what it's about. Our puzzles function a bit uniquely, so you often kind of stumble upon them without knowing what you're supposed to be doing.”

Artisanal Aesthetics and Limited Interactions

To impart the game a “handmade” atmosphere, Keeper steers clear of using many variations of the identical concept. “We implement that to a degree, as it's not like everything is done exactly once and thrown away,” Petty explains, “but there is a lot of distinct setup. Every few steps away, you see something distinctly new from the remainder of the game.”

In response about sustaining gamer’s interest in the absence of failure and defined objectives, Petty is adamant: “I think we engage the player's attention through the unexpected. You're not really sure what's going to happen around each corner.”

This thoughtfully designed method is also noticeable in Keeper’s restricted set of interactions. To find your way through its dreamlike world, players require more than a few buttons, as the lighthouse’s main way of interacting with the world is through its beacon, which has a default mode and a focused mode. For example, you can aim it at plants to make them grow, beam toward a creature to make it react, and use it to uncover secrets and solve puzzles.

Partner Mechanics and Diverse Interactions

Twig, the lighthouse’s trusty bird friend, is typically sitting on the lighthouse, from where he’ll sometimes take flight to indicate the path forward or activate secrets. Apart from these scripted movements, the lighthouse can additionally command the bird to perform actions like lifting objects, pulling levers, or — maybe the most interesting one — attaching itself to creatures.

The last example is a great illustration of how Keeper’s minimalistic approach to the input scheme nevertheless provides a wide variety of interactive features. The various environments, items, and creatures pave the path to unique interactions, and particularly metamorphosis.

“For instance, there's a segment where a sort of pink pollen, which resembles fairy floss, gets stuck to the lighthouse, making it lighter. For that segment of the game, the lighthouse can jump, hover, and navigate,” Petty says. “A breath of fresh air from being stuck to the ground. So we try to vary the pace up in a many various ways.”

Narrative 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 overcoming obstacles as a team as they journey toward a magnificent mountain peak. To make matters more complicated, they must do so without using words — and without the kind of expressions and facial expressions a human character might’ve used.

Although Petty confirms 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 conveying emotions. “When the bird is perched on the lighthouse, you actually have a whole button assigned for just emoting with the bird, and often it will reflect the mood of that area,” he states.

“For instance, when you enter a kind of unsettling or gloomier area, the bird will hunker down and curl around the top of the lighthouse. And if you hit the emote button, instead of a cheerful chirp or guiding you, it will kind of glance about and duck down.”

Threats and Benevolent Inhabitants

By “gloomy zone,” Petty is talking about the threat that derives from something called the “Wither,” a malevolent ecosystem. As the lighthouse and Twig continue their journey, they encounter increasing amounts of this purple, corrosive substance, which may occasionally take the form of thorns, vines, and insects. “It's what Twig is flying away from,” Petty clarifies.

Unlike the Wither, most creatures in Keeper are actually friendly. When Twig emotes at one of the peculiar critters, for example, it might emote back and perhaps create an ambient noise — without of words, audio cues and music are an additional tool used to narrate Keeper’s story.

Narrative Closure and Influences

This method of non-verbal storytelling makes me wonder if Keeper’s narrative concludes in a cryptic conclusion, but Petty reassures that there will be a balance. “It's not a total mystery, but because it's wordless, it's inherently subject to interpretation. We purposely want to allow space for that as that's my most loved thing about art; the conversations that happen after people play something,” he says, “But we include defined narrative arcs and closure.”

One glance at Keeper’s snowy mountaintops, elaborate cave systems, and odd rock formations will reveal that the outdoors formed one of the main inspirations for this human-less adventure. As Petty shares, the scenery isn’t just based on ordinary locations: “I live in California and there's a plenty of really cool mountains around here,” he explains. “Near where I live, there's an old Mercury mine that was abandoned like a hundred years ago, and it has been converted into walking paths; that's one of my major inspirations. It's nothing extraordinary, but what makes it interesting is the numerous hills, and as you ascend, you sometimes come across old pieces of machinery that you're not even sure what they were for.”

“They kind of look like weird monuments, just sitting among nature, with nature reclaiming the space. When I reflect at the game and the artifacts of humanity in there, I can see the clear connection to me trekking around all that stuff.”

Metaphorical Meaning and Closing Reflections

While Petty jokingly calls the lighthouse protagonist