Keeper Review

Keeper, a new puzzle "walking sim" game by Double Fine, flew under the radar for me until its release. I remember it getting announced, but after that, it seemed to disappear. This is a problem that many of the smaller games under Microsoft Studios tend to run into as of late. This is a shame because Keeper is a neat package, even if it is not a world-shattering one.

Puzzle games are hit or miss for me: either they are too obscure or convoluted (looking at you, Blue Prince), or they take a backseat to the rest of the game, which somewhat defeats the purpose of playing a puzzle game in my eyes. Keeper is mostly in that second group, as the puzzles are barely puzzles and more of an excuse to experience the world they built for your little sentient lighthouse lamp and bird friend, Twig. That being said, the world is beautifully built and I did enjoy exploring it. I just wish they would have found a better balance or built out more engaging puzzles.

Keeper is a simple concept: you take control of a lighthouse and walk around the world shining your light on certain objects. Some are for progression; others make flowers sprout or little animal villagers run around. That is pretty much it. You get a couple of different actions throughout the game, like dashing, floating, and boosting, but the majority of your time will be spent walking around, shining your light on stuff to find the specific object they want illuminated, and then moving forward.

At different points in the game, you transition from lighthouse to boat to the tire from Rubber. These first two forms are pretty much exactly the same; the main difference is that you are on water rather than land. It is a missed opportunity to have this world that is a joy to explore and interact with, yet it only has these extremely simple puzzles to figure out. At times, I was actually thinking to myself if I would even consider what the game was asking me to do a "puzzle" because of how simple it was. I know that Double Fine can do better, which makes this particular portion a disappointment.

As mentioned previously, where this game shines is its world. Every bit of the world and characters in the game are lovingly and thoughtfully designed. There is a good variety between the different sections you go through as the lighthouse, boat, and stand-alone light, with the last portion of the game being the most striking, borderline trippy, and out of left field compared to the rest of the game (in a good way). The last section was my favorite visually, but it was also my least favorite to play through due to the limited controls.

Throughout Keeper, your controls amount to pretty much pushing in a direction and finding something to shine your light on. During the first two sections of the game, when you have control over the light, the right stick moves the light while the left stick moves your character; there is no camera control. During most of the game, this isn’t an issue due to its slow-paced nature. In the last section, though, while playing as just the light, you are moving pretty fast. In the times you get into more open areas, there are certain paths you need to follow pretty closely. With the static camera, you can run into times where you have to re-do a run-up to a section and fight the camera to have it show you where you need to be going. During this section of the game, it would have been nice to get some control of the camera, since the right stick does nothing. It is a shame, though, since, as I mentioned, this is by far the most visually interesting section in the game, and it would be something worth coming back and exploring if doing so weren't such a hassle.

Puzzle and "walking sim" games are difficult for me to judge. If I'm struggling with a puzzle, maybe it's because I am just dumb, but maybe the game should be doing a better job of helping me out. Do I knock a puzzle game for having hard puzzles? Isn't that the point of a puzzle game? Do I knock "walking sim" games for not really having a ton of gameplay? When you combine the two into what is Keeper, it is even harder for me. I enjoyed most of my time with Keeper. However, if they had leaned a tad bit more into the puzzle aspect, this could have been a game I could recommend to most people. As it stands, especially for $30 (it is also included in Game Pass), this is one of those games I think would be best enjoyed by watching someone else play it, unless you are a massive "walking sim" game fan.

2/5