This latest review comes to you via the “game developers I hadn’t heard from in a while but should’ve been tracking” series. As long time readers will know there’s a good number of devs that made games I’ve absolutely adored but, for whatever reason, they fell off my radar until I stumbled across them via other means. Keeper was very much in-line with this, likely coming my way via the Xbox Gamepass algorithm and not because I’ve enjoyed Double Fine’s work in the past. On the surface Keeper seems right up my alley, a beautifully realised walking simulator, however there were a few design choices made that made the game far more frustrating than it had to be.
The Wither spreads its tendrils across the sea, its writhing form stretching out to consume all life that it touches. Its presences awakens the Keeper, a long dormant lighthouse that sat atop the peaks of the nearby coast, whos light is the only thing that is able to push it back. The seabirds that the Wither once preyed upon now seek shelter with the Keeper and, now driven by an unknown purpose, the Keeper seeks to make safe all life that dwells within the island that it protects. The Keeper’s journey will see it transform from the humble lighthouse that it is to something greater although not without much sacrifice along the way.
Double Fine’s trademark psychedelic art style is on full display in Keeper with the world realised in a highly stylized, oversaturated and whimsical aesthetic. I was immediately reminded of the visual style of the Trine series when playing it as they both share that vibrant colour palette combined with surreal environments. Keeper is definitely at its strongest in the larger, more open environments as the amount of care put into crafting the bigger environments is a sight to behold. Performance is also rock solid as well as I didn’t encounter any of the usual “Unreal stuttering” that seems to plague others with games like these.
I’ve given Keeper the walking simulator tag as, for the majority of the game’s play time, that’s what it is. Most of your time will be spent traversing environments, using the various different forms of travel that will be granted to you in order to get from point A to B. There are some puzzles of course, usually requiring you to go to a specific place and take a certain sequence of actions before you can continue on. They are pretty simple for the most part though so will likely not present much of a challenge to anyone. The secondary mechanic is one of exploration, in which you’ll be able to unlock achievements which give you a bit more flavour as to what’s happening on screen.
Compared to the usual fare that we find in the walking simulator/light puzzler genre Keeper definitely stands a foot above in terms of craftsmanship, mechanics and overall production values. It’s a game that, when I first saw it, I instantly saw myself enjoying as it felt like it had the right balance of whimsy, interactivity and general overall vibe that I usually gel with. I’m prefacing with this because it seems that the devs made one critical choice which dragged the whole experience down for me.
That was the use of fixed camera angles.
Now depending on how the game is constructed this doesn’t have to be an issue and indeed can be necessary in order to realise a particular kind of experience for the player. I can see the reasoning behind why they did it in Keeper however the problem lies within the implementation. There are so many sections within the game where a free camera would not only be beneficial but feels critical to elements of the game play. It’s in these moments where the fixed camera is an immediate let down, making just interacting with the game a frustrating affair. Indeed some of the later sections feel like trying to wrestle a greased pig as you wrangle the camera’s logic so you can point yourself in the right direction.
Worse still is that these fixed camera angles seem to prevent the secondary mechanic, I.E. exploration, from actually working as intended. Those camera angles are always trying to point you in the direction the game wants you to go in. Fine, I get that, but when that effectively steers you away from the other parts of the game then it makes you think exploration isn’t something they want you to engage in.
Which unfortunately has a direct impact on the narrative itself. To be sure, Keeper is done in a way that’s left up to the player to make their own interpretation of what’s happening, but the achievements tell a very direct story complete with names, motivations and key plot points. Whilst I’ll always applaud devs for experimenting with things outside the norm Keeper does unfortunately feel a little confused in its implementation and I can’t help but feel that the experience could be much richer than it currently is.
Keeper feels like a strange misstep for Double Fine games; an unforced error on a few critical elements that make all of its disparate parts not join together well. It’s a shame because so much of it is done right and there’s a world in which a few decisions going the other way would take this from a middle of the road experience to something really great. Given how the game was constructed though I doubt we’ll ever see changes like that come through in a patch so, unfortunately, Keeper is relegated to the pits of mediocrity.
Rating: 6.75/10
Keeper is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S right now for $44.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 4.1 hours playtime and 46% of the achievements unlocked.
