Get a closer look at Keeper, that odd lighthouse game from Double Fine

Double Fine is a little odd, but frankly we wouldn't have it any other way. Sure, we could have been a wizened old man who tends a lighthouse and adventures out to other lighthouses, and I'm sure that'd have been alright, but no – this is Tim Schafer and his team. No, in Keeper, you're the anthropomorphized lighthouse, you have legs, and you use them to wander around the countryside solving problems. Yep...let's get into the weird in their latest update.

The team at Xbox Wire got the first hands-on with this game and had this to say:

In a lovely introduction to how the game teaches the player without simply telling them what to do, you realise that your left thumbstick causes the lighthouse to lean. Naturally, you’ll test this out a little – until it abruptly snaps off at the base and, through a process we’re left to guess at, grows four spindly legs. From here, you get up, and – like a nature documentary about a baby giraffe – send your lighthouse tottering downhill, working out how exactly to operate its new limbs.

It’s a tutorial pitched like a comedy – as you struggle to gain control, the lighthouse skitters into abandoned cars and rundown houses, smashing them to pieces in its efforts. Eventually, it learns to walk, then run, and we begin a journey with no objective other than the subtle implication to find out: “what’s up that mountain?”

Ok...you have my attention in a "Getting Over It" or "Octodad" sort of way. Go on...

Fairly soon, you’ll be layering these abilities together – reaching a mountain pass blocked by an enormous skull, you’ll see it ensnared by purple vines, connected to a flower. You use the beacon to cause the flower to bloom, then send Twig to perch on its stamen, and use the thumbstick to tug it out. That causes the vines to retreat, the skull’s jaw falls open and, hey presto, you have a bridge.

But those same interactions are used in an entirely different way a little later. At one point, you reach a village filled with scuttling clockwork robots and, at its centre, a broken machine that seems to be causing the entire area to fluctuate through time – waves of energy radiating out, causing buildings to collapse and reassemble.

As you poke around, you realise that certain statues can send you to the past, present, and future with a shine of your light – and, crucially, while the lighthouse is unaffected, Twig will transform into an egg while in the past, and… something else (no spoilers) in the future.

Yep, as I said – odd, but clearly in the best kind of way. That should come as no surprise as this is the same team that brought you the brilliant Psychonauts 2 (our review clocked in at 100%!)

You can check out the rest over at the Xbox Wire site, and look for our continued coverage of Keeper right here at GamingTrend.com. You can play Keeper for yourself when it releases on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and will be available on day one with Xbox Game Pass.