Inspiration for video games can sprout from anywhere. A slice of pizza turned into “Pac-Man.” Trouble driving up a hill in the snow inspired a key mechanic in director Hidetaka Miyazaki’s “Souls” series. When it comes to “Keeper,” the latest game from Double Fine Productions, creative director Lee Petty took inspiration from the Bay Area outdoors.
“I’ve been a longtime hiker and backpacker,” he said. “I live in Almaden Valley. There’s a quicksilver mine. There are a lot of hiking trails and machinery.”
He said being out in nature helps him process and think, and in that South Bay environment during the pandemic, he picked out details along the trails. The machinery from the mines and the unpleasant quiet. That hike and others trips led to a project, in which players control a walking lighthouse.
AN UNUSUAL CHARACTER: The protagonist for “Keeper” is unusual, and it takes players time to connect to such an odd world. It’s a place where humanity is gone, but the ruins remain, and in our place, other creatures flourish. Players discover this as they trundle through a six-hour campaign that lacks dialogue but boldly conveys a story through the environment and achievement blurbs.
“Keeper” puts players and the protagonist in the same boat as they figure out the gameplay of exploration. The experience is unusual because “Keeper” has a fixed camera that’s a throwback to the original PlayStation era, echoing games like “Resident Evil” and “Final Fantasy VII.” It creates a more cinematic feeling, but it’s also necessary because players move the lighthouse with the left analog stick and use the right one to shine its light on the environment.
The Fresnel lens fends off shadowy creatures and unlocks parts of the world. It helps players uncover secrets or activate objects. Beyond that, birds called Twigs hang out with the lighthouse and grow with it. Players send out the feathered helpers to wind levers or grab needed objects.
CONVEYING A SENSE OF DIRECTION: The first few hours are spent teaching the players these mechanics and establishing a hauntingly weird but compelling setting. At its core, the “Keeper” is a puzzle game, where players have to figure out how to advance using the simple abilities at hand.
The scenarios aren’t difficult, but one of the bigger obstacles is trying to figure out what Petty and his team wants players to do. The designers’ efforts register more hits than misses as they offer offer clues on what action to take. In a way, it’s much like a hike, where no one is going to hold the backpackers’ hands. They have to read signs and find their own way.
The lighthouse’s goal is to reach the top of a mountain, which beckons to it. Over the journey, it gains abilities and loses them. The hike is never straightforward. The lighthouse endures pitfalls over its long journey, and that’s where campaign grows more compelling as the lighthouse changes forms and gains new ways to travel.
They see more of the world and adapt to new puzzles in the surrounding waters and the narrow chutes built into the mountain’s caves. The “Keeper” constantly surprises players and that shared sense of adventure builds a player’s connection to the lighthouse, Twigs and other characters along the way. Even though humanity is absent, it feels as though it exists among the characters.
That’s the human touch. At a time when artificial intelligence is worming its way into the artistry of games, the creativity in “Keeper,” both in terms of concept and visuals, is something to be hailed and embraced. It feels authentic because it’s based on human experience — in this case it’s Bay Area hiking — and that should be more valued now than any hyper-realistic visuals or anything a data center dreams up.
HOLIDAY FUN AT UNION SQUARE: With its holiday season titles launched, the Nintendo Store in San Francisco won’t be home to many more game launches for the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean the festivities are ending. Fans partaking in the Union Square’s Winter Walk will find that Nintendo has a pop-up tent Dec. 13 in the area. It features photo opportunities and opportunities at goodies and the chance to earn 100 My Nintendo Platinum Points. Just have your Nintendo Today! App ready with its QR code.
On a recent trip to the store, customers can also snag free wrapping paper if they spend $50, which isn’t hard to do given the items there. An employee staffing the in-store Platinum Points kiosk was also giving away Nintendo-themed gift tags.
‘Keeper’
3½ stars out of 4
Blatform: Xbox Series X and S and PC
Rating: Everyone 10 and up
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