Doublefine’s Keeper might have essentially the most endearing videogame double-act since Banjo and Kazooie

It’s been some time since Tim Schafer’s carried out press briefings, he admits. The top of Double High quality, a studio finest identified for the Psychonauts sequence, is making an attempt to elucidate Keeper, a puzzle journey sport the place you might be, actually, a sentient, strolling lighthouse. Double High quality is now one in every of a number of studios purchased up by Microsoft and the crew apparently took the chance to lean into all of the sources out there and, he stated, “make one thing bizarre.”

It’s positively that. The colours and environment of Keeper have not less than the contact of Psychonauts DNA. Keeper places gamers in charge of the aforementioned lighthouse, woke up (and joined) by a curious, sometimes aggressive, chicken named Twig. Apparently, the lighthouse at present has no title.

Double High quality’s artwork director, Lee Petty got here up with the idea for the sport, apparently impressed by his time spent mountain climbing in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is mirrored in a number of methods, whether or not its the rolling hills and landscapes that the anthropomorphised lighthouse roams, or the truth that there’s not a single phrase of dialogue. The interactions between the chicken and constructing, which appear to pepper each cutscenes and gameplay, are like Pixar shorts.

The environments have a drippy surrealist fashion to them to, and the shortage of a map, well being bar or any HUD in any respect means you’re not distracted as you discover and remedy puzzles.

In some early gameplay footage, I noticed how the lighthouse’s most important type of interplay comes from its mild beam. Not solely does this make it easier to search out pathways and objects, but it surely can be centered on the numerous skittering creatures. Typically this causes creatures to flee, whereas different instances they’ll supply up magical orbs willingly and unwillingly, which open up later areas or carry towering creatures (buildings?) to life. In Double High quality trend, issues look bizarre, too, with melted mountain peaks with greater than a dost of Dali.

You do not have to assault all the things, both. Throughout three totally different gameplay demos, I watched all types of creatures cover, run, and simply exist on this world the place humanity has lengthy since disappeared. Oh there’s briefly an enormous flying whale too.

Utilizing the lighthouse’s beam on sure issues will go away an twinkling spark behind, which means that Twig the chicken can work together with it. Throughout a later phase, the lighthouse can manipulate time, turning its chicken companion again into an egg whereas a constructing repairs itself — and frees up a pathway. Twig stays an egg for some time till later, when the lighthouse can fast-forward time. Talents like this appear location-dependent, quite than a Metroidvania assortment of abilities constructed up over the sport. At one other juncture, the lighthouse walks right into a cloud of pink fluffy mist, unlocking the power to leap and float round ranges.

Schafer says the themes of life-changing and metamorphosis will proceed to bubble up throughout Keeper and the lighthouse and chicken duo is clearly central to all of it. It jogs my memory a little bit of Banjo Kazooie (the latter was a chicken) but in addition Ico; at one level, the seemingly impervious lighthouse loses its footing, however Twig willfully tries to pull their associate to security. Did Twig even assist? Perhaps not, however the sentiment was there.

Keeper will launch on Xbox Collection S|X and PC on October seventeenth, together with Xbox Recreation Cross.