Keeper is the latest from Double Fine, and it’s delightfully weird, possibly even weirder-than-usual for the studio. It came out of nowhere at Microsoft’s Not-E3 presser this year and it was one of the very few standouts from that event, and hey, it had a release date only a couple months out, so we wouldn’t be waiting years to get it for a change.

This is yet another no-dialogue puzzle-adventure game, akin to so many others I’ve greatly enjoyed in recent years, but what really stands out here is the art. It’s got puzzles – good puzzles! – but it’s really art-focused, it’s a wonderful example of what teams are capable of pulling off now in Unreal Engine 5. Not to say they couldn’t do stuff like this previously, but the visual fidelity and effects (especially effects that transform an entire scene) are a level that to my understanding would have previously been a huge pain to implement fully in-engine, and here it’s all in-engine and all over the place. The world they’ve built is a lush surrealist painting-come-alive, chock full of alien looking plants and wildlife, and just absolutely brimming with weird little guys. There are so many weird little guys in this game, rock guys, mushroom guys, clockwork guys, feathered dragons (Your ‘bird’ friend has four limbs and two wings. Dragon. Not Bird.), coral guys, crab guys, just weird little guys all over the place. All wonderful, no notes. More weird little guys in games please.

Story-wise, Keeper is about a sentient (?) magical (?) lighthouse (???) that, when confronted with a swarm of seemingly malevolent dark bug-things, uproots itself (??????), sprouts little crab legs (?!?!!), and hurriedly stumbles after the swarm to stop it. Your primary means of interacting with the world is by aiming and focusing your life-giving and evil-thwarting lighthouse spotlight. You use it to make plants grow, make evil tendrils shrink, uncover hidden panels, and point out places for your little dragon buddy to interact with. Everything else flows from this short list of interactions. And that’s all I’m going to say about it. It rules. Go play it for yourself. Go save some weird little guys.

Keeper isn’t an incredibly long game (~5h for me to 100%), or a particularly challenging game (there was one puzzle I found a little too obtuse), but it’s a really good game. It’s effectively like an interactive movie, but in a good way, like a playable Pixar film. Incredibly highly recommended.