BETTER THAN EVER

KEEPER is a bite-sized adventure game that draws on Double Fine's best work

- By Tyler Colp

Keeper can't be accused of chasing trends. It doesn't have hyper-realistic graphics; it doesn't have crafting; it doesn't have a battle pass; it doesn't even have humans. It's a game about a lighthouse and a bird going up a mountain that ends in around six hours.

But all six hours of it are gorgeous. Leave it to Double Fine, the developer that made a level out of psychedelic album art in Psychonauts 2, to create an entire experience that feels like exploring a surrealist painting: a trip through an alien-looking planet that glows with pinks and greens and oranges, starring a sentient lighthouse with spider legs. Keeper is an adventure nobody else could make, and one of Double Fine's best.

Keeper's post-apocalyptic world is brighter and more colorful than the festering ruins you might find in other games, but it's not devoid of melancholy. I stumbled into statues of mechanical gods that rewarded me with Steam achievements explaining how past civilizations tried to protect the world from the blight that eventually swallowed it whole. These little touches of history helped contextualize the damaged state of the world, but I appreciate that