I’ve all the time had a gentle spot for Double Advantageous. It’s true that its output is kind of hit-and-miss, however that’s solely as a result of it’s one of many few builders on the market who’re prepared to simply strive something. When it was introduced below the Xbox Recreation Studios banner, there was a concern that it’d be pressured into taking part in it protected, and certain sufficient, its first launch below Xbox was Psychonauts 2 — far and away the most secure guess the studio had available.
Fortunately, a lot of these fears can now be allayed, as Keeper is right here to point out that Double Advantageous can nonetheless provide you with recreation concepts as bizarre because it ever has. You play because the Keeper, a sentient lighthouse creature whose mild can repel the corruption encroaching upon the world. A cute chook/fish creature lands in your head, and so your quest begins to succeed in the distant mountain high to cleanse the world of this corruption as soon as and for all.
You instantly get a terrific sense of character injected into what is basically an inanimate object. The sport’s aesthetic strikes a terrific steadiness between considerably sensible magnificence and cartoony components that can help you respect all of the little cracks and crevices chipped into the lighthouse’s physique, whereas nonetheless including components like little metallic eyebrows over its central mild so it could actually emote.
The storytelling is all “present don’t inform”, and it’s excellently finished. There isn’t a single phrase of dialogue, however you get a correct sense of every little thing. The Keeper will spend the primary jiffy continually dropping its steadiness and falling over as a result of it’s solely simply began strolling for the primary time, which is good and endearing, although additionally somewhat unsettling, as you accomplish that whereas strolling by means of a graveyard of the Keepers who got here earlier than you and perished.
That steadiness of lighthearted and dreary tone is Keeper’s best trick. The world is brilliant, colourful, and full of caprice, however it could actually additionally develop into oppressive and gloomy at a second’s discover. It’s not simply the corruption that brings this modification both; generally the setting is peril sufficient to convey that sense of hazard as you puzzle-platform your method up the mountain.
It does a terrific job of taking you thru completely different segments of this world, introducing a puzzle mechanic, riffing on it for some time, after which transferring swiftly on as soon as it’s obtained all it could actually out of it. It makes this three-hour recreation transfer alongside at an ideal tempo, as you’re by no means caught on one thought for too lengthy, each aesthetically and mechanically.
The puzzles aren’t notably tough, however every one has enjoyable concepts injected into it that enable you respect it on a degree exterior of the pure mechanics. Among the finest segments sees you activate nodes that transfer you backwards and forwards by means of time. Mechanically, this makes for enjoyable puzzles about altering the setting round you, however what makes it rather more gratifying is the way it represents this. The primary time you progress backwards by means of time, you’ll see your pretty chook companion abruptly pop again into being an egg, or going forwards could have them disintegrate into bones and develop into a ghost till you come to the current.
It doesn’t simply follow one format, both. I used to be fairly stunned to search out that midway by means of, you rework from a lighthouse into a ship after which spend a bunch of time fixing puzzles on the excessive seas as a substitute. Then the sport climaxes in some fast-paced Sonic the Hedgehog-style gameplay — I’m not going to elucidate that final one, play it and see for your self.
It’s continually supplying you with contemporary concepts to wrap your head round that dramatically change the fashion and tempo of the gameplay. From slowly waddling round as a lighthouse, to briskly drifting alongside as a ship, to rolling round on the pace of sound, it leverages its brief runtime to allow you to mess around with a terrific number of ideas, then will get out of there earlier than it drags on too lengthy.
There are areas that would do with refinement although, and the digicam is the most important one. It principally does job of framing the place you’re presupposed to be going, however it could actually annoyingly lurch to have a look at one thing in the other way from the place you’re attempting to go. Whereas Keeper is a totally linear recreation, there are just a few secrets and techniques right here and there that gives you lore, and discovering these is somewhat irritating when the digicam doesn’t appear to need you to succeed in them. The identical goes for the few events the place it’s important to back-track, because the digicam strikes far too slowly in case you attempt to flip round — particularly within the later sections the place you may have a lot quicker motion.
It’s additionally not all the time clear what components of the setting are interactable. It didn’t occur typically, however there have been a small handful of occasions the place the immediate to focus my mild on an object appeared, and I had no thought what a part of the surroundings it was referring to. Whereas the attractive and colourful world design seems to be nice, it does imply that some components fail to face out once they actually need to.
Nonetheless, strange concepts with a handful of mechanical imperfections is type of Double Advantageous’s complete model when you concentrate on it. In Keeper’s case, it does such job of making a compelling and delightful world with a candy, if easy, story of two unlikely creatures bonding and saving the world, so the minor frustrations simply wash away once I think about the expertise as an entire. You retain being you, Double Advantageous.
Keeper. Keeper. 8. Puzzle platformer. PC
