Keeper review: A strange Xbox game about a walking lighthouse

It’s a testament to the developers at Double Fine that it won’t be long before controlling a sentient beacon with spidery legs becomes almost second nature. a guardthe latest from the studio Psychonauts and Grim FandangoObviously, it’s a strange game. You play as a builder who can walk, solve puzzles, and befriend a cute bird while trying to rid a fantasy world of creeping darkness. It’s like a cross between silent storytelling Wall-E And the cinematic platform for Limbowith a psychedelic touch of Lisa Frank paints covering everything. It’s also a game that proves to be much more than it seems at first glance. Somehow, things even out Stranger.

Things start simple. For unexplained reasons, you, the lighthouse, sprout your legs and start stumbling. There’s not much you can do other than walk around – which is embarrassing – and highlight things. Quickly enough, perhaps after accidentally crushing a few houses while learning how to move, you’ll meet a large bird that instantly becomes your best friend. All you can do is keep moving forward, and as you do, you’re pulled into a strange world that clearly needs help.

When you first start, a guard It plays like a very linear type of puzzle game. You follow specific paths so you don’t really get lost, and there are minor obstacles along the way. In most cases, you can turn on a magic switch or remove a dangerous obstacle by shining a light on it. I’m glad the game started slow because it took some getting used to; Unlike most modern games, a guard It has a fixed camera, and you can alternatively use the right stick to rotate the light on top of the lighthouse.

From there, things slowly but surely open up. Even with only a few actions at your disposal, the puzzles can get surprisingly complex. You’ll send your bird to collect items, flip switches, and even mess with the flow of time. a guard He managed to squeeze a lot out of his limited vocabulary – and then suddenly, it became something completely different, several times over. I don’t want to spoil anything because these moments are some of the most fun parts of the game, but at the end, you’ll be able to jump and swim, and I’m not kidding, at the end of the game, it’s something like Tony Hawk. However, the world likewise expands, giving you more room to explore.

The truth is that this world is a heart a guard. The puzzles are just there to give you something to do while you take it all in. It’s a strange, colorful and vibrant place, teeming with life (despite not a human being in sight). There are giant creatures made of trees and adorable little turtles the size of school buses. At some point, you have to find your way out of an automated town inhabited by small robots on wheels; Later, you pass caves that throb with a kind of hideous life. Even though you are a piece of architecture, a guard It makes you feel part of this world, as if you are making it better with time. You also make a lot of nice friends who stay to help when things get tough.

I put a guard In the same category as experiences like Grace or insidewhere playing with it is merely a means to an end, and this end moves through an imaginative, strange, and constantly changing space. The clever puzzles and quirky action figures are just ways for me to feel part of the world. By the end of the game, which lasts long enough to not overstay its welcome, it’s almost hard to imagine ever having thought a walking beacon was at all strange. barely.

_{a guard It will be available on October 17 on Xbox and PC.}