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Keeper [OT] Keep Calm, It's Double Fine

ShaiKhulud1989 said:
Done in 4 hours.
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Topher said:
Done. Good game. Didn't care for the last few sections. I want whatever Double Fine is smoking though
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Damn man, you guys are fast.

And to think I was called as rushing through games for beating Cronos in 12 hours :messenger_grinning_sweat:


Love the burst of watercolor style art.



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UE5 again? Come on, you'd think these stylised games would not need any of the advanced features of the engine that kill performance. It certainly doesn't scream: "realistic lighting".
 
Tried it as I still have gamepass. Visually stunning but gameplay lol, this is a walking simulator (and sailing). Not criticizing but not really what I expected after Double Fine's excellent Psychonauts 2. It's super super easy, definitely targeted towards kids/extreme casual gamers.

Also you need insanely high specs to run this, runs quite bad on a RTX 4070 Mobile. I mean I get it, it's not a high end GPU but the min. requirement is a GTX1070, it's way powerful than that. Honestly, thankful for gamepass as I would not have bought this but then again, I did not really enjoy it.

Not a game, should have been a movie or something. Idk. Vanity project, a mash a ideas in UE5.

Edit: (finished it in ~5 hours, final hour is an insane slog)
 
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Check out the first 24 minutes of Keeper captured on PC. From Lee Petty and Double Fine Productions, Keeper is a story told without words, in which a long-forgotten lighthouse is awakened and, joined by a spirited seabird, it embarks upon a heartening tale of unlikely companionship, and an unexpected journey into realms beyond understanding. Available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
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I've finished the game. A gorgeous imaginative beautifull game, excelent art, simple yet entertaining and very quick to finish... Similar sensations to South of Midnight, which I really enjoyed very much also.
The perfect kind of game to complete a diverse catalog and that you'll want to play from time to time.

DF will surely be happy because they were able to launch a project of this type, first, and and general reception received, in second place.
Only special minds at Special Studios could come up with a game where the story is trougth a bird and a lighthouse with legs 😅
 
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Labadal said:
Can I get a spoiler marked hint as to the end section?
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The lighthouse is reduced down to just the light. It is a wheel basically and you roll around through half open tube things (not sure what to call them). It is a big maze and you have to find your way through it and destroy the same dark material as before. There a few sections like this and they repeat for no apparent reason. Feels like filler to pump another hour or two into the game. So the charm of lighthouse and the sea bird is no longer there. Just this wheel game. Thankfully it doesn't end that way
 
2 hour in and I'm really working my bird. From egg to bird ghost. :)
I'm liking it so far. The music is is varied throughout. The visuals are very other worldly.
 
Played a bit.

Very strong PS3 era Sony vibes. Audiovisual presentation is a treat.

Puzzles are getting a bit more interesting after a slow start.

I would've definitely bought it day 1 if it wasn't on gamepass. Price is same as 1 month of gpu where i live.
 
I actually planned to buy this, however its not on PS5, and while I have the PC specs I planned to play it in my living room on my couch, since I traded in by Xbox series X thats a shame.

I hope given the poor sales this aint a death stance for double fine, but I cant see it any other way.
 
Think I'm getting close to the end. Game's a 10/10 for me. Just keeps improving. I can't believe its this good, and that they were able to pull this off. My eyes are in disbelief while playing and there is enough content for me to feel satisfied.

Reminds me of Exo One, but 50x better. And that game's really good.
 
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Finished it last night, around 6~ hours per the xbox app.

One of those 'experience' type games and I'm glad to have played it.

The visuals get really trippy near the end. Definitely Double Fine's most technically ambitious game.

Now I feel like downloading Psychonauts 2 again.
 
OK. What in the everliving fuck did I just play?

What a fever dream. I mean, I did expect to play as a lighthouse.
But how do you even describe what happens here?

OK, so you are a walking, self-repairing dilapidated lighthouse that gets summoned to the top of a mountain by the Eye of Sauron. Along the way you will travel through time, discover an ancient civilization of cogwork people and mechanical animals, get high on fluffy pink spores to acquire the power to jump and float, and turn into a boat. Oh, and the climax of the game is the most unnecessarily long homage to Metroid Prime ever seen.

And you know what? Apart from the final gameplay segments, which were a real chore and dragged on for way too long... this... uh... game was a nice distraction for a Sunday afternoon. Increasing the price of the Game Pass subscription will probably mean I won't get to experience this kind of production, that I would absolutely never pay full price for. And probably never even want to try when it's on sale, because this is simply not something you just blindly jump into, and even if you do have a faint idea of what it is, it takes some real curiosity and interest in this hobby to want to try this. The art and creativity on display is simply crazy, but how do you convince people to buy this when there's so many "more gamey" games for the same price or less?
 
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RPS37 said:
I feel like how I felt playing Cocoon
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Same. A Sunday afternoon single-sitting game that you better breeze through, so you don't dilute the dream-like feeling of the first discovery. Details will get forgotten quickly, and only a vague idea of the game will remain in my memory while the overall feel of an otherwordly experience will endure for years.
 
NeoIkaruGAF said:
OK. What in the everliving fuck did I just play?

What a fever dream. I mean, I did expect to play as a lighthouse.
But how do you even describe what happens here?

OK, so you are a walking, self-repairing dilapidated lighthouse that gets summoned to the top of a mountain by the Eye of Sauron. Along the way you will travel through time, discover an ancient civilization of cogwork people and mechanical animals, get high on fluffy pink spores to acquire the power to jump and float, and turn into a boat. Oh, and the climax of the game is the most unnecessarily long homage to Metroid Prime ever seen.

And you know what? Apart from the final gameplay segments, which were a real chore and dragged on for way too long... this... uh... game was a nice distraction for a Sunday afternoon. Increasing the price of the Game Pass subscription will probably mean I won't get to experience this kind of production, that I would absolutely never pay full price for. And probably never even want to try when it's on sale, because this is simply not something you just blindly jump into, and even if you do have a faint idea of what it is, it takes some real curiosity and interest in this hobby to want to try this. The art and creativity on display is simply crazy, but how do you convince people to buy this when there's so many "more gamey" games for the same price or less?
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I think there's hope for games like this. Its super niche and weird, but it is also not much different from classic animation stuff like Fantasia or even some old Pixar stuff. People just have to want something new and have some imagination. Even kids could jump into this and probably be more open minded than the adults these days. $25 would have been the sweet spot on pricing.

I got all the achievements and actually went ahead and bought it. Did the same thing with Hellblade 2. I loved it and want more from these guys. Bottom line is Double Fine is now on the motherfucking map in terms of top tier visual studios now. I can't imagine what Schaffer comes up with next.
 
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Ok, never in my life did I ever think I'd see a game where you play a walking lighthouse. Mad props for that alone. My biggest gripe at the moment is the music. My poor ears.
 
I'm stuck, :(
There is a part where I have to get 2 lights on a big vine and I'm the third. I see where I need to focus one on one of the lights but it's not doing anything when I shine on it. Either the game is broken here or I'm missing something. I did not want to have to look up a walkthrough. But I'm stuck. :(
 
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Magic Carpet said:
I'm stuck, :(
There is a part where I have to get 2 lights on a big vine and I'm the third. I see where I need to focus one on one of the lights but it's not doing anything when I shine on it. Either the game is broken here or I'm missing something. I did not want to have to look up a walkthrough. But I'm stuck. :(
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If you look to the left, you'll see another light. That needs one of those ball things to work. There is another section that is underneath and behind the area you are talking about (to the right, I believe). There should be some of stuff you have to clear out back in there, I believe. Sorry.....going from memory. Took me a bit to figure that one out as well. It isn't glitched though.
 
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Topher said:
If you look to the left, you'll see another light. That needs one of those ball things to work. There is another section that is underneath and behind the area you are talking about (to the right, I believe). There should be some of stuff you have to clear out back in there, I believe. Sorry.....going from memory. Took me a bit to figure that one out as well. It isn't glitched though.
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I had to look it up. The damn thing I needed to shine my light on was UNDER water. and I had to send the bird underwater. Geeshhh am I the only one who wasn't able to figure this out?

It was the last obstacle right before the

I've now lost my lighthouse and my boat and I'm just a light rolling around. I hope this area isn't too hard, If I have to time these light pads rolling over them, I might as well quit now.
 
Magic Carpet said:
I had to look it up. The damn thing I needed to shine my light on was UNDER water. and I had to send the bird underwater. Geeshhh am I the only one who wasn't able to figure this out?

It was the last obstacle right before the

I've now lost my lighthouse and my boat and I'm just a light rolling around. I hope this area isn't too hard, If I have to time these light pads rolling over them, I might as well quit now.
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Yeah, I should have mentioned the underwater part, but that's what I was talking about. You are definitely not the only one. lol....I had to look it up as well.

The section you are in is also annoying. I won't say it is hard, but it overstays its welcome. After that you are almost done.
 
I will say this...even though I'm not into this game very much, the HDR is amazing. One of the best I've seen.

To me it's probably in the top 5. C2077 and AC Shadows are still my top 2 for how transformative they are.

But this is right up there with Ori. Maybe better in terms of implementation.


Also, they have some fucked up shader stutter on the Gamepass version specifically. Steam is unaffected. It's absolutely horrible honestly.
 
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I think I'm getting really close to the end and all I can say is, this game needs its own dedicated screenshot thread. Gawd damn.
 
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