Keeper is the ecological ‘fever dream’ where you play as – checks notes – a lighthouse

Double Fine's latest is a whimsical action-adventure that takes inspiration from real-life biology as much as cult fantasy movies from the 1980s

Keeper is staking a bold claim to be the oddest game ever published by Microsoft. The setting is weird: an iridescent, far-future imagining of New England where organic and non-organic matter mingle in strange, alchemical ways. And the characters are undeniably quirky: one is a bird called Twig whose beak is made from driftwood. Strangest of all: you play as a lighthouse that has inexplicably become animate, sprouting tiny, spindly little legs to carry its wibbling, wobbling body.

In the sea of action-hero young men and, to a lesser degree, women, the lighthouse stands out as an unlikely star. Creative lead Lee Petty is a little fuzzy on the details of how it came to be. Rather, he talks about the creation of the protagonist as he does the broader action-adventure experience: as if it rose out of his subconscious. Despite the ostensible absurdity, Petty believes there is a certain intuition about it. You have a light, and light has a very strong connection with life," he says. You can imagine the verbs for the player, and the actions, puzzles, mechanics that fall out of that."