The new work of the highly appreciated Double Fine, Keeper, is finally here, and in addition to the usual launch trailer that shows us the beautiful world of the game, there is also a message from the creator of the title, Lee Petty. Here is everything below!

Hi, my name is Lee Petty and I'm the Creative Lead here at Double Fine Productions. I have been working at Double Fine for almost 20 years! I was art director for Brütal Legend and Broken Age, but also creative manager for Stacking, Headlander, Autonomous and RAD.

My new game, Keeper, was inspired by the events of the past few years. Like many, I have thought a lot about isolation and bonding with others. I have always been passionate about hiking, backpacking and outdoor activities with my family. During the pandemic, this became even more important to me. I wondered if the wildlife around me would be all that would be left in the future. Would it continue to develop, to evolve? I thought about mycelium, the vast underground networks that connect mushrooms, and how trees also use them to share nutrients and communicate with each other.

I imagined an isolated island in the distant future without human beings. What kind of life would evolve there? Would this life still need to connect with others and have a purpose?

When I thought about what this world could be like, I was inspired by surrealist painters, such as Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí, who created worlds that were lively and dreamlike, familiar and at the same time different from anything else. Some of my favorite films, such as "The Dark Crystal" and "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind," are about strange, otherworldly places and unusual life forms, and both present themselves as family films, but have stranger, darker subtexts. This also shines through in Keeper, giving it a style of play that I like to call "weird, but relaxing".

A story told entirely without words, Keeper is the story of a long-forgotten lighthouse on a post-human island, awakening after eons of hibernation. The ancient masonry of the lighthouse crumbles and falls to the ground, but then his legs grow, he stands up and sets off on a journey to the top of the mountain in the center of the island, accompanied by a lively seabird named Ramoscello.

It is a psychedelic story of friendship and an adventure of mysterious metamorphosis, set in a beautiful and surreal realm, beyond comprehension.

It's a game that focuses a lot on the unexpected and we have done everything to preserve its mysteries and surprises. I'm really excited that you can discover them for yourself by playing and I'd like to ask you to reflect on how you talk about these amazing elements, ideally trying to preserve their mystery for others where possible. Thanks for playing it!

Lee and the Double Fine Productions team