The Keyper
The appeal of Pulp, Playdate’s browser-based game making tool, is that – if you’re willing to put in the time – you can make a real video game all by yourself. It’s easy to use and fully functional, but still has enough limitations to keep you from going too wild with your scope. By being user-friendly, it lets you really focus on the ideas and the story you want to tell. There’s one genre that really works on Pulp, and it’s the top-down adventure game. Look at this list: Eyeland, HANA, ART&.. More, every single Life’s Too Short game, Time From Earth, Resonant Tale, Hidey Spot, The Fall of Elena Temple, Initial Daydream, Hot Steam, AVAVA, and lots of other games that I don’t have on the site yet but will someday (lookin’ at you, Penrose). The Keyper stands among the best Pulp games ever created, with a singular vision and just one of the wildest maps I’ve seen in a game in the modern era. I really should’ve whipped out the graph paper, but I went with brute force memorization instead.
You are a new caretaker for a building, taking over for your uncle. “Meet me at the top!” he says in notes hidden around the building. But how do you get there? Well, you climb through the walls, and help people, and get lost over and over. You quickly find an elaborate sewer system connecting everything to everything else, and you find keys that grant you access to new rooms in the buildings, each with their own something going on. What exactly does being a caretaker involve? What happened to the last one? Which turn was I supposed to take to get back to the secret underground kitchen? These are questions asked in The Keyper.
The story morphs in unexpected ways as you go along, and some people you’ll meet only once. It’s a big building, after all, with a lot of history. You’ll have some single-serve friends, but others will grow with you as you build a relationship with them. Some have problems you can’t solve. Some are stuck trapped in time without your help. If you get lost, there is a hint system that does a good job of not giving away too much but still points you in the right direction. There’s also a handy, spoiler-filled online guide written by the developer if you get really stuck, which I will admit to using once or twice. In general, though, The Keyper has the perfect mix of free exploration and hand-holding. At first, you’re never sure if you’re going the right way, sort of like The Outer Wilds. But that’s the thing: every way is the right way if you keep going long enough.
There are no enemies, no time limit, and a story that goes all the way from sad to nice to geopolitical intrigue. And eventually you do figure out the secret ways through these pipes behind the walls. You’re a caretaker – it’s your job to take care of this building, the people in it, its past, and its future. Accepting résumés below.
(Released March 28, 2023, on Itch, and September 5, 2023, on Catalog with the new save/hint systems and a bunch of improvements and additional content.)