Sometimes it’s the simplest games that end up leaving you all teary-eyed and emotional.
When I first downloaded Cool Lemon Club’s The Keyper for Playdate, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations beyond a general sense that it should be pretty good, since lots of people online seemed to be recommending it. The adventure game, which is available on itch.io and the official Playdate Catalog, sees the player searching for the many different keys needed to unlock areas of the mysterious Winchester 21 building after taking over the role of caretaker. The person who formerly held the job is gone, leaving only some cryptic notes behind, and the residents are varying degrees of weird.
On its face, it seems like a pretty standard game of puzzle solving and exploration. It’s effectively frustrating throughout, as you repeatedly retrace your steps trying to navigate the Winchester 21’s several floors and labyrinthine tunnel system to find the keys and the doors they unlock. But as the
