The tagline of Keepsake is "An Unforgettable Adventure." That's not only about the most generic and vague description possible, but it's also completely untrue. Keepsake is so dull and forgettable that once you reach the end of the 10-plus-hour adventure, you'll have a hard time remembering why you were even playing it in the first place. To its credit, Keepsake does have plenty of unique and challenging puzzles, so if that's what you play adventure games for, you'll be satisfied with this one. But if you're looking for engaging characters and a compelling story to carry you between puzzles, you won't find them here.
Lydia shows up for her first day of school only to realize that the school has been deserted.
The story of Keepsake begins when a young woman named Lydia shows up at the Dragonvale Academy, where she plans to meet up with her old pal Celeste and study the arcane arts to become a mage. When Lydia gets to the school Celeste is nowhere to be found, and in fact, it seems that the entire student body has vanished into thin air. So Lydia does a bit of exploring to see if she can figure out what's going on at the academy, eventually unraveling the mystery after solving many, many magic puzzles. The problem is that the story progresses so slowly that it doesn't even get slightly interesting until the very final stages of the game. The characters are devoid of personality, the dialogue is sappy and forced, and the voice acting is painfully bad. It all adds up to a go-nowhere story with annoying characters, which certainly won't inspire you to keep playing.
Keepsake sticks closely to the point-and-click adventure game template that has been in use for the past 15 years or so. You move Lydia by clicking on various parts of a static background. The camera angles are all fixed, so you move from one background to another as you reach the edge of each screen. Using this method you can explore the twisting hallways of the academy--although the place is deserted, so there isn't all that much to see. The cursor icon changes shape when you can interact with an object or go in for closer inspection, so if you're unsure of what you're supposed to do you can just move the cursor around until you find the right part of the background to interact with. There's an inventory system as well, but you hardly ever have to use it. Most of the time you just click your way through hallway after hallway and room after room until you find the right puzzle or item to move the story along.
