(SPOILER WARNING)

You are in a room. A wooden door leads north. That’s the only exit. But, the door is locked!

This is a puzzle that has faced many a player of Interactive Fiction. We’ve all had to deal with the locked room scenario, where you have to find the solution for how to get that door open. You can play guess the verb. You can look for things to examine. You can check your inventory to see if you have something on you that could be used in some clever way to unlock the door.

Or you could just pick up the iron key and see what it does.

To quote the game itself:

Room A
A plain white room. A wooden door leads north.

You can see an iron key here.

Can it be that simple? Why not? One side effect of playing too much interactive fiction is that you reach a point where you assume that every solution has to be complicated. Sometimes, you can just pick up the key.

There is another room, though. Be sure to go in the other room and read what you find.

Keep in mind, this is only the first Locked Door game. There are at least three other adventures, all asking if you can unlock more doors. I’ve been playing the fourth one. I’ll review it as soon as I figure out how to open up the damn door.

Play Locked Door