Pictured: Key-centric shenanigans.
A key is an object used to unlock a door or other locked object. Naturally the characters in MS Paint Adventures and its related adventure games find themselves requiring keys to solve various puzzles. Jailbreak and Problem Sleuth place a particular emphasis on keys and locked doors.
In Jailbreak[]
A single key is one of two items found on the floor of the first prisoner's cell in the very first page
. What this key unlocks, however, is left unknown; the first prisoner throws it to the second prisoner to have him open the latter's cell, however this cell door is already unlocked, and the second prisoner passes the key on to the third prisoner, who dies before he can return the key, leaving it inaccessible in the first cell. After the game over and subsequent restart of Jailbreak this key is returned to the first cell, but the prisoner is teleported to another location by an elf before it can be used.
The jail guard has a ring of keys at his belt, presumably for unlocking the various cells. The first prisoner knocks the guard out in an attempt to get these keys, and then later attempts to lasso them toward him with the guard's belt, but fails in this enterprise.
Pumpkin carving puzzle[]
A rather unconventional lock and key apparatus exists in one of the jail's rooms whereby a pumpkin on a pedestal must be carved with three distinct shapes (resembling happy, sad and surprised faces) with a supplied knife and placed into appropriately-shaped "keyholes" in the wall of the room. When the pumpkin is removed from the pedestal the room begins to fill up with water; when the puzzle is "unlocked" a door in the first cell is opened, leading to a way out of the prison, but bars extend over the open roof of the puzzle room, preventing the puzzle solver from easily escaping.
In Problem Sleuth[]
- Main article: Weapons in Problem Sleuth
Problem Sleuth, Ace Dick, Pickle Inspector and Mobster Kingpin all have keys in their offices which double as weapons (though the key in each character's office is not always personally their ideal weapon). While the Mobster Kingpin's key doubles as a set of metal knuckles and is required to escape the imaginary universe, the other three items double as guns, and are ultimately used to unlock parts of Demonhead Mobster Kingpin's defensive mask.
In a slightly similar fashion, Madame Murel's weapon is a skeleton paintbrush whose paint can take on the shape of both weapons and keys, which unlock paint-coloured locks in her brothel.
Various other non-weapon keys appear throughout Problem Sleuth as parts of more mundane puzzles;
- A key
kept on the outside of Problem Sleuth's door opens the safe in his office, which leads to his secret chamber. - A key found inside a Snoop Dogg bust in Ace Dick's office, swallowed and then later vomited up by the Dick, unlocks his own part of the secret room.
- Hysterical Dame's teddy bear weapon has a the key for her music box hanging from around its neck.
- A key for the musical carousel in Nervous Broad's room is hidden within a Fancy Santa in Hysterical Dame's room.
Skull puzzle[]
In a callback to Jailbreak's pumpkin puzzle, the Speakeasy's entrance to the Cathedral of Syndetic Ascension is locked behind a puzzle
that requires skulls of Sleuth, Dick and Inspector's proportions to be slotted into the wall.
In Homestuck[]
Keys are far less prominently featured in Homestuck's puzzles. John Egbert initially seeks his Dad's keys
to retrieve his birthday presents from the car, but this ultimately proves unnecessary when the car's fall to the Land of Wind and Shade breaks its windscreen open. Without the keys to drive the car on the Battlefield, John instead uses his power over the Breeze to pilot the vehicle.
The Windswept Questant possessed a spirograph-shaped key used to turn dials in the interfaces of the command station bases. In the Helipod Base, the key was used to switch the Sendificator between targeting Earth and the Incipisphere; in the Eggy-Looking and Bec Head Bases, the key switched the stations between broken (bifurcated in the egg's case, and shattered in the Bec base's case) and complete forms. Jake English and Roxy Lalonde's transmaterializers also included locks for spirograph-shaped keys, seemingly able of switching the machine's target between the B1 and B2 versions of Earth.
Kanaya Maryam's chastity modus locks her items behind padlocks and chains and requires her to find mysterious and inexplicable keys to unlock the items when the time is right, possibly in accordance with her other references to Problem Sleuth.
Spades Slick / Jack Noir's keys[]
Like his counterpart, Jack Noir has been known to have some troubles involving keys. Spades Slick's deck of cards has a digital "key" or barcode - identical to the barcode on his own wrist - printed on the back of the rules card, which doubles as a literal key; both of these keys open the inner door to Lord English's vault, which has the station observing Karkat Vantas locked inside.
The B2 session's Jack Noir was sent to prison by Prospitian authorities after an attempt on the dreaming Jane Crocker's life, and went through some misadventures mirroring those undertaken by Jailbreak's prisoners. A key sitting on the floor of his cell turned out to merely be a crude drawing, and though real, a ring of keys kept by a Prospitian guard are scattered out of reach when Jack tries to knock out his jailer.
Consort skull puzzle[]
In another callback to the Jailbreak puzzle, Myststuck has Jane Crocker collect consort skulls from around the Land of Crypts and Helium - namely the skull of a turtle, crocodile and iguana - to place them inside a wall recess and unlock the next room.
Caliborn's keys[]
Caliborn's planet quest required him to find numerous keys to unlock keyholes in the MSPA command stations and thus unlock new functions. For some reason the first four keys found their way into the guts of Gamzee Makara, who vomited them back up after receiving a volley of bullets from Caliborn's machine gun. Each of these keys unlocks a new scree on the command station, capable of viewing Jake, Dirk Strider, Roxy, and Jack Noir. Two more keys inserted simultaneously bifurcated the website, allowing two sets of events of events to be viewed at once. Another key disables caps lock.
Eventually Caliborn's progression through the god tiers awards him with the skeleton key badge for his Kiddie Camper Handysash, which allowed him to “AUTOMATICALLY UNLOCK. ANY LOCK HE WANTED TO!” and in essence gain full control over the narrative through total access to the MSPA command station. This was presumably a key milestone in his rose to power as Lord English.
In Hiveswap[]
Keys are critical items in several puzzles in Hiveswap: Act 1. Two keys are found within the Puppy Surprise doll in Joey Claire's room; a silver diary key, and a strange green key. The diary key is used to unlock Joey's diary so that she can write one last message before she leaves for the attic, and is then returned to its hiding place, leaving the inventory.
The attic itself is locked, and requires a key to access. Jude Harley hid this key in a strange globe in the trophy room to protect sensitive items kept inside the attic. The globe must be opened by pointing red and green lasers toward it, at which point the key can be taken. After use, Joey accidentally drops this key between the attic's floorboards.
The green key, referred to as a family heirloom, was at some point prior to the events of Act 1 taken from Joey's mother's jewellery box as something to remember the latter by. Once inside the attic, this key is used to activate the cherub portal, with which it shares a cherub-like design, green and red interlocking spirals making up much of the key's head design, two serpents wrapped around either side, and a set of pointed cherub-like fangs acting as the key's teeth. When it comes close to the portal the snakes on the key begin to move like tendrils, pulling Joey's arm toward the locking mechanism, essentially opening the portal of its own accord, suggesting it may be in some way alive or at least intelligent. Joey's Pa seems to have been aware of the key's purpose and existence but at some stage unable to find it, writing on the portal's shipping invoice: "The KEY! Where is that dadblasted gadzooks KEY?!"
A strange glowing green cube acts as a means of opening the door to Dammek's respiteblock on Alternia, and is thus somewhat like a key. Its energy emitting nature and name in the game's code, "PowerCell", may also classify it as a kind of battery.