Locked room...

[DanielH]

I'm writing up all the puzzles and the plot for my new game, and In one scene, the protagonist is tied and locked in a room. I swore blind when starting this project there would not be a locked room scene, but what do you guys think? Too cliched? 

[Privateer Puddin']

As long as it doesn't involve pushing the key out of the other side and sliding it under the door..

[paolo]

Yes, there's no problem with this if you make it original, I think.

Trance-Pacific has a locked-room puzzle at the start, but it has an original solution method. It also makes fun of the slide-paper-under-the-door-and-push-key-out-of-keyhole cliché.

[Emerald]

I, personally, always enjoy a good trapped-in-a-room-with-a-locked-door puzzle...
Maybe it's because I'm lazy, and hate having to explore large areas multiple times just to find some little easy-to-miss item.

At least when you're trapped in a room, you know the answer's in sight, and not off somewhere it'll take you 15 minutes to get to (potentially).

[Play_Pretend]

Locked room scenes always struck me as funny...I mean, tied up, yes, that would work.  But I know from my locksmith days that there are almost no doors in regular buildings, home or commercial, that aren't always designed to be opened from the inside.  It's fire hazard law, people have to always be able to get out.  So most of the scenes where the bad guys lock the hero up inside a hotel/motel/bar/meat freezer/whatever room, they must've taken time in advance to change out the fire-or-safety-hazard-friendly locks.   Hooray for villains that think their plans through!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Having worked around them before, a lot of meat freezers have safety pins you can drive through the lock on the outside to secure it, and the door cannot be opened from the inside with the pin in.  I believe that is what the bad guys do in Short Circuit 2 (and in The Shining?), though my memory could be wrong.  What you are saying is logical, of course, but games very rarely operate off of real world logic.

[Emerald]

Locked room scenes always struck me as funny...I mean, tied up, yes, that would work.  But I know from my locksmith days that there are almost no doors in regular buildings, home or commercial, that aren't always designed to be opened from the inside.

What exactly do you mean by that? You mean they're easier to kick down from the inside?

[Play_Pretend]

No, I mean locks are by default designed to always let people out of rooms easily, even when they're locked from the outside.  (With the exception of, say, a deadbolt with a key lock on both sides, instead of a key for the outside and a thumbturn on the inside.)  If you think about it, there's almost never a reason why a person would need to be locked in a room with no way to open the door themselves, so all locks are designed with safety in mind.  (Like, do you want a complicated lock to undo when you're panicking during a fire?)

For instance, the lever-handle locks you find in a lot of commercial buildings...even when they're locked, you can always still turn the handle inside the door, for safety reasons.  I've got a cool thin metal rod tool that's shaped like a long bracket  [  with a cord coming off one end, for opening locked lever handle doors from the outside.  You slide it under the door, tilt it up against the door, move the top end of the [ over the handle, and pull down with the cord, manipulating the handle and opening the door.  We had a lot of fun with it at my last Lockpicking Club meeting.   It even works on those $300 electronic pushbutton Trilogy locks, as long as there's a crack under the door.

Huttah!  http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/UnderTool.png

[Emerald]

Gosh, mister. I never knew there was so much I never knew about locks...

I dunno, maybe my house is kind of old-fashioned, but every single door has a corresponding key which locks or unlocks it. If someone has the key, and locks it from the outside, there's no real release. Which also struck me as odd... but if I'm ever in the situation where I have to lock a psycho killer into a room, I'll be laughing...


I always wanted to try lockpicking, but I'm just not patient enough, really...

Also, it seems like it would be illegal. Or at least get you on some sort of watch list...

[Play_Pretend]

(Sorry if this thread is starting to go off topic a bit, but... )

I'm not really sure about the international laws regarding the possession of lock bypass tools, but I do know some of the biggest locksports groups in the world are from the UK and countries surrounding.  I've got a ton of tools designed just for bypassing, picking or otherwise breaking locks and security devices, but they're all perfectly legal to own (even the lockpicks, at least in my state) as long as I'm not caught with them while committing a burglary or something.  I think everyone should learn lockpicking...it's actually very easy once you get the knack, and would you rather fork over $100 to a locksmith just because you lost your keys in the middle of the night?

I would *love* to see a game that had completely, 100% accurate lockpicking or B&E for once...I even thought about making one as a huge tutorial for B&E techniques, where the player gets to learn exactly what the burglar is doing as he goes through the game.  But I know that without previous knowledge of the techniques, most players would be completely stuck until after they saw how each one was done.

The pushing-the-key-out-onto-a-newspaper thing is so old, because those types of keyholes and keys aren't used anywhere anymore, and what villain would honestly forget his keys anyways?

To get back towards the topic, locked room scenarios can be done in new and original ways...like, most bad guys might never think that while they locked the door up tight, the hero could just pull the pins out of the hinges and open the door on the hinge side.  If you've got a soda can and a pair of scissors, you can make a little shim that'll open almost any padlock in America in seconds.  Most office buildings have false acoustic tile ceilings, and heroes could just crawl up into the ceiling and out of the locked room.  Or if a door is locked entirely with deadbolts and latches, maybe an inflatable raft or inflatable clown punching bag or something could be worked into the crack between the door and the frame, and when it's inflated it'll spread the door so far from the frame that the bolts will just pop out of their holes.

Anyways, sorry, I just get caught up in this subject.   It's a passion.

[ThreeOhFour]

I like locked room puzzles, sort of.

I find that I get extremely tired of wandering everywhere trying to find the item I have missed or dialogue option that I haven't explored just to get to the next stage in the game. It takes time, can't be skipped and is boring to watch the character walk everywhere. Locked room puzzles skip this annoying element.

Some games (Such as Simon the Sorceror) have maps that get rid of this problem, or at least help it.

I say go for the old locked room puzzle. The elements are generally right in front of your eyes, and there is plenty of room for creativity with the puzzle.

Oh, and Paolo - heh... Trance-Pacific is really just a series of locked room puzzles. But you already know that.

[Emerald]

I would *love* to see a game that had completely, 100% accurate lockpicking or B&E for once...I even thought about making one as a huge tutorial for B&E techniques, where the player gets to learn exactly what the burglar is doing as he goes through the game.  But I know that without previous knowledge of the techniques, most players would be completely stuck until after they saw how each one was done.

You could have little hints and instructions lying around.\

I think that would be a refreshingly interesting idea for a game - a master locksmith gets tired of his lazy apprentice, so he decides to lock him into a maze and release a starving wolf into it or something, so the apprentice needs to hastily get better at lockpicking if he wants to survive...

[Ghost]

If you've got a soda can and a pair of scissors, you can make a little shim that'll open almost any padlock in America in seconds.

That sounds pretty interesting; a fun little puzzle. Could you give a sketch for that? (I promise I won't come and break into your home  )

[Play_Pretend]

Hey, I'll do ya one better: http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/189/48/

Step by step instructions!   And yes, it's something I've done many times myself, so I know it works.  It freaks people out when they realize how insecure their stuff is.  Any type of padlock where the hasp is "locked" in place by a springloaded latch, this shim will work on it.  I've got a bag full of washed-out empty soda cans in my fridge for exactly this purpose. 

And to preempt any potential worriers: yes, I understand knowledge like this can be dangerous in the wrong hands.  But the lock companies have been lying *forever* about how safe their locks are.  Kwikset and other companies' "99.9% pick resistant!" locks are complete BS...the manufacturing tolerances might be tighter, but 99.9% resistant is the same as 100% pickable.  You see it on almost all their locks, no matter how cheap or insecure, as a kneejerk reaction to people re-discovering the art of "bumping" locks, which is pretty freaking sweet when you do it the first few times.   I don't believe in the "security through obscurity" principle, meaning locks are only more secure because people don't know how to defeat them, so I educate wherever possible.

Ha...that locked in the maze with a wolf idea is hilarious.   I had a boss during my apprenticeship that probably would've done it, too.

[Play_Pretend]

Oh, quick PS to the instructions link:  They don't mention that every shim you make will be destroyed in the process of using it.  Hey, it's cheap metal.  They also don't explain that you should slide the pointy bit down into the *outside* edge of the hasp first, then use the little handles to turn it 180 degrees around (which slides it in under the springloaded latch, essentially covering the notch in the hasp stopping it from coming open) so that it ends up looking like it does in the final picture on the page.  If you try to just stick it straight down on the inside edge of the hasp like they show, it'll probably just get stuck and blunted.

You can buy shims for about $20 per 20 shims, which is ridiculous when you can make a few of them from a 50 cent pop can.

[Ghost]

Thanks; I can really see how this'll fit in a game.

[miguel]

I know it's off topic but last week I got some lockpicking tools from UKBumpkeys and I locked myself at home for about two hours!!!
Never try your skills on your own locks!!!
StrangeVisitor: ever unlocked a Mult-lock? (6pins and lockpicking, not bumping.)
cheers

[Radiant]

I'm curious though... that pushing-the-key-out with a piece of paper under the door - has anyone ever done that in real life? I mean, does that even work, at all?

[Play_Pretend]

Well see, that would only work on one of those really old warded locks like you expect to see in murder mysteries...the round top, the triangular bottom, and you can see all the way through.  Theoretically, if someone left their key sticking in the door on the other side, yes, you could push it out onto a paper or something, assuming it was turned straight so it could come out of the hole, and the crack under the door was high enough.  But seriously, what person locking someone up would just leave the key sitting in the door?



The way those old keys worked...there's a series of thin metal bars ("wards") inside the keyhole, and only if the key was cut with spaces that fit the bars, it could turn around and unlock the door.  If the spaces were cut wrong, the key wouldn't turn.  "Skeleton keys" were keys filed down so thin that they'd bypass the wards and unlock it anyways.

Those locks were such terribly poor security that they've been out of use for...gods, I don't even know how long.  So maaaaybe if our hero was locked up in a seriously old mansion, and the locker-upper had alzheimer's and just forgot his keys in the lock a lot, it might be plausible.

Miguel: Congrats on your new tools...what'd you get?   And did you mean a Mul-T-Lock?

[Emerald]

I'm curious though... that pushing-the-key-out with a piece of paper under the door - has anyone ever done that in real life? I mean, does that even work, at all?

I did it once, in a bathroom. Only I used a coat-hanger to grab the key (which I poked out of the lock with a cutip) instead of a newspaper.

Never realised my locks were so old...
Well, thats Irish contractors for ya...
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