Lockpicking — Tumbler's Path
Locked chests inside delves are opened with Tumbler's Path, a skill minigame. The board is a row of brass tumbler tracks (one per column); only the lit wards show — an open notch, a gold gate, the green bolt seat, or a red ward-trap. You drive the pick one column at a time, threading the open channel, seating on each gate and dodging traps, until it reaches the bolt seat. Clear it and the chest pays out; fail and it jams.
🔓 Practice it free, no chest required: open the interactive Tumbler's Path trainer → — the exact same board and rules, with Easy / Medium / Hard modes, so you can get the feel before you risk a real cache.
Ante = risk vs reward
Before you pick, you commit an ante up front. The ante is locked in at engage time (you can't burn lives to climb tiers mid-pick), and it sets both the difficulty and the loot:
| Ante | Loot tier | Reward pages | Tries allowed | Time per move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🟣 Premium | 3 | 1 | 3s |
| 2 | 🔵 Medium | 2 | 2 | 6s |
| 3 | ⚪ Low | 1 | 3 | 9s |
- Lower ante = bigger reward but harder: Ante 1 pays the most (premium, 3 pages) but gives only 1 try and the tightest clock (3s per move). Ante 3 is forgiving (3 tries, 9s per move) but pays the least.
- Each try must be flawless — any slip, bind, or trap jams that try. Higher antes simply give you fewer tries to get a clean run.
- The chest only jams for good once your tries run out — so at Ante 3 you get 3 shots at a clean pick.
The moves
Each input nudges the pin by a fixed amount. Pick the move that lands the pin exactly on the open row for the next column:
| Move | Pin shift |
|---|---|
hardSet |
-2 (push in hard) |
set |
-1 (push in hard) |
steady |
0 (hold steady) |
ease |
+1 (ease out) |
drop |
+2 (ease out) |
hardSetmoves −2,set−1,steady0,ease+1,drop+2 — combine them to step the pin onto each column's open row.abortbails out of the current try.
Traps & fairness
- Traps look open but jam on contact. They are never placed on the solution path, so there is always a legal route through every column — read carefully before committing a move.
- Higher antes reveal less of the board ahead (smaller visibility window), so you plan fewer columns in advance.
- Generation is deterministic from
(seed, tier)— the same lock always has the same valid path.
Tips
- New to it? Start at Ante 3. 3 tries and 9s per move let you learn the pin math safely.
- Plan the whole path before you move at low antes — the clock per step is short and a single mis-step jams the try.
- Watch for traps on "open"-looking rows — if a row is on the solution it is safe; traps are decoys off the path.
- Go for Ante 1 only when you can read the board fast — it's the premium payout but you get one flawless shot.
Auto-generated from src/sim/lockpick.ts; updates with each release.