Free The Key: How to Play, Tips, and Strategies

Free The Key: How to Play, Tips, and Strategies

1. Introduction

A golden key sits behind a wall of timber in a buried temple. The only way out is a gap in the right-hand wall. You slide the blocks aside, one at a time, until that gap is clear, then drive the key through it.

Free The Key is free on Pokky Game. It runs in the browser, asks for no account, and starts when you press Start Game. Your progress is kept between visits.

2. What Is Free The Key?

Free The Key is a sliding-block puzzle on a 6×6 board. The key always sits on the third row, and it is two squares long. It leaves through the gap on the right.

Each block slides only along its own length. A block laid flat moves left and right. A block stood on end moves up and down. Nothing turns, and nothing jumps over another block. Drag one and it travels until it meets the first thing in its path, then it stops.

A move is one slide, however far that slide goes. The number on the level is the fewest moves that can free the key. There are 45 doors. The first has four blocks and can be cleared in two moves. The last has thirteen blocks and takes forty-six.

Every level can be solved. The boards were built by searching the positions the blocks can actually reach, then picking one a set distance from the exit. The move count on the tile is that distance, not a guess.

3. How to Play Free The Key

Open the game and press Start Game.

1. Find the key on the third row, and find the gap in the right-hand wall. That gap is the only exit.
2. Drag a flat block left or right, or a tall block up or down. It slides along its grain and stops at the first block in the way.
3. Count one move for each drag. A long slide costs the same as a short one.
4. Clear the squares between the key and the gap, then drag the key to the right and out through the gate.
5. Press Z, or Undo, to take a move back. The counter goes back with it.
6. Press H, or Hint, when you want the next move of a shortest solution from the position you are in now.
7. Press R to reset the level. Esc opens the menu.

You start with three hints. A hint is worked out from the board in front of you, so it still helps if you have already left the shortest line.

4. Tips for the First Doors

The opening doors are short on purpose. Four blocks and a two-move par is enough to learn the grain of the wood before the boards fill up.

- Clear the key’s row first. List the blocks sitting on that row, then the blocks that stop those from moving. The exit is on the right, so anything standing between the key and that gap has to move before the key does.
- Slide a block only as far as the next one needs. A longer slide still counts as one move, and it can park the block on top of a square you will need a moment later.
- Spend the first few doors learning the drag. Matching the number on an early tile is also how you earn hints for the long boards.

5. How Stars, Par, and Hints Work

Each level has a par. That number is the true minimum.

- Three stars means you matched par. That also earns an extra hint.
- Two stars means you finished close to par.
- One star means you freed the key in more moves than that.

Hints are worth saving. You begin with three. A three-star finish adds one. On a forty-six-move door, H shows the next step of a shortest path from wherever the blocks are now. Using it on a two-move door spends a hint the later boards can use.

Undo does not spend a hint and does not add a move. Z puts the last slide back and restores the counter, so a wrong drag can be tested and taken away.

6. How to Open a Blocked Row

When the key cannot move, the block in front of it is usually held by something off the row.

1. Name the block on the key’s row that is closest to the gap.
2. See which way that block is allowed to slide. A flat one can only leave the row sideways, by going up or down if it is upright, or left and right if it is flat and the key needs the square it is sitting on.
3. Find what is stopping that slide. Clear that blocker first.
4. Repeat for the next block on the row.
5. Drag the key right only when every square from it to the gap is empty.

If a line of slides boxes you in, step back with Z rather than resetting. The counter returns with the blocks, and the par for three stars is still in reach.

7. Common Mistakes

1. Sliding a block as far as it will go. The extra distance is free in the move count and expensive in space. Stop it where the next block needs the room.
2. Trying to turn a block. Grain does not change. A flat block will never move up, and a tall block will never move sideways.
3. Dragging the key before its row is clear. It stops at the first timber in the way, and that drag still counts as a move.
4. Restarting a long level. R throws the whole door away. Z removes one slide and keeps the rest.
5. Spending hints on the early doors. The first boards are two moves. The last board is forty-six. Keep H for the ones where the shortest line is hard to see.
6. Ignoring the number on the tile. That number is the real minimum. If you are already well past it, undo back to the move where the board was still close, and try the other block.

8. How the 45 Doors Change

The puzzle rule stays the same on every door. The board does not.

- The first doors use four blocks and a two-move par. They show the exit and the difference between a flat block and a tall one.
- The middle doors add timber until several blocks have to move before the key’s row opens.
- The last door uses thirteen blocks and a forty-six-move par. The same right-hand gap is still the only way out.

Progress stays on the device, so a later door is still there when you come back in the same browser.

9. A Look at the Temple

Conclusion

Free The Key is one rule played across forty-five doors: slide each block along its grain, stop it before it traps the next one, and take the key out through the gap on the right. The first door shows the idea in two moves. The last one asks for the same idea forty-six times, with thirteen blocks in the way.

If you would rather clear cars than timber, Car Jam Solver is the other one-direction puzzle on Pokky Game. Each car drives only the way it points, and it leaves when the lane to the edge is empty.

Open Free The Key, look at the third row, and move the block that is standing between the key and the gap.