About Latchkeys

Latchkeys makes online escape rooms, the puzzle games some people call virtual escape rooms. Each one is a story told to you in the second person, set in a particular place and time, with a lock at the end of every step: a word to work out, a thing in front of you to set right, a route to trace, a sequence to put in order. Get it right and the next door opens. Get it wrong and the story tells you so.

One link is the whole room. Send it round, or share a screen on Zoom or any video call, and everyone plays at once, whether that is a couple on one sofa or friends in different cities. There is no booking, no host and no timer.

How it is made

Latchkeys is small and independent. There are no adverts, no accounts and no app, and nothing on the site tracks you while you play.

Before a room goes on sale, every lock in it is played from the first page to the last, and every answer is worked out again from the material on its own page. Every step has a key, a nudge first and the answer only if you ask for it, so nobody is left stranded.

What is real

The stories are fiction. They borrow real things, such as the way a noon sight is worked or the way a radio log is kept, and each room’s page says which parts are real and which are invented.

Free to try

Two of the rooms are free, so you can see what the locks are like before you buy one. See them all.

Contact

Write to latch.keys.play@gmail.com with a question, a problem, or a lock you think is wrong. Latchkeys is also on Instagram.