) and the launch of a demo version during the 2022 Steam Next Fest (store page here), the game released on May 17, 2024, for Nintendo Switch and PC.The game begins with a fox falling into a cave, and coming across a treasure hidden within: the titular Master Key, rusted due to age, and large enough to be swung as a sword. Using this tool to escape, but without any other motivation (at first), the fox is free to explore the land and discover new challenges to overcome.
On December 14, 2024, the developer announced that a sequel, Havenlocked, is in development, with a fundraising campaign of its own planned.
If you were instead trying to find examples of fictional keys that can open any door, please go to the Skeleton Key page.
This work uses the following Tropes:
- Ability Required to Proceed: In a typical Zelda-like fashion. Curiously, defeating the dungeon bosses is not actually required to get further in the game.
- Bad Guy Bar: There's a bar for the monsters hidden deep in the forest. Your appearance there causes a commotion.
- BFS: You can find a broken sword in a secluded spot. It's so big that, even with half the blade broken off, it's bigger than any other weapon (except of course the Reforged Blade).
- Blackout Basement: The northeast forest area and the Big Boo's Haunt within it.
- Bonus Dungeon: The Forge, which can only be reached by using the three gear pieces to repair the elevator in the city. The dungeon contains the upgrades for the balloon and armor.
- Cash Gate: Most items and abilities need to be bought at various stores. Picking up money also restores your health.
- Cool Key: The titular Master Key, which is large enough for the protagonist to wield it as a weapon.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The game has a two-tone color palette, defaulting to black and white, but the player can change it to two contrasting colors/shades in the game's settings.
- Escort Mission: There's a potion maker who needs mushrooms to make potions. However, rather than carrying the mushrooms in your inventory, you must escort the mushrooms from their starting areas to the potion shop. If the mushroom is hit by an enemy attack or falls into water, it is lost and you have to return to get a new one.
- Flunky Boss: The final boss occasionally spits out some late-game mobs.
- Grid Puzzle: A bonus feature accessible from the main menu is a series of nonogram puzzles, with the solutions recreating the various sprites of the game.
- Heart Container: Health extensions, in the form of little fox faces, can be collected by defeating bosses or finding hidden treasure chests.
- Interface Spoiler: the game's key art, visible e.g. in the Steam library page, reveals that there are airship-riding pirates in the game.
- Pictorial Speech-Bubble: All text is depicted this way, from character dialogue to menu options, with one exception: a "Thank you for playing our demo!!" for beating the demo version.
- Reforged Blade: The broken BFS can be repaired if you bring it to the dwarves' forge after all six of them have returned there.
- Shout-Out: One secret area has a sword in a stone; it drains your health as you try to pull it out, requiring a sizable number of Heart Containers to succeed, just like the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Unfortunately, this sword turns out to be tiny and useless, so the disappointed fox just throws it away.
- Timed Mission: There are multiple slumbering dwarves around the game world. You can buy hot coffee in the town, then you have 60 seconds to deliver it to them before it expires.
- Victory Fakeout: Inverted. The Sky Pirate captain returns, smashes the final boss's skull with an anchor, and steals the Artifact of Doom. He's a total pushover however, and goes down after only a few hits.