Gothic Lock Breaker

An edge-safe solver for the Gothic 1 Remake lockpicking puzzle

Stop snapping picks on the Old Camp tower door. Map the lock, hit Break the Lock, and get the exact run of turns that seats every pin in the notch — without ever grinding one against the frame.

Open the solver →

             

Current release: v1.14.3 — see CHANGELOG.md for what changed.

Localized links for press and communities: German (?lang=de) · Polish (?lang=pl)

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Why this exists

The Gothic 1 Remake lockpicking minigame is a slider puzzle: each plate's pin must end at the center hole, but the plates are wired together so moving one drags others along. The trap is the wall — force a pin past the edge and your pick takes damage, then breaks.

Most "solver" tools just tell you the net number of turns per plate. That answer is useless in practice, because executing it in the wrong order drives a pin into the edge halfway through and snaps your pick. This one never does that. It searches the real state space and only ever returns moves that keep every pin in range. The UI stays compact — three sections, visual mapper, built-in guide — so beginners are not fighting a spreadsheet.

You get a numbered run of turns and a step-through board. Pins against the frame glow red; pins one nudge away glow amber — on the tumbler cards and in the walkthrough — so you can watch the sequence stay clear of every wall as you go.

Garbage in, garbage out: the solver is only as good as the couplings you feed it. If a step doesn't match the game, a link on one of the lock cards is wrong — re-check that lock. Training with Fingers does not change how plates move; tap Something off? in the walkthrough for a checklist. At Master, set picks snapped and tap Gone beside dropped couplings.

Mastery vs solver

Tier	Mistakes	On pick break	Solver impact
Untrained	2	Lock resets	Edge-safe BFS on your mapped couplings
Trained	4	Progress kept	Same plate physics — more room for mistakes in-game
Master	6	One link removed per snap	Set picks snapped, tap gone links on tumbler cards

The BFS never asks you to grind a pin past the wall. Mastery only changes how many wall mistakes you can afford in-game and (at Master) which couplings still exist after a break.

How it works

• Every pin sits in one of seven holes (1–7) on its plate. The lock opens when all pins reach hole 4 (the center notch). Holes 1 and 7 are the walls.
• Turning a lock one notch also turns its coupled locks one notch — With (same way) or Against (opposite way). On each lock's card, Turning this moves lists every other lock that reacts when you turn that one. Coupling is directional, so turning lock A can move B even if turning B does nothing to A.
• The solver runs a breadth-first search over the bounded state space and discards any turn that would grind a coupled pin past ±3. You get the shortest fully-safe sequence, or an honest "no clean path from here" if one truly doesn't exist.

State space tops out at 7^7 ≈ 820,000 states, so it solves instantly.

Using it

1. The Lock — choose your lockpicking tier (Untrained / Trained / Master), how many locks the mechanism has (4–7; defaults to 6), and at Master how many picks you've snapped on this lock so you can mark dropped couplings on the tumbler cards. Once you change the setup, Wipe lock (trash icon) clears couplings, mastery, and returns the count to 6 — with a confirm prompt.
2. Tumblers — for each lock (numbered 1 front through N back), mark its start hole and which other locks move when you turn it: · none, With same way, Against opposite.
3. Break the Lock — read the focus card, then Next to walk the sequence one turn at a time. Each lock row shows a read-only 7-hole groove (like the tumbler cards). After a solve with steps, a Share lock banner copies the URL for the current lock. Minimize collapses the panel to a compact bar; Clear (eraser) drops the solved sequence. Open Show all N steps for the full list.

Your lock is saved locally and encoded in the page URL, so you can bookmark a tricky lock or paste the copied link to a friend. The footer shows the running version and links to the changelog.

Running locally

Plain static files — no build step. Run make install once for the local dev server. The page loads Cinzel from Google Fonts; everything else is self-contained.

make install        # first time only
make serve          # http://localhost:8000
make test
make check-version

Override the port with make serve PORT=3000. Run make with no args to list targets.

Architecture

Native ES modules. app.js is the composition root; store, solver, and view stay pure and all depend on domain:

File	Responsibility
src/domain.js	Constants (POS_MIN/MAX, CENTER, LINK, DIR, MASTERY) and pure helpers including effectiveMatrix(). No DOM, no storage.
src/solver.js	Pure solve() BFS + statesAlong(). Depends only on the domain.
src/store.js	Single source of truth for the lock; persistence (localStorage + URL hash) hidden inside. Depends only on the domain.
src/view.js	Pure state -> DOM rendering; handlers injected. Reads domain constants; no store access.
src/app.js	Composition root: bootstraps i18n, composes controllers, subscribes store to renderer.
src/ui-prefs.js	UI flag persistence (banners, visit marker, locale suggest dismiss).
src/solve-controller.js	Solve session, walkthrough, share/hash banners, solve coachmark deferral.
src/lock-controller.js	Lock mutation handlers; invalidates solve session on change.
src/locale-chrome-controller.js	Locale suggest, i18n banner, geo hint, footer/header chrome.
src/app-renderer.js	Lock panel render loop (controls, tumblers, solve button, solution area).
src/analytics/	Product analytics facade; PostHog wired only in transport.js, init in index.html.
src/version.js	Release version and changelog URL for the footer badge.
index.html, styles.css	Shell and theme.

Analytics

Production builds send anonymous usage data to PostHog EU (hosted in the EU). We do not collect accounts, names, or personal information. Autocapture, session replay, web vitals, heatmaps, surveys, and rageclick/dead-click capture are disabled. Each session sends one SDK $pageview on load (plus a 45s visibility ping so Web Analytics Live stays accurate during long solves), explicit custom events (landing with referrer/UTM, mapping milestones, solve funnel, walkthrough summary, tutor/onboarding, share, guide, lock wipe, i18n), and registers initial_locale / locale session props. Geo country (for locale suggest) is enriched server-side from IP — no lock couplings, pin positions, or URL hash are sent. Analytics is disabled on localhost and 127.0.0.1 during local development.

Deploy your own

1. Push to main.
2. Settings → Pages → Build and deployment: source Deploy from a branch, branch main, folder / (root).
3. Default URL: https://<your-user>.github.io/<repo>/.
4. Optional custom domain: add a root CNAME file, set Custom domain in Pages settings, and point DNS (A records to GitHub Pages IPs for apex, CNAME www to <user>.github.io). Live site: gothiclockbreaker.com.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Copyright (c) 2026 Stanislav Stepanenko (Dsazz).

Credits

A fan-made helper for the Gothic 1 Remake by Alkimia Interactive. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the developers or publisher. All artwork here is original and themed, not taken from the game.