A key is an item used to open designated locked doors or switches.

Contents 1 Description 2 Enhancements 3 Data 4 Appearance statistics 5 Doom RPG 6 See also 7 External links

Description Edit

There are two types of key: electronic keycards, and skull keys which resemble glowing monochrome skulls. If the player encounters a locked door and attempts to open it without the correct key, the door will not open (and the player will receive a message to that effect). Once a key is obtained, any locked door of the corresponding color on the map can be opened. All keys are lost upon exiting a map.

Multiple keys of a given color may be picked up in the same level; the status bar will display whichever type was last taken. Doors in vanilla Doom are affected identically by keycards and skull keys. In stock maps, as a cosmetic guideline, a bar of coloured lights surround a locked door when keycards are used, while a column of coloured skulls are used for skull keys. (However, this is occasionally violated, such as in E2M3: Refinery which had keycard pickups but skull doorframes.)

In multiplayer deathmatch games, all keys are removed from each map, and players spawn carrying all keys.

Enhancements Edit

• Ultimate Doom and Final Doom introduced "locked" switches, which cannot be activated without a key of the appropriate color. The feature, however, was limited only to buttons that open fast doors permanently. Such switches were already supported in Doom II but the level designers never used them in the game.

• Boom introduced door types that require the key to be of the right type and not just the right color. Such doors are supported in most source ports.

• Certain source ports also allow the use of locked doors requiring multiple keys, a situation sometimes approximated in the original games by placing several locked doors in front of each other (e.g. E2M6: Halls of the Damned). Another notable example of this phenomenon appears in MAP29: For We Are Many of Community Chest 3: the door to the level exit has all three skull key indicators flanking it, and the message, "You need all three keys to open this door," will appear if a player who does not possess all three keys tries to open the door.

• Doom 64 introduced a key-activated, or "locked", tripwire in MAP30: The Lair; the player needs to be in possession of the yellow key and pass through the tripwire in order to lower a switch on the wall. If the player does not possess the key the switch will not lower, the Marine will "Mmmph!" and the line "You Need The Yellow Key" will appear on the top of the screen.

DataEdit

Blue keycard data
Thing type	5 (decimal), 5 (hex)
Appears in	Shareware Doom Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	BKEY
Class	Key Pickup

Red keycard data
Thing type	13 (decimal), D (hex)
Appears in	Shareware Doom Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	RKEY
Class	Key Pickup

Yellow keycard data
Thing type	6 (decimal), 6 (hex)
Appears in	Shareware Doom Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	YKEY
Class	Key Pickup

Blue skull key data
Thing type	40 (decimal), 28 (hex)
Appears in	Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	BSKU
Class	Key Pickup

Red skull key data
Thing type	38 (decimal), 26 (hex)
Appears in	Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	RSKU
Class	Key Pickup

Yellow skull key data
Thing type	39 (decimal), 27 (hex)
Appears in	Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	YSKU
Class	Key Pickup

Appearance statistics Edit

The IWADs contain the following numbers of keys:

Blue keycard

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	11	11	11
Doom II	14	14	14
TNT: Evilution	17	17	17
Plutonia	11	11	11

Red keycard

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	7	7	7
Doom II	11	11	11
TNT: Evilution	18	18	18
Plutonia	7	7	7

Yellow keycard

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	9	9	9
Doom II	9	9	9
TNT: Evilution	14	14	14
Plutonia	8	8	8

Blue skull key

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	15	15	15
Doom II	8	8	8
TNT: Evilution	8	8	8
Plutonia	11	11	11

Red skull key

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	12	12	12
Doom II	8	8	8
TNT: Evilution	10	10	10
Plutonia	12	12	12

Yellow skull key

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	11	11	11
Doom II	8	8	8
TNT: Evilution	8	8	8
Plutonia	14	14	14

Doom RPG Edit

Keycards appear in Doom RPG, but skull keys do not.

See also Edit

• Hexen keys
• Strife keys
• Monsters open locked doors

External links Edit

• The Doom II Key FAQ, at doom2.net
• Doom RPG FAQ by Tony8669, at gamefaqs.com

Items from Doom and Doom II
Health	Health bonus • Stimpack • Medikit • Supercharge
Armor	Armor bonus • Armor • Megaarmor
Powerups	Backpack • Berserk • Computer area map • Invulnerability • Light amplification visor • Megasphere • Partial invisibility • Radiation shielding suit
Keys	Keycard • Skull key
Weapons	Fist • Chainsaw • Pistol • Shotgun • Super shotgun • Chaingun • Rocket launcher • Plasma gun • BFG9000
Ammo	Clip • 4 shotgun shells • Rocket • Energy cell • Box of bullets • Box of shells • Box of rockets • Energy cell pack