After surviving several harrowing trials in indie horror game The Tartarus Key, protagonist Alex finally obtains a Lion Key that allows her to open a previously locked door and attempt to rescue a captive named Ruth. Of course, this being The Tartarus Key, what is beyond that locked door is several entertainingly mind-bending puzzles. This guide will help Alex – and you! – solve the puzzles needed to save Ruth and get one step closer to solving the mystery of The Tartarus Key.
All Closet Puzzle Solutions
Head into the East Wing of the mansion’s lower floor and unlock the first door with a lion pattern that you come across. This will lead you into the Closet, a small, cramped space that is nonetheless filled with puzzles. Pick up the tape from the floor under the posters and use it on the plugs near the lockers.
Finally, turn on the blacklight next to the cleaning products.
Examine the keypad underneath the blacklight. Four numbers have fingerprints on them, with the darkest fingerprint representing the first number and the lightest the last. Put in the code 2940 to reveal a lock with five dials.
Read the note on the wall to receive the advice “Ignore all posters that are not of animals.” The five posters with animals on them are – from upper left to lower right right – Dream (spade) Escape (heart) Achieve (diamond) Trust (spade) and Hope (diamond). Enter that sequence into the dial lock to reveal a color-pad lock.
Once again, use the five animal posters – this time, the colors of the poster borders. The correct answers are: upper left square Blue, middle left square Yellow, middle square Yellow, bottom middle square Blue, bottom right square Yellow. This reveals one last lock, a rotating dial. Rotate the dials to form the shape of an arrow pointing upward, which will reward you with an Appointment Card.
After a cutscene, head down the hallway to the door with a slit in it. Insert the Appointment Card into the slit to enter the Clinic.
All Clinic Puzzle Solutions
After entering the room, you will need to pick up three model organs. They are found in the following locations:
- The stomach in the top desk drawer
- The lungs in the bottom drawer under the counter
- The liver in the cabinet under the counter
Let Alex follow her instincts and press the giant red button next to where you found the liver. The counter will slide aside to reveal a dial puzzle. Rotate the dials until all three red arrows are pointing up to reveal the heart. Then, place all four model organs into the empty anatomical model on top of the desk to receive the brain.
Place the brain into the empty yellow jar on the tall shelf. The brain will then turn into a skull. Attach the skull to the headless skeleton that has popped up behind you.
Finally, use the two posters on the wall as reference and position the skeleton’s limbs to match them. The correct pose (described from the skeleton’s point of view, NOT the player’s) is as follows:
- Face looking left
- Chest tilted left
- Left arm straight out
- Right arm raised up
- Right leg straight forward
- Left leg bent at the knee, pointed down
Once the skeleton is in position, the door will open. A cutscene will play in which Alex encounters the trapped Ruth and must find the antidote to the poison infecting her in the Exam Room
All Exam Room Puzzle Solutions
First, open the bottom-right desk drawer and pick up the needles. Then, pick up the bottles of chemicals on the shelves.
The poster on the wall suggests using a patient’s blood to synthesize an antidote to poison, so use the needles you picked up on Ruth to draw her blood. Unfortunately, you can’t make the antidote with blood alone – you need something to combine it with. Examine the bookshelves and choose to read the book about Dermatology, as the poison has manifested as a rash on Ruth’s skin.
The book reveals that you need a chemical called Tau to make the antidote. However, the chemicals you picked up are Alpha, Kappa, and Phi – so time to look around the room a little bit more to find a sample of Tau. Look lower down on the shelf where you found the Dermatology book to notice the scrapes. Examine the scrapes followed by the shelf itself and Alex will push the bookshelf aside to find a hidden room with – a dead body?
It’s a disturbing sight, but Alex has no time to consider who this person is or how they got there. Examine the body to find a Note and an Antidote. Return to the Exam Room and place the antidote in the Centrifuge to separate out the chemical Tau. You will also learn that the dead person made the antidote using Kappa, which was not correct. So the third ingredient must be either Phi or Alpha. Read the Note to see that the Alpha symbol is mentioned, meaning that Alpha is the correct answer.
Use the Beakers on the desk to make an antidote. Mix Alpha, Tau, and the needle of Ruth’s blood to create your Antidote. Check the composition of your Antidote CAREFULLY before giving it to Ruth! Saving Ruth is necessary to unlock either the Good or True ending of this game, and an incorrect antidote WILL cause Ruth to die from poison!
Finally, feed the antidote you mixed to Ruth. If you mixed it correctly, Ruth will wake up and rejoin the other survivors in the great room.
If you still have other survivors to rescue, you can check out GameLuster’s other guides for The Tartarus Key to learn how to save William, Charles, and Kai. Otherwise, it’s time for Alex and her new friends to attempt their daring escape from the mansion and bring The Tartarus Key’s puzzling mystery to an end at long last!
