Big Walk Towers & Control Panels — Key Route

Big Walk's tower loop is easier to understand once the group separates three different objects: red challenge pieces, a tower's golden key, and the destination lock that the shaped key finally opens.

The tower loop in one minute

1. Complete cooperative challenges to earn red control-panel pieces.
2. Carry five pieces to a later tower's panel.
3. Install them to release the golden key from the back of that panel.
4. Take the oversized key to the first cutter beside the tower door.
5. After each cut, wait for the machine to expose an arrow and follow it to the next cutter.
6. After five cuts, use the shaped key at that tower's linked destination.

The opening beach panel is the exception: it needs four pieces from the four fixed challenges that are reachable before the Crosswalk. Once the bridge is down, later panels can use pieces earned from challenges outside the five closest to that tower.

Tower and destination quick reference

These readings help identify the correct mountain or structure. The individual puzzle pages provide the nearby challenge coordinates and visual cues.

Which tower should you do first?

After the Crosswalk, the island is open enough that the tower order is not a single mandatory sequence. A practical first-play route is:

1. Red Tower first: the portable map and compass make every later journey easier to coordinate.
2. Blue Tower next: moving trains create recurring pickup points across longer distances.
3. Green Tower after that: the chairlift opens a high travel connection and helps reach elevated routes.
4. Yellow Tower later: its tunnel leads toward spoiler-sensitive progress, so finish any desired exploration before entering.

If your group naturally reaches a different tower, you do not need to abandon the area. Complete nearby challenges and spend their pieces at the panel that solves the route problem you currently have.

Install pieces without losing the group

• Put one player in charge of carried pieces and another in charge of reading the panel state.
• Bags let a carrier keep an item on their back or hip, but friends can still interact with it; confirm who owns which piece before leaving a puzzle.
• Count the filled panel slots before walking away. In a 3- or 4+-player world, puzzle inputs may differ, but later tower panels still visibly show whether enough rewards have been installed.
• If the key does not release, search the immediate ground for a dropped piece and recheck that each panel slot is occupied.

Follow cutter arrows, not compass guesses

The golden key is too large when it first leaves a panel. Every cutter changes its shape and then exposes an arrow. Wait until that moving top has fully settled; the revealed direction is the game's intended handoff.

At night, leave a lantern beside a cutter only after using it. That creates a visible trail of completed machines without confusing an uncut stop for the next target.

If the group loses the route:

1. return to the most recently used cutter;
2. look at its exposed arrow again;
3. send one scout in that direction while the key carrier waits;
4. move the key only after the scout finds the next machine.

Do not carry a tower key to the wrong lock

Tower colour identifies where the key originated, but the destination can be below or away from that tower. Use the table above and the final cutter arrow. The Red key belongs at the Map Room, Blue at the main train station, Green at the chairlift station, and Yellow at the Yellow Tunnel.

When the destination activates, pause before splitting up. Set a reunion point at the station, tower, or tunnel entrance so players who missed the activation know where the group will be.