One of the things that sets LEGO Dimensions apart from the other "toys to life" games is how it tries to make the figures, and the portal (or "toy pad") itself part of the game. At various sections in the game, you'll come across a blue, vase shape block which, when will make a keystone appear when whacked. Hit it again, and your portal will start glowing - although it isn't exactly always clear quite why it's glowing, what the icons mean, and what you actually have to do.
So, if you're wondering why your toy pad's glowing, and what you have to do to solve one of the game's tricky toy pad puzzles, never fear. We've put together a handy guide to each LEGO Dimension's toy pad puzzles/keystone types. Just use the handy menu below to jump to the section you need, and carry on your LEGO journey!
Toy Pad Keystone Puzzles
- Shift (toy pad: blue, pink and yellow)
- Chroma (toy pad: glows white - paint splodges appear in level)
- Elemental (toy pad: red, blue and green)
- Scale (toy pad: orange and green)
- Locate (toy pad: glows green, getting stronger or fading out as you move)
- Master Build (toy pad: pink)
- Red flashing enemy freeze traps (toy pad: one section flashes red)
- Ghostbusters RIP (toy pad: yellow and purple)
- Fantastic Beasts Bowtruckle Lock Pick (toy pad: sections light up green in sequence)
- Create (toy pad: red, blue and green. Introduced in Fantastic Beasts)
Shift
Portal glows: Pink, yellow and blue
Shift is basically LEGO Dimension's take on Portal's, er, portals. Whacking the Shift keystone (a collection of three circles - one pink, one yellow, one blue, with arrows joining them together) will open a collection of three portals in the LEGO Dimensions level, ready to transport you to previously inaccessible areas of the level, or even entirely different rooms and sub-sections altogether.
There's your choices. But which will you go through first?
To go through the portals, all you need to do is place your character on the section of the toy pad that matches the colour of the portal you want to travel through, and you'll be automatically sucked in. As you'd likely expect, the team at TT Games like hiding a lot of secrets in this way (and there are plenty of portal puzzles to be solved, too) - so be sure you try out all the portals each Shift keystone offers before moving on!
Handily, if you need to get back to where you started, there's always one portal that'll return you to the Shift switch - usually the pink one.
Chroma
Portal glows: White
The switch to get Chroma started
Chroma is perhaps the most complex of all the LEGO Dimensions toy pad puzzles. You'll know it when you see it, as you'll come across a keystone base connected to three pads, each of which has a splodge of paint hovering above it - one red, one blue and one yellow. However, there are a number of steps you'll need to follow to solve these conundrums.
First, you'll need to have a look around the level, until you find something that looks a little bit like a diagram of the toy pad base, only coloured in. These can be tricky to find, and are sometimes pretty well hidden - but they're also essential to completing the puzzle.
There's the hint in this level - just above the door
Once you've found the hint, it's time to get colouring. The idea here is to colour your toy pad in, in the same way as the hint you found, using a mixture of the hovering paint splodges, and your characters. So, if the hint says the left hand side of the toy pad needs to be blue, you'd run into the blue paint, and then plonk that character on the left hand side of the portal to colour it in.
If you have three characters, and only need the three primary colours, this is pretty easy. But Chroma puzzles aren't so always so simple. Some will ask you to mix colours together, making orange (yellow and red), purple (blue and red), or green (yellow and blue), which adds an extra layer of complexity - especially when you're having to try and figure out which characters are currently "carrying" the colours, so you don't accidentally colour in certain chunks of the toy pad base. The trick here is to remember that, if a section hasn't been coloured in, all you need to do is pick up a paint colour with a character that's standing on that section to fill it in - but if the section has already been coloured in, you can pick up any other colours with characters on that section, and it won't change its colour automatically - you'll need to pick the character up, and place it down again to have any affect, as the game assumes, by default, you don't want to mix colours.
While it may be a bit tricky to get to grips with at first, this is actually one of the most rewarding puzzle types in the game once you've got your head around its ins and outs!
Elemental
Portal glows: Red, blue and green
There's the elemental keystone
Elemental keystones aren't used all that often in game, but they're also one of the easiest puzzles to figure out. With a keystone that's got a lightning bolt on it, these puzzles make the toy pad glow red, blue and green, each corresponding to a different elemental power. As with scale, all you need to do is lift your character, and plonk them down on the chunk of the portal that's coloured to the power you want to give them.
The powers in action!
Red gives your character a heat shield, and lets them shoot flames; blue surrounds your character with a bubble of water, and lets you fire a jet of water (perfect for putting out fires); while green surrounds you with a maelstrom of leaves, and lets you shoot a collection of vines.
Scale
Portal glows: Green and orange.
The scale keystone in game
Scale has a keystone with one large circle, and one small circle, joined by dashed lines. When you see this keystone, it's a sign there's a growth-related puzzle around, which you'll need to solve by making your characters either big, or small.
We like to imagine this is an accurate portrayal of Wyldstyle and Voldermort's heights
Once you've activated the key stone, you'll notice one half of your portal will glow green, while the other will glow orange. If you plonk a character on the orange section, they'll shrink down to a miniscule size (letting them access secret passages and tunnels), while placing a character on the green section will make them grow to become a veritable LEGO giant - perfect for pushing heavy objects, or lifting tunnel pieces.
Large characters are mostly used for lifting tunnel pieces
We should note that simply having a character already on the section isn't enough to make them big or small - you'll need to lift them up, and plonk them down again to see them grow in game. If you need your character back to normal size, either place them in the white centre area, or deactivate the scale keystone by giving it a whack.
Locate
Portal glows: Green, getting brighter or lighter
Locate is one of the stranger abilities in LEGO Dimensions. With the keystone logo looking kind of like a compass with a few added extras, the idea here is to use the toy pad on a kind of treasure hunt, as you try to find a hidden item.
When the locate keystone has been activated, the toy pad will start to glow in a greeny colour. As you move your character around, it'll get either more, or less green, depending on whether you're going in the right direction. The stronger the shade of green the toy pad's glowing, the closer you're getting - although it's important to note that, in co-op, the toy pad only glows in relation to player one - player two can be doing whatever they want, and it won't change the colour of the toy pad.
You've got it! Now press circle to start grabbing it, then hammer it when the bar appears
When the toy pad starts to glow a really bright, strong green, it's time to look back at the screen, as you should see a small, glowing white object near by. Run up to it and interact with it, and you'll have the piece you're looking for.
Master Build
Portal glows: Pink
Master Build patches are another unusual feature. There's no key stone to watch out for with these - instead, you simply need to keep an eye out for areas that seem to be surrounded by pink sparkles (or a picture of Wyldstyle's head). When this happens, you'll need to place a character who's a master builder on the portal, and then interact with the spot in game (on PS4, you just press circle).
Once you've done that, the master build section will either complete automatically, or (more likely) one section of your portal will start to glow pink. All you need to do is place a master builder character on the glowing pink section of the portal, and they'll build an item in game. Some master builds only ask you to plonk your character on one section of the portal, while others will require you to go through all three in sequence, until your whole portal's glowing pink.
While there are a number of characters that are master builders, the easiest to use is probably the LEGO Movie's Wyldstyle, as she comes with every starter pack. However, there are a few others that can do it - Bad Cop, for some reason, is one of them (even though he's not a master builder), whilst Emmet, "the special", can't. Hmm.
Red flashing enemy freeze traps
Portal glows: Red (flashing)
Oh no, they got Newt!
By far one of the most irritating toy pad "powers", you'll sometimes find one section of your toy pad start flashing red, while on screen, your character will be caught in an energy ball, or something similar. This means that your character's stuck in the boss' trap - and the only way to free them from it is to move them off the flashing red chunk of the portal, and on to a different one. As soon as you do this, you can continue on your way.
Ghostbusters RIP
Portal glows: Yellow and pink
RIP in peace
A jumped up version of shift, and first introduced in the (girl) Ghostbusters Story Pack, the Ghostbusters RIP keystone is an interdimensional portal that lets you travel between worlds - although there's a bit of leg work you'll need to do first if you want to activate it.
To begin with, once you've whacked it, the keystone itself will become a kind of torch, which you can move with the left analogue stick - you'll need to use to scour the nearby vicinity, looking for the RIP symbol, which will be hidden nearby - a collection of three pink, yellow and white circles, all overlapping together, with arrows coming off them. Once you've found it, all you need to do is point the torch at it to open the portal. With the portals open, your toy pad will start glowing, with one half yellow, and the other half pink - plonking your character down again on either of the sides will teleport you through the portal.
Rather than just moving you to a slightly different part of the level, the Ghostbusters RIP keystone actually seems to move you between dimensions, teleporting you to completely different areas, where you'll need to solve a puzzle of some sort. Once solved, a number of parts will be sucked out of that dimension, and through the rip, back into the main level, letting you build something useful.
Fantastic Beasts Bowtruckle Lock Pick
Portal glows: Green, in sequence
An exclusive portal puzzle for Newt Scamander, these Bowtruckle Lock Pick puzzles are some of the most awkward in the game. Whether you're picking a giant padlock, or opening a locked door, the sequence is the same - all you need to do is step up to the lock, and interact with it, at which point Newt will send the Bowtruckle (a small, green stick insect type thing) in.
There it goes.
Time to get lock picking!
Once inside, it's up to you to get him to pick the lock. Presented with a corridor with three lock pins above it, it's up to you to move the Bowtruckle up to each one, at which point he'll lift it up. As soon as this happens, you'll want to watch either your portal, or the little toy pad icon that appears at the bottom of the screen (this is the easier way), and watch the order the panels light up in. This isn't about timing, it's about getting the order right - you'll need to pick Newt up, and touch him on the panels in the same order they flash. Touch him on all three in order, and you'll have picked that lock pin - pick all three, and you're in!
Create
Portal glows: Red, green and blue
There's the create symbol - all you've got to do is point the keystone torch at it
Another keystone/toy pad puzzle introduced in the Fantastic Beasts Story Pack, there's not really very much puzzling to be done with this one, although there is a little bit of set up required. Like the Ghostbusters RIP stone, you'll have to look for the Create symbol somewhere in the level, and use the keystone like a torch to highlight it (angling the torch with the left analogue stick).
Once you've done that, in the corner of the screen, you'll see a toy pad glowing red, blue and green. All you need to do is touch your character on the red, blue and green sections of the toy pad, in whichever order you want, and they'll create a creature in game. There's no right or wrong here, as all you really have to do is move your character from one section to the other - but apparently, you'll get a different result with different combinations.
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And that's your lot! With new expansions, and new keystones being added all the time, we'll do our best to keep this guide updated as soon as new puzzles are added. If there's anything missing, or anything that isn't as clear as it could be, please feel free to leave a note in the comments, and we'll do what we can to help you out!
