Good question. I'm just about to have lunch. Give me an hour or two and I'll try to dig up some references for you.
The lock and key puzzles that you hinted at are just one of many, many different types of puzzles that you can use in a text adventure. If you're on the Discord server, send me a personal message telling me a bit about your game and I'll be able to offer some suggestions for puzzles that might work in your game.