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After becoming a fully-fledged student of the Escape Academy, it's time to flex your skills and learn how things work around here. Under Pressure is one of the first two levels you can take on after enrollment and it's possibly the tensest mission in the entire game.

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This mission throws a lot at you. Power cuts, a rising water level, variable time limits, and a whole lotta passwords. Hope you've got a pad and paper with you, because you'll be under a lot of pressure to remember everything you can about this level!

Escape Academy Under Pressure Objective

First Floor Password

Escape Academy Under Pressure First Level

First thing's first, open the briefcase on your left and pick up the Small Key within. Looks quite large for a small key, huh?

Use the Small Key to unlock the padlock that's holding the cabinet on the wall shut tight. Inside, you'll find a power switch. Flip the switch to turn the lights out and then look around - looks like there's some glow-in-the-dark paint to contend with in this level.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Switch and Glowing Paint

You'll see a glowing handprint in the corner of the room. Head on over and interact with it - you'll reveal a secret compartment containing a toolbox. You'll pick up Clippers, a Hammer, and a Screwdriver. Remember that you have these.

Don't worry about your timer being incredibly short. As you reach new floors in this level, you'll get more time added on.

With the lights on or off, use the Hammer to remove the wooden plank from the board to the right of the switch. With the lights off, you'll reveal the word 'FEAR' glows brightly in the dark.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Fear and Passcode Entry

Make sure the power is turned back on (and the lights are on) and interact with the password-protected door. Each button has some letters on it, and you'll have to press them to spell a word - in this case, fear. Press the following buttons in this order:

def

def

abc

pqr

The door will open and you can climb up to level two.

Second Floor Password

Escape Academy Under Pressure Blue Valve

Once you reach the second floor, a few more minutes will be added to your timer, so breathe.

On this floor, you need to do two things:

  • Find and attach the Blue Valve Handle to the middle slot on the metal door.
  • Turn the valves to solve the number puzzle.

Examine the rope without a padlock attached to find the Blue Valve Handle. Use the Clippers from the first floor to get the item and then place it on the door.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Colored Valves

With that complete, you must solve the simple numbers puzzle by turning the valves and following the rules that you can find around the room:

  • Blue's number is between red and yellow's numbers.
  • Yellow's number is odd.
  • None of the numbers are five.
  • Red's number is double that of yellow's.

We can figure out that yellow's valve should be set to three and red should be set to six. Yellow is odd but red is double yellow. As the highest number a valve can be set to is six and there can't be a number between one and two, this is the only solution. Then, as we know the middle valve cannot be five, it must be four.

  • Yellow = 3
  • Blue = 4
  • Red = 6

Inside, interact with the winch to pull up a Rusty Key. Take it and use it to grab the Handicam from the other rope that reaches the ceiling. Now, return to the winch and attach the Handicam to the hook. Spin the wheel to make the hook dive back down, and then head back to the main part of the room. Turn to the right to see the TV, which now has the word 'WILL' on it. Use this code to solve the password-protected door.

vwx

ghi

jkl

jkl

Third Floor Password

Escape Academy Under Pressure Acrylic Sheets

This floor is very cluttered, so follow the directions below closely.

  • From the very start of this floor, pick up the Acrylic Sheet from the wall on the right. It's the blue sheet on the first of three boards.
  • Lift the lid on the right-hand toilet and pick up the Safe Manual inside.
  • Walk back and then head further into the room. Pick up a second Acrylic Sheet from the orange sofa on the right.
  • Turn around and take a third Acrylic Sheet from the cardboard box that is on its side.
  • Move all the way around the table to reach the safe.

At this point of the level, you're tasked with working out the code to the safe. You have instructions for different versions of the safe, but not this one.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Safe Cracked

Open your inventory and Pin the Opening Instructions to your screen. This will make it far easier to see what you have to do.

The solution is quite simple:

  • Each time the Mk. of the safe increases by one, the order of actions you must take moves one space to the left, with the leftmost action (the first in the sequence) becoming the new rightmost action (the last in the sequence).
  • The safe in this level is a Mk. 5.

Thusly, you can work out that to unlock the safe, you must do the following:

  • Push the circle button twice.
  • Push the square button.
  • Spin the star-shaped lever.
  • Push the square button a second time.

The safe will open and you'll find a Switch Lever inside. The power box is locked, however, and you need a code. To find the code, you'll need to arrange the Acrylic Sheets on the poster boards near the entrance to the level in the correct order, making a numerical code. From left to right, place the following Acrylic Sheets in order:

  • The Acrylic Sheet with two lines.
  • The Acrylic Sheet with one line.
  • The Acrylic Sheet with three lines.
Escape Academy Under Pressure Sheets saying 510

You'll see that the boards now have the number 510 on them. This is the code that you'll need to use on the code lock. Once open, slot the Switch Handle in and turn off the lights. Turn around to notice a glowing 'W' next to the poster boards.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Sheets saying Slow

What once read as 510 now reads as 'SLOW.' As you might expect, this is your newest password.

stu

jkl

mno

vxw

Fourth Floor Password

Escape Academy Under Pressure Cluttered Desk

This floor is a bit simpler than the previous one, don't let the sped-up music and the red lighting fool you.

The first thing you need to do is pick up the two Strange Devices from the cluttered table ahead of you. Then, pick up the Cipher Sheet behind you and pin it for ease of reference.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Cipher Sheet

You'll notice four words on the walls written in blank paint. They seem like nonsense, but that's why you have the Cipher Sheet. With that, HAQRE CERFFHER becomes UNDER PRESSURE and BIRE JRVTUG becomes OVER WEIGHT.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Mysterious Device Slot

With these in mind, take a look at the various boxes on the walls. All of them are attached to named, fluctuating meters. What you need to do now is open the boxes attached to the Water Pressure and Water Weight dials. To do this, use the Screwdriver you picked up on the first level.

  • In the Water Pressure box, place a Strange Device in the bottom slot. The letters 'UR' will show up.
  • In the Water Weight box, place a Strange Device in the top slot. The letters 'YO' will show up.

Put those two smaller codes together and you get the word 'YOUR.' This is this floor's password.

yz

mno

stu

pqr

Fifth Floor Password

Escape Academy Under Pressure Broken Crate

This one can get a little involved. Now is a great time to pause for a moment and grab a pen and paper, it's better than trying to remember everything you need to.

Firstly, examine the crate in the middle of the floor. It's marked 'fragile' - use the Hammer to smash it open and retrieve an Old Map. This will be used later.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Electrical Pipes and overflowing water

Flip the switch on the wall and start following the power pipes. They'll lead to junctions that you can rotate to power other sections of the system, and boxes of four lights that, when powered, show a word. Your goal here is to power the boxes that have small triangles in one of their corners. Every time you do so, make a note of the word and where the triangle is placed.

Box

Triangle Position

Word

1

Bottom-Right

M

O

V

E

2

Top-Right

B

E

N

D

3

Top-Left

F

I

R

E

4

Bottom-Left

K

I

N

D

With all of these noted down, examine the Old Map again. It has four boxes on it, each with a small triangle in it. Familiar, no? This level's password is made up of the letters represented in the old map, in the order they're given by the numbers on the map itself. For example, the first letter of the password is the letter in the top-left square of the box with the triangle in the bottom-right corner. Got all that?

The password turns out to be 'MIND' - we've bolded where the letters come from in the table above.

mno

ghi

mno

def

What Is The Moral?

Escape Academy Under Pressure Moral Machine

There is one final puzzle to tackle in this level - the moral of the story. On the top floor is a console. Interacting with it reveals that you need to enter five words from a selection given to you by selecting words with the arrow buttons and using the refresh icon to swap words. Hope you wrote down all those passwords!

Just kidding. You could just scroll up. Or read the sentence below.

The moral is 'FEAR WILL SLOW YOUR MIND.' Hit the padlock button and retreat to safety. Poor Jeb, he must be traumatized.

Escape Academy Under Pressure Solution to the moral machine puzzle

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