Escape Academy (HP)

A few general tips before we get to the puzzles:
- Use LB to run as much as possible!
- The rooms and their general layout is always the same, so familiarize yourself in
the first run to know where to go. The puzzles and their locations however are
random, so there is a bit of luck going into this achievement.
- You can pick up the object after solving a puzzle through the containers, if you
know where the item will be, so just spam A in the general location, where you
think the cards, keys etc. will be after solving a puzzle that rewards you an item
and mash B as soon as you picked up the item/s.
- In the same vein, it is useful to remember or write down certain aspects of puzzles
that never change. Examples would be the custom key solutions and the ballerina
moves.
- You can press X after using A to inspect the puzzle to see the puzzle rules, this can
help with figuring the puzzle out.
- If you can't remember a solution or symbols, you can pause the game to make
notes, time stops as long as the game is paused, you can't see the screen however,
so you have to look, pause and then write it down.
- Just spam A when going to a door to insert the keys/ cards/ sticks quickly.
- It may be a good idea to restart a run, if there are hard puzzles directly at the
beginning.

Edit: I was under the impression, that this needs to be done in Escape race. That was my mistake, so to make it easier do it in either Tic-Tac-Toe or Scavenger hunt. I personally think Tic-Tac-Toe is the quicker mode.
If you have a coop partner to boost this online that is the optimal way to do it, but even local coop is quicker, even though you have a smaller screen.
Additionally, always hit the power boxes in multiplayer, to get a chance of a master key/ usb stick or card.

***
This applies only to escape race:
As a note, I never changed the track, just so that I wouldn't need to get used to another layout, I'd suggest sticking to one layout. I always used the default, which in this case is "Dress for success".
The layout for this is as follows: You start in an outdoor area with a fountain in the middle and stairs leading up. In this area will be 2 puzzles you need to solve. The door is located up the stairs and to the left. The next room you come down some stairs and you'll see the door on the other side. This small area has one additional puzzle. After that you'll come to a library, with stairs on the left. Here you find another 3 puzzles that need solving. The soor is found on the second floor, after going up the stairs. You'll come into a room with electricity around you, follow the walkway to your right to the end to climb down a ladder. Down the ladder you need to solve 2 more puzzles in this room. Afterwards you come to a backstge area with some props, were you need to solve the last 2 puzzles to get into the dressing room and get the throphy.
***

Now on to the puzzles. I'll order them from easiest to hardest/ most time consuming in my opinion, you could very well find some of these a lot easier than I did.

Searching item puzzles: By far the easiest and most of the time quickest puzzles to complete.
- Guillotine puzzle:
Just find the blade and bring it to the guillotine. The card will spawn in the area of the head, just try to grab it as soon as you put the blade in, no need to wait for the animation to finish.
- Magic hat:
Find the Wand and bring it to the hat, simple as that.

- Box with numbers and a crank:
This is pretty much just a safe. Find a paper named Spinning Sequence, that shows you in which direction to turn the crank to which number. Just follow it to solve it. One tip I can give, which was a problem for me, just hold the stick to the left or right, don't try to follow the movement of the crank downwards or upwards, because that may lead to it changing directions and then the puzzle may not complete, making you start the sequence again.

-Wizard portrait with elemental symbols:
This puzzle consists of a wizard portrait and a red box. You need to click on the wizard, so that he showns you what the right combination for the box is. He will look in the direction of the symbols in the order they need to be input.

- Saw box puzzle:
For this you need to find a strange paper, which will show 4 numbers sideways and with a line going through them. The hint here is to "cut the numbers in half". So pretty simple, the numbers will always be even, just halve them, for example 2=1, 4=2 and so on. 0 will always just stay a 0. Input the code on the handle next to the saw to solve the puzzle. You can grab the card as soon as you solve it, by clicking around the middle of the two boxes that are being cut.

- Box with suite symbols:
This is just Sudoku, but really simple in a 4x4 and with symbols instead of numbers. The symbols on a black background can't be changed, so look for those to deduce, where the others need to be placed. So if you have no clue how to play Sudoku, you need to have only one type of symbol in each row and column (and the four squares, but really, you're good with just trying to get only one symbol in the rows and columns). So just start by looking for two of the same symbol with black background, look in which rows and colums the symbol can't fit because of these. See what remains, there should be a position in a row or column, that can be the only fit, because there are so many non changeable symbols already. You can take the key here through the door after solving it.

- Custom key and locked box puzzle:
So this puzzle contains three things, a box with a name on it (make note of it), a drill, with which you can make a key, and a book, that gives you the combinations for the keys. They will be a series of 5 numbers, corresponding to how deep you need to cut each segment of the key, starting from left to right. After having drilled the right depth for each segment you need to click the red handle on the left to grab the key. If you need to start over you can click the keys on the right side of the screen.
Since these combinations never change, I'll list them here, so you just need to look for the name you have and cut the key the correct way.
Phil: 4-2-4-4-2
Paige: 4-2-1-3-4
Russ: 5-3-2-4-3
Justin: 4-3-1-2-1
Robin: 2-3-2-4-5
Barb: 4-2-2-1-2
Ike: 4-2-1-3-2
Imma: 1-2-1-3-4
Sly: 4-2-1-2-3
Dev: 2-1-2-2-4

- Throwing knives puzzle:
This is a mannequin, bound to a wheel, the wheel has three colored rings with symbols. You need to press the symbols in the order shown under the cranks, but you can only spin the rings ten times and you can only press the symbols that are not blocked by the mannequin. This one is pretty easy, no need to be extremly strategic with it, just look where the symbol you need to press next is located and move it with the least possible moves. You get a highlight which rings will rotate how, when hovering over the cranks. Remember, that you can spin clockwise, when on the left of a handle and counterclockwise, when on the right of a handle. As you click more symbols, the only real advice I would give is, that you should just shuffle another inactive symbol when going for the next you need, since you always rotate 2 rings. So it makes sense to rotate inactive symbols away if one is present.

- Sword box puzzle:
So in this one you'll look top down on a box, that has 8 swords sticking out of the sides and a tunnel with 2 arrows is in the middle. You can press the arrows to slide the sword it points to out by one segment and the one on the other end of the tunnel will move in by one segment. You can use the handles that are to the upper left to move the tunnel clockwise and to the lower right to move it counterclockwise. Your goal is to move all the purple segments of the swords inside the box, so they aren't visible anymore. I'd just move in one direction, pushing in the purple sword on one side of the tunnel, at some point the puzzle will be solved by doing this, because you will always alternate th sword that will be pushed out.

- Fortune teller puzzle:
For this you first need to find the Dollar bill, somewhere in the area or get it from another puzzle. With this you go to the fortune teller machine and insert it, upon which you get a Fortune. Look at this to see a jumble of letters in three different fonts. I believe the order of the fonts is always the same. The first step is the bold letters, the second is the slim slightly curved letters and step three is the I'd say most normal looking font. When you decipher them they correspond to an item on the table that you need to find in the same room.on it will be 8 items, a grammophone, a bird (Raven), a bell, a whistle (flute), a flower (Rose), a box of matches (fire) a deck of cards and a teaset (kettle). The deciphered clues will just refer to one of these and tell you in which order to click them. For example one of the words you unscramble says Raven, that means to click the bird.
An important note here is, to let the animation of the object play out before clicking the next, because if you are too fast it will not register and you need to click them again.

- Ballerina puzzle:
So to start this you need to get the Wind up key. You will insert that into the side of the box in which you see a ballerina figure on strings. when clicking the key, she will cycle through 5 poses. You can repeat the sequence by clicking the key again. These poses refer to numbers which can be seen on a poster on the wall in the same room. You input the numbers underneath the figure. Here's a quick overview of the poses, I' suggest to concentrate on the arms:
First Position (1): Both arms down
Second Position (2): One arm to the left, the other to the right
Third position (3): One arm to the right, the other down
Fourth position (4): One arm to the left, the other up
Fifth position (5): Both arms up
Note: Left and right here refer to the direction you see when facing the ballerina figure, not to her left and right!

- Chest with colored cups puzzle:
First you need to find the cryptic clues, pin them on from your inventory with Y which gives you clues on how to position the items under the cups. This is what is usually known as an Einstein's riddle. Just place the items following the logic clues from the paper, nothing more to this. The only clue I can give here is to look for a definite clue first and work through it from there, for example something like "The flower only has one neighbor". That clue tells you that it has to be in one of the corners, you just need to find out which using the other clues. Sometimes the clues can be very straightforward, like "The ring is under a blue cup", if there is only one blue cup.

- Sliding block puzzle with ropes between them:
Really easy, but can be quite time consuming. You need to place the blocks to their corresponding symbols, but the ropes can not cross. Start by getting either the hat or hare in position and look which ropes go out from them. Slide the blocks that are connected to them in the next position and work your way along the rope until it is solved.

- Dice sphere puzzle:
Really annoying, I personally would restart if this comes at the beginning. To solve it you first need to find a paper that's named cryptic clues. On it it will say "Opposite sides?" followed by four symbols. You then need to get over to a die in a sphere. It always only shows three sides of the die, so you can never see the opposite you are looking for. The die will spin four dirfferent ways each time you click it, to cycle through, so it does not spin randomly. You need to watch the locations and directions of the symbols, to figure out their relation to each other on the cube. If you have difficulty with this, but need to solve it, it may be a good idea, to draw the die and pause to think about it. If you figure out three of the symbols you can brute force the puzzle by just cycling the last input until it solves. One clue I can give is, that if you figure one symbol out and it is the opposite of a symbol that you also need, you actually solved 2 symbols at once.

- Light reflection puzzle with multiple colors:
This is similiar to the light reflection puzzle in the tomb level, but on steroids. You need to split a green light beam into a yellow and blue one and guide them to the ends on the right. I unfortunately can not give any tips for this except to just restart. Never completed one of these. If anyone has useful tips for this, please tell them.

These should be all the puzzles encountered in the Showman's studio level. Please tell me if I forgot any and I welcome any feedback to improve this solution.