Escape Academy

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.

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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 "Anchors Away".
The layout for this is as follows: You start in a long room with 3 puzzles, after solving these you go through a gate after the stairs part on the left. After going through the gate you walk up some stairs and end up in small room, this area after the gate has 3 puzzles to solve. After these you come out to the roof where 2 more puzzles wait, before you can take the lift on the far opposite side of the door you entered. The exiting out here can be finicky, you should ignore the A button prompt, just press B to exit the lift reliably. You can also mash B on the way down to exit as soon as you reach the bottom. When exiting out of the lift you'll be at a boardwalk with the last 3 puzzles, which in my experience, always includes a locker, the key for which you get from one of the other 2 puzzles. Afterwards you can enter the door under the stairs you came down to find the throphy in the room.
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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.
- Locker:
Just find the key to open it. I only ever got the key from another puzzle.
- Locker (Rotation lock):
Sometimes in the last area you'll find a piece of paper instead of a key, just follow the instructions on the paper turning clockwise and counterclockwise to the corresponding numbers.

- Crab walk:
This looks like a DanceDanceRevolution cabinet. You need to input 4 directions. There are three stages to this. The first stage you just press the buttons as you see them. In the second stage the inputs are mirrored, so think left=right and vice versa. For the third stage it's mirrored and flipped upside down, so additionally to the second stage you also think up=down and vice versa.
All in all quick and easy, once you get the hang of it.

- Two PC Monitors:
This puzzle is really simple, you have a bunch of blocks on both monitors, the upper one shows the correct image. You need to compare this to the lower monitor and click all blocks that do not match the upper one, basically it's just a find the difference game.

- Vending machine puzzle:
This is pretty much the Sudoku variant of this level. You first need to find some spare change laying in the same area, then go to the vending machine and insert it. You need to find the letter and number of the present. So for example if there is A3 and C2 in the same row or column as the present, that means the present can't have either an A, C, a 2 or 3. That's the way you have to deduce the letter and number combination. The lines on the vending machine separate it into 4 squares, if there are numbers and letters in the same square as the present, these can not be used in the solution either.

- Music sequence puzzle:
You'll see a box and beside it a board with buttons that are colored red, blue, yellow and green. You first need to find sheet music in the same area. Pin it beside the puzzle from your inventory with Y. You'll see a sequence of notes with the same colors. All you need to do is find this sequence somewhere on the board. It doesn't matter where you start and finish it, just make a path with the same colors.

- Thermal camera pin puzzle:
There will be a machine resembling an ATM if you encounter this puzzle. First you need to find the thermal camera that's laying about in the same room. You install the camera on the tripod infront of the machine. When looking through the camera you will see spots in different sizes over the number pad. This gives you the code, starting with the smallest spot and continuing to get bigger to get the 4 digit pin. Type that into the keypad and the puzzle is solved.

- Clam tank puzzle:
This is just an aquarium with a single clamp in it, note the color. Above it is a PC, with five entries, all of them different colored clams. look for the one you have. They have three values, pH, Salinity and Temperature. You need to figure out what perimeteres your clam needs. One of these values is always told to you in their document. you really only need to figure out one of the two other values, they are told to you by adding or subtracting from other clams. For example you have the surf clam. It has a pH of 7, Salinity is more difficult to figure out, so I would skip that, the temperature it says is 5 degrees warmer than the scalloped clam. If we look in their document it says it's 10 degrees cooler than the grumpy clam and the grumpy clam says the temperature is 65 degree. That means our surf clam has a tempreature of 65 - 10 +5 = 60 degree. To the right of the tank are the controls, so I turn pH to 7, temperature to 60 degrees and then just turn salinity until the puzzle completes, which in this case was 40 %. This is also a puzzle were it would be good to make notes, since the clam values never change.
Here's a cheat sheet:
Briny: pH= 9, SAL= 80%, Temp= 75
Grumpy: pH= 4, SAL= 20%, Temp= 65
Scalloped: pH= 6, SAL= 60%, Temp= 55
Sulfur: pH= 8, SAL= 70%, Temp= 80
Surf: pH= 7, SAL= 30 %, Temp= 60

- TV screens puzzle:
You may encounter a wall of TVs. First you need to get the remote, to turn them on. You'll see parts of a picture that you'll also see on a smaller tiled square between the TVs. Your job is to turn these tiles to the same color the part shows on the TV screen.

- Cipher puzzle:
So first you need the login sheet that you can find somewhere in the room, with that you go to the PC, it will have two documents to access. A cipher, which you should take note of and a login screen that says user followed by a number, the same you can find on the login sheet, so look which letters are on the login sheet next to the user number the PC shows and using the cipher unscramble it. It can help to pin the login sheet and open the cipher, to quickly see what correct letters are. The unscrambled word will be an animal noise and you have to type in the animal to login to the PC and solve the riddle. For example you unscramble woof, then the login would be dog. The cipher seems to never change, just switching A with N, B with O, C with P and so on. The answers also don't change, so I'll just give you a little cheat sheet here:
BVAX = Pig
JBBS JBBS = Dog
ZBB = Cow
ZRBJ = Cat
PBPX-N-QBBQYR-QBB = Rooster
DHNPX DHNPX = Duck

- Server setup puzzle:
First you need to find the server setup paper, pin it on from your inventory with Y which gives you clues on how to position the colored numbers. 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 "There are no even numbers in the danger zone". That clue tells you that in the three spots on the right two are evens. Sometimes the clues can be very straightforward, but in this puzzle they are mostly like the one mentioned.

- Links puzzle:
You may see something that looks like a computer that asks you to count links between some symbols. But before you can do that you need to break the case next to it with a screwdriver, which either lies in the same area or you get from another puzzle. After breaking it open you just look for the symbols and follow the tubes coming out of it to the second symbol that is shown. Count them put them in the display, nothing more to it. Just be careful when counting, the tubes can make weird paths, which can get confusing. A great way to save some time is as soon as you got the first two inputs, just cycle the third to complete the puzzle without needing to count the third links. If it won't complete, one of your first two numbers is wrong.

- Math cube:
This looks like a monolith, above it is a display where you can type in numbers. You start from the key, going through the labyrinth and making da math. It's not too hard, the math is not to complex and shouldn't be a huge problem. If all else fails, you can pause and use a calculator on each step of the way, if you don't want to concentrate on solving the maze and the calculations.

- Letter plates on the wall and car battery:
You may notice signs on the wall saying "Both Q & V" or "Not B". If that is the case you need to find a jumper cable, which can either be laying in the area, or be awarded by another puzzle. As soon as you get it, you can use it on the car battery, to open it, after which it reveals some switches, that can be toggled to either left or right, having a letter on either side. That's where the signs come into play. Combine all the signs you saw to figure out how to toggle the buttons, you can brute force this a little, if you only miss like one sign. This puzzle can be extremly annoying on the stairs, but extremly easy on the roof. I'd suggest noting down each sign you see, as soon as you pass by them, as to not having to run back and forth wasting time.

- Paint sorting puzzle:
There are three tubes with blue, pink and green color paint. Under it are three valves, which can be used to transfer the colors. The bottom color is always the first to be transfered. The color of the taps under the tanks show where the colors need to go. The pipes on the bottom show you, which tanks will transfer the color between them. This puzzle can get pretty annoying depending on the layout.

- Cash register and can puzzle:
You'll find a cash register beside a shopping cart if you run into this puzzle. In the same area will be three baskets with some cans showing a total to pay for the items. You need to figure out how much each of the three cans costs per piece and then total the sum of the items in the shopping cart and put that in the register to solve this. So first you should find one of the baskets with the same can. For example you have two Fishemite with a total of 5 dollars. That means one costs 2,50. Then you come to another basket with one Fishemite and two Dynafish totaling 8.50, reducing that by the 2,50 we figured out it leaves 6, so one Dynafish comes out to 3 dollar. That being said, this puzzle is not extremly hard, but one of the most time consuming puzzles there are, definitly recommend to skip this, if it comes up at the beginning.

- Fish safe:
If you see a safe, RUN, run to the menu to restart the run. This is probably the most annoying puzzle in this update. The safe will have a wheel with 3 discs, underneath there will be some jibberish. Turns out that is a combinating of what I assume are latin names of some fish, which posters of you can find in the same area. You have to remember the latin, look what part corresponds to what fish, remember how that part looks and then rotate the discs to these parts. For example the safe says "Anguilla Alaliata". Anguilla is part of the eel, so that's what the head needs to be, Alal corresponds to the Albacore, so that is the middle part and the iata part is a sea bass. Like I said, long, annoying, I just hope you will not encounter this in a run.

Thanks to ManicMetalhead for the solutions to these 2 puzzles I didn't encounter while writing the solution:

- Tsunami Arcade Game
Is just a matter of spinning pictures puzzle pieces into an image that makes sense. You don't get to see it beforehand, so it's a bit of common sense, but it usually shows an anime character ready to start a BBQ (it's been the same image each time, I got a screenshot of it).
https://imgur.com/68dWUhO
The twist is that there's a timer just to the right of the image. When that hits zero, a random 3-4 of the puzzle pieces will spin out of orientation, so you just have to put them back.
Overall not too hard tbh.

- Ice-cream puzzle
For the ice-cream one, it's a maths puzzle, There's a large chest freezer with 3 post-it notes on the side. They'll say something like; "The first digit is four times the third", "The second digit is prime", "The third digit is two less than the second"
The code can only be 3 digits long, so you just have to work out what the numbers are. The answer for this one above is "431".

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

Thanks to x1001x Puppys for these additional tips:

Vending Machine Puzzle: If you fail to guess correctly, the cooldown gets longer and longer. Recommend not trying to brute force this and actually solve it, which kinda sucks for those who suck at sudoku like me. This is my avoid puzzle if I can help it.

On Cipher Puzzle, you don't even need to solve it. Just guess Cat, Dog, Cow, Pig. If its 4 letters, its Duck and likewise 7 letters is always Rooster.

Cashier Puzzle: Make sure to check the register before writing the prices down, as some of them have "sales" which can mess up your math.
The Cash Register puzzle only has five solutions that I saw. It can be further reduced to the following solutions:
Buy 3 Carp get one free: Answer is $9.75
Buy 2 Fishemite get one free: Answer is $7.75
Buy 1 Dynafish get one free: Answer is $6.75
No sale on screen: Answer is either $8.75 or $9.25