Escape Academy Guide: How to beat Under Pressure

In Under Pressure, your character gets stuck in one of Escape Academy‘s most dangerous rooms: The Thresher. Water is leaking in fast, but just because the pressure is on doesn’t mean you have to drown in confusion. Here’s a guide on how to climb to safety.

First, a reminder: Escape Academy is a timed game. If you’re stopping to look at this guide, make sure the game is properly paused before doing so. You can pause with the Options button on Xbox or the Esc key on PC. Also keep in mind that the inventory screen is not the pause screen, and the in-game timer will continue unless you’ve correctly paused.

Escape Academy Under Pressure: How to Escape the First Floor

At first, Jeb just tells you to sit tight and check the water grates. Until you do so, nothing happens. As soon as you interact with the water grates, the briefcase, or the door with the keypad, water will start flooding into the room, and a five minute timer will start. Here’s what to do then:

1. Open the green briefcase sitting by one of the water grates. Take the Small Key inside.
2. Turn to your right to see the electrical box with the red lightning bolt. Select it, and then use the Small Key on the padlock underneath it.
3. When it opens up, flip the switch inside to turn the lights off.
4. Turn around. There should be a glowing green handprint in the corner. Press it, and pick up the Hammer, Clippers, and Screwdriver hidden inside.
5. Return to the switch and turn the lights back on.
6. Turn towards the red wall to your right. Select the wooden plank with the heart on it and use your hammer. It will drop away, revealing the word “fear.”
7. Go to the door with the keypad and type “fear.” If you’re unfamiliar with the style of keypad, press “def” twice, “abc” once, and “pqr” once. The door will open, and you can advance to the next level.

How to Escape the Second Floor

On this floor, you have to get the water valves to the right numbers based on the clues on the wall.

1. First, select the blue valve handle hanging from the ceiling and use the clippers to free it.
2. Select the space between the yellow and red valves. Then, select the blue valve handle to place it there.
3. The clues on the walls say the following:
   1. Yellow is odd.
   2. No valve should be set to 5.
   3. Red is double yellow.
   4. Blue is more than yellow, but less than red.
4. Because the numbers only go up to six, there is only one possible solution. Set yellow to three, blue to four, and red to six.
5. Behind the door is a device that looks like a fishing rod. Inspect it and spin the gear handle to cause it to lift a Rusty Key from the water. Take it.
6. Go to the camera chained up in the middle of the room. Select it and then select the Rusty Key to add the Handicam to your inventory.
7. Return to the hook in the room you just opened. Select the Handicam, and then turn the gear handle to lower it into the water.
8. Return to the first room. The TV that was connected to the camera is now showing what the camera sees, which is the word “will.”
9. Go to the door (it’s in the corner opposite the ladder you entered from) and type the word will on the keypad. If you’re unfamiliar with this type of keyboard, press “vwx” once, “ghi” once, and “jkl” twice.

Escape Academy Under Pressure: How to Escape the Third Floor

1. As soon as you come up the ladder, grab the Acrylic Sheet from the wall to your right.
2. Open the toilet next to where you grabbed the Acrylic Sheet. Inside the seat is the Safe Manual.
3. Walk further into the room and look for the reddish-orange couch. There’s another Acrylic Sheet on there for you to grab.
4. If you’re facing the couch, turn around; there’s another Acrylic Sheet poking out of a cardboard box behind you.
5. Head back to the wall where you found the first acrylic sheet. You can pin them each on the wall to make a number with the existing black marks. From left to right, here’s the order you should pin the sheets on the boards:

The completed board should look like this:

1. Go to the wall opposite the bulletin boards. There’s another metal box with a red lightning bolt on it, but this one is locked by a combination lock. Enter the code from the bulletin boards (5-1-0) to open it. It’s mysteriously empty… we’ll have to fix that.
2. Turn around. To your right, just past the double blue barrels, is a safe. It’s a little tricky to open. Here’s how:
   1. Look at the Safe Manual. It tells you how to open each version of the safe, but the one you’re looking at (the Mk. 5) isn’t on the sheet.
   2. If you pay attention to the patterns of combinations, you can see that for every new generation, the first step from the prior generation moves to become the last step. To get Mk. 5 combination, take the first step from Mk. 4 and put it at the end.
   3. To open the safe, press the circle button twice, press the square button once, then spin the handle, and press the square button one more time.
3. Once you get the safe open, grab the Switch Handle from inside.
4. Return to the red electric box you took the combination lock off of. Place the Switch Handle inside.
5. Turn around. You can see the word “slow” in glowing green letters.
6. Flip the switch to turn the power back on.
7. Walk over to the door with the keypad (it’s over by the safe) and type in the word “slow.” If you’re unfamiliar with this type of keyboard, press “stu,” then “jkl,” then “mno,” and “vwx.” The door will open, and you can climb to the fourth floor.

Escape Academy Under Pressure: How to Escape the Fourth Floor

1. Once you come up the ladder, turn to your right. Walk around the pipe in your way and go towards the cluttered workbench. Grab these two Strange Devices.
2. Across from the workbench is a piece of paper clipped to a support beam. Take it to get the Cipher Sheet.
3. There are letters written on the walls in the opposite corner of the room. If you translate them using the Cipher Sheet, it says “Under Pressure, Over Weight.”
4. Find the dial that measures water weight. It’s right behind the support the Cipher Sheet was located on. Inspect the panel next to it, and use the Screwdriver to open it.
5. Plug the Strange Device into the plug labeled “over.” The screen will light up with the letters “YO.”
6. Find the dial that measures the water pressure. It’s the one closest to the ladder you entered from. Inspect the panel underneath it, and use the Screwdriver to open it.
7. Plug the other Strange Device into the plug labeled “under.” A screen will make the letters “UR.” If you combine it with the letters from the other strange device, it makes the word “YOUR.”
8. Go to the door with the keypad. It’s over by the cluttered workbench. Type in the word “your.” If you’re unfamiliar with this type of keyboard, press “yz,” then “mno,” then “stu,” and then “pqr.” The door will open, and you can climb to the fifth floor.

Escape Academy Under Pressure: How to Escape the Fifth Floor

1. Before you do anything else, turn left, walk past the door with the keypad, and then look to your right. Select the crate and use your hammer to smash it open. Inside, you’ll find the Old Map, the key to solving this puzzle.
2. Turn around and flip the switch on the wall. Power will start flowing through wires on the wall.
3. To see all the words that the electricity will illuminate, follow the following steps:
   1. Follow the electricity to the first connecting piece. Rotate it twice, so the current flows down.
   2. Follow the current to the next connecting piece. Rotate this one three times, so the current flows up and down.
   3. Rotate the next piece once, so the current flows up.
   4. Follow the current across the room to the next connecting piece. Rotate it twice so it flows up and right.
   5. Follow the current to the right. Rotate the connecting piece three times, so the current flows up and to the right.
   6. Follow the current that goes to the right. The wires will go under you, back to the other side of the wall. Turn the piece it leads to three times, so the current exits to the left.
4. Now, power should be flowing to the four boxes with triangles in the corner. This should include the words MOVE, BEND, FIRE, and KIND.
5. If you reference these words with the Old Map, you can see that certain boxes are marked with numbers. If we match the words up with their respective triangle shapes, we can see that the squares with numbers on the Old Map make the word “mind.”
6. Go to the door with the keypad in the center of the room and type in the word “mind.” If you’re unfamiliar with this type of keyboard, press “mno,” then “ghi,” then “mno,” and then “def.” The door will open, and you can climb to the top floor.

How to Finish the Level

Now that you’re at the top level, all that’s left to do to finish the puzzle is to go to the terminal by the exit door. The text on the wall says “What’s the moral of this story?” The answer, of course, is the words you typed at each level of the challenge: Fear, Will, Slow, Your, Mind. Use the loop button at the bottom of the screen to cycle through the words until you get the five correct ones. Then, hit the padlock icon in the bottom right to complete the level and get The Pressure Badge.

Congrats! You beat Under Pressure and outsmarted one of Escape Academy‘s trickiest rooms.

If you haven’t played Escape Artist yet, here’s our guide for that level as well. Check out our Escape Academy tag for guides on more levels.