Escape Academy Breakout level walkthrough

The Escape Academy Breakout level requires you to deduce Serial Numbers for turrets, find Eel's cell number to help him escape, and all manner of other strange challenges. As part of the level, you'll have to navigate Eel and the Headmaster out of the prison ship from a single control room, clearing obstacles and guiding them to the right locations using clues and data supplied to you from the devices available. The Serial Numbers and Eel's cell are particularly challenging puzzles that have been giving many people trouble. We'll explain all the details on how to solve the Breakout level in Escape Academy below, with a full walkthrough and step-by-step instructions.

How to beat the Breakout level in Escape Academy

The Breakout level in Escape Academy can be split roughly into six sections, each one focused on a new challenge or objective that needs to be completed - conferring with the Headmaster on details like Serial Numbers, narrowing down the location of the ship, finding Eel's Cell, building the key for the cell, setting the power back on, and finding out one more Serial Number to take over the turrets and launch a counterattack. We've divided the page below into those sections respectively, so you can work your way through and help Eel Barnes escape.

The first Serial Number and using the radio

The initial challenge in the Escape Academy Breakout level is to work with the Headmaster to make sure that they can safely access the prison ship. There's a lot to tinker with in this communications room straight off the bat, but the key element is the radio, which you can enter numbers into that are broadcast to the Headmaster. There's a small pamphlet of code numbers next to the radio that covers how to send basic yes/no/dunno replies, but as time goes by, you'll have to start going off-book to communicate more specific ideas, such as one of the bewildering Serial Numbers.

1. The Headmaster needs an acknowledgement that you're there. Enter "104" into the radio and hit the send button.
2. You'll see her pinned by a turret with a strange series of images - a bone with "-b" under it, and six letter D's.
3. The serial number is "160" (bone minus b is one, and six d's sound like sixty). Enter that into the radio and send it. 
4. The Headmaster wants to know if there's a computer terminal on the first deck. Checking the ship map on the left hand side of the room shows there isn't, so send her "1010", the code for "negative."
5. When she asks where there is a terminal, checking the map again reveals one on Deck 2. Send "02" in the Radio to tell her this.

Finding the ship's location when "signal lost"

At this point in the Escape Academy Breakout mission, the computer loses contact with the ship's location, requiring you to find it again. This is a puzzle with a varying answer - on the right hand wall is a big map of the ship's path, showing where it'll be along its 22 minutes journey. The position it is in along that route is determined by how long it's taken you to get this far in real time (shown by the electronic timer under the ship's charted route). So if it's been three minutes so far, the ship is at the point on the line marked "T+03:00".

Once you've worked that out, interact with the green ship tracker computer and select your location on that map. If you've got it right, you'll be told as much and the next phase of the puzzle begins. 

How to find Eel's Cell Number

Now you need to find Eel's Cell, one of the trickier puzzles in Escape Academy. This is a logic puzzle - pull the notes sent to you in the fax machine, and you'll learn the following:

1. Eel can't be on the same deck as a Trash Compactor.
2. He will be on some floor between those with the mail room and the cafeteria.
3. He'll be on a floor with an even number of cells, in Cell #3.

This narrows it down nicely if you use the ship map on the table. He has to be between Deck 3 and Deck 7, because of the second note, meaning he's either on Decks 4, 5 or 6. Then we know it can't actually be 6, because it has a Trash Compactor, and it can't be Deck 4, because it has an odd number of cells. Therefore Eel's Cell is on Deck 5, and is itself numbered Cell #3. Take this info and enter "503" into the Radio to complete this puzzle.

Building the Red, White and Blue Cell Key

Now we know where Eel is in the Escape Academy Breakout mission, we have to get him out by reconstructing the Cell key from the available data. This is a complex one, but we'll walk you through it.

• The footage of Eel's cell displays five lights in this order: White, Red, Blue, White, Red.
• The Reference Key computer display on the right hand side of the room helps translate those colours into a key shape, if you can infer it.
• The relationship is: White: -1, Red: +2, Blue: -2, from the baseline "3" length.
• Take this info to the key making device on the left and translate it into: 2, 4, 2, 1, 3 (going left to right) and hit the yellow button.
• This'll tell you if you're successful and display the full number.
• Go to the radio and send "24213".

Restoring the power

At this point in the Escape Academy Breakout level the power in the ship will go out and you'll need to bring it back online. This is one last logic puzzle of the "my first in his Q" variety, based on the blank signs on all the walls (secret is, they're not actually blank).

1. Pick up a UV Flashlight from the rack on the wall.
2. Point it at the "blank" signs to reveal the following messages.
   • Both G and C
   • Not S
   • Either A or L
   • Both R and H
3. Now that you know all those, head to the breaker fuse box thing in the top right corner of the room and you'll see six vertical levers that can each be set to one of two letters.
4. From the top down, set the levers to: C, H, A, R, G, E. Clever.

The final Serial Number

Once that's done, you're nearing the end of the Escape Academy Breakout level. You'll get footage back of the Headmaster and Eel, pinned down by another turret with another weird code alleging to be a serial number: "S+2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22…" in one box, and four instances of the word "teen" with the third one circled in another box.

Well, all those in the first box are even numbers, so S+even? That's Seven. And the "third teen" sounds passably like thirteen, so there's your answer. Send "713" into the radio and you'll be able to access the turret rather than disable it via the computer. Use it to blow up the three other turrets, and the mission is over - congratulations on a successful escape! 

Now you've broken out a master of the craft, it won't be long before you have to tackle the Escape Academy Rival Room - check our guide on how to do that if you need the help.