Escape Academy Thresher and Water Room level walkthrough

The Escape Academy Thresher room, officially called Under Pressure, is an early challenge that has you trapped in a water room - or rather, five water rooms that have to be solved sequentially to escape. The timer is fairly ruthless, as are the puzzles, so Under Pressure marks a sudden spike in difficulty that may throw off players who have only just completed the tutorial and now have to deal with Groundskeeper Jeb's labyrinth of deadly traps and puzzles. For that reason, we'll break down how to beat the Thresher water room and Under Pressure level in Escape Academy below, broken down into all five stages.

How to beat the Under Pressure Thresher level in Escape Academy

The Thresher level is a rough one, as while it's technically a sequence of puzzles that don't really overlap, your time carries over - so while you get a few new minutes added on to the timer every time you complete a floor and move up one, completing the earlier, easier stages fast gives you more time to make mistakes on the later one.

It's also important to keep track of all the codewords. Each floor is solved by uncovering a password which can then be typed into an electronic lock to escape, but once you're at the end, you'll need to enter all five, so make sure you don't forget them. However, that's not for a little while, so we'll start off with how to beat the Thresher level, going up floor by floor.

Keep in mind that this page has spoilers for how to solve the puzzles: we're providing specific answers and instructions, not just hints and suggestions (after all, the game already does that with the Hint button).

Level 1

Once the Escape Academy Thresher level 1 starts, immediately kick yourself into gear - the brutal timer means you have to go about this efficiently and not waste time taking in fine details if you can avoid it.

1. Open the briefcase on the left and take out the Small Key.
2. Use the Small Key to open the breaker box, left of the water pipe in the wall.
3. Flick the switch inside to turn the lights off.
4. This'll reveal a glowing handprint back where you started on the wall.
5. Press the handprint and the wall will open, giving you Clippers, a Screwdriver and a Hammer.
6. Turn the lights back on and use the hammer on the wooden board on the wall.
7. This'll reveal the word "FEAR".
8. Go to the door lock and type in "Fear" (with the layout it'll be: DEF/DEF/ABC/PQR).
9. Open the door, and go up the ladder.

Level 2

From this point on the puzzles tend to get a little trickier each time, though with a walkthrough that shouldn't be an issue. Escape Academy Thresher level 2 gives you a little logic puzzle taking centre stage, based around three valves.

1. Look to your right and use the clippers on the rope to get the Blue Valve.
2. Set the Blue Valve into the airlock door.
3. There are now three valves - yellow, blue and red - that can each be turned to change a number on a dial above them, with signs dotted around: "No valve should be set to five", "Yellow is odd", "Red is double yellow", "Blue is more than yellow, but less than red".
4. The answer is Yellow: 3, Blue: 4, Red: 6. This will open the airlock door.
5. Inside is a cable on a mechanism that's been lowered into water. Turn the handle on the mechanism to raise the cable and get the Rusty Key at the end.
6. Use the Rusty Key on the padlocked chain in front of the airlock door. This'll provide you with a Handicam.
7. Place the Handicam on the hook you got the Rusty Key from and spin the mechanism to lower it back into the water.
8. In the main room, a display screen to the left of the airlock door will display live footage from the Handicam: the word "WILL".
9. Enter "WILL" into the door lock (VWX/GHI/JKL/JKL)
10. Open the door and go up the ladder.

Level 3

You're now solidly at the halfway mark with Escape Academy Thresher level 3, though from here on out the puzzles get even harder for those who aren't used to such things. If you've been following the walkthrough until now, you should have a nice buffer on the timer to try it out for yourself, or keep following the guide below.

1. Open the toilet on the right ahead of you and take out the Safe Manual.
2. Take the Acrylic Sheet off the board next to that.
3. There's another Acrylic Sheet on the couch.
4. The third Acrylic Sheet is opposite the couch in a fallen cardboard box.
5. Where you got the first sheet is a series of boards with markings on them.
6. Placing the Acrylic Sheets on the boards in the right order will form three numbers as the marks on the sheets and boards combine - 510. Leave the sheets there.
7. On the wall opposite the boards is a padlocked breaker box. Enter 510 and open it, revealing a space for a lever.
8. Go to the safe to the left of the breaker box and pin the Safe Manual. It doesn't reveal the code for the Mk.5 safe, but it does reveal the codes for the previous models - and it's a repeating pattern that just shifts up one each time. 
9. With that in mind, we can infer that the MK.5 safe code is: Circle, Circle, Square, Spin Dial, Square.
10. Take the Switch Handle out of the safe and install it in the breaker box.
11. When pulled, it turns the light to UV, revealing a new symbol after 510 on the wall: a W. 
12. When interpreted as being letters rather than numbers, 510W becomes SLOW. Enter this into the door lock (STU/JKL/MNO/VWX).
13. Enter the door and go up the ladder.

Level 4

In Escape Academy Thresher level 4 we have a lot of valves, each one with a strange label and linking various water pipes. It's a shorter puzzle once you understand it, though paper and pencil wouldn't hurt for those who want to do it themselves.

1. Once up, take the Cipher Sheet off the support beam and two Strange Devices off the work table covered in junk.
2. Painted on the wall is "HAQRE CERFFHER" and "BIRE JRVTUG". Put through the Cipher, these spell "UNDER PRESSURE", and "OVER WEIGHT." Tell me about it, Escape Academy.
3. Look at the valves until you find "WATER PRESSURE" and "WATER WEIGHT."
4. Open the panels next to each one and place the Strange Devices in the sockets marked "UNDER" (for Water Pressure) and "OVER" (for Water Weight).
5. The Devices will display UR and YO. Considering uryo isn't a word, the password to the door lock is "YOUR".
6. Type in "YOUR" into the door (YZ/MNO/STU/PQR).
7. Enter the door and go up the ladder.

Level 5

Nearly there now, though we'd definitely say that Escape Academy Thresher level 5 is one of the hardest puzzles until you reach the Escape Academy Rival Room, as it's possible to think you've completed it multiple times, only to be foiled when you enter the wrong number. Fortunately, we'll walk you through what's basically the last trial.

1. Find the wooden crate next to the central shaft and smash it with the Hammer to get the Old Map.
2. Turn on the power switch on the wall so that power (denoted by the pipes turning yellow) starts moving around.
3. Redirect the power using the rotating pipe junctions to all the wall displays with little triangles in the corner. 
4. Each one will display a word in a four-by-four grid - write the word down and how it's positioned, along with a little marker to indicate where the triangle is presented relative to the grid.
5. Use the Old Map to identify the four-letter word you can pull from these other four letter words. Use the marked positions of the triangles first to identify which panel you're looking at, then use the number and the grid to identify which letter in the word is important, and what position it has in the word.
6. Give up? The codeword is Mind. Enter it into the door code to open it up.
7. Enter the door and go up the ladder.

Final Escape Academy Thresher Password

Here is a final, sneaky little trick: the game wants you to enter all the code words you've unlocked in order to open the last door, something you're not told is going to be important. Don't worry: in case you've forgotten, the code is: FEAR WILL SLOW YOUR MIND. Use the control panel to cycle between the available words and pick the key words - once you hit the unlock button, the Thresher will be over and you'll have escaped the Water Room!