Escape Academy Where There’s Smoke is one of the two levels you unlock by completing Rival Room, the previous escape room we solved. You have to complete Where There’s Smoke in under 20 minutes, so you better move fast if you want a good grade at the end of the level in the video game developed by Coin Crew Games.
The escape room is rated 3/5 for difficulty, and it can definitely cause you serious problems if you lose your concentration on any of the Puzzles.
How To Complete Where There’s Smoke Escape Room
Where There’s Smoke level takes place in The Library, where you run into Jeb and start having a conversation. All nice until the building bursts into flames, putting you and Jeb in grave danger.
You might want to get out through the main door and complete the escape room in 5 seconds, establishing a world record; however, someone seems to have locked you in, so you need to find another way out.
How To Reveal the Secret Exit
Start things off by going to the book on the middle stand, where you can see the following message: “There’s no time to read. If you wish to escape, just flip through.”
Keep that in mind, and facing the book, head right until you reach the wall, then turn left to see another message in the bookcase: “WISDOM THROUGH EFFORT.”
The first message had the words “flip through” in bold, and if you inspect the second message, you’ll see that you can flip the letters. So flip all the letters in THROUGH to reveal a secret exit that, unfortunately, is locked.
The exit’s gate has four slots on it, and you can probably guess that finding whatever fits in those slots will most likely open the gate. Obviously, if you open the gate, you and Jeb can get to safety, completing the Escape Academy Where There’s Smoke level.
How To Solve Tackle the Tablets Puzzle
Make your way to the room’s opposite corner (from the secret exit) to find a glass case where you can see some tablets with arrows on them.
It seems that one tablet is missing, so your next objective should be to find it. Now open the door to the left and go down the stairs to enter another room.
To the left, in this new room, you’ll find the missing tablet from before and a case with a lock that requires pressing some arrows in a specific order. Memorize the arrows on the missing tablet and go back to the glass case. Adding the missing tablet, you get the following code made out of arrows pointing:
- Right
- Right
- Up
- Left
- Down
- Up
- Left
- Left
Use this exact code to open the lock on the case near the missing tablet from before. Inside the case, you’ll find the following items:
- Crank Handle
- Hourglass
You’ll make use of these items later in the Where There’s Smoke escape room.
Solve the Scrolls Puzzle Solution
To continue, go to the next room, the one in the same area, without going up the stairs. As you enter, you can notice a message on the wall to your right: “THE GOLDEN RULE: THINK TWICE.”
The word THINK is written in a bigger font, so keep that in mind. Now, turn left, and you’ll notice three scrolls on the left wall. And on the table near the wall to the right lays a fourth scroll that says:
Cogito Ergo Sum
I think, therefore I am
So, you have a Latin expression translated into English. And the two underlined words have the same meaning (corgito=think). With all this in mind, take a look at the three scrolls on the left wall, where you’ll see numbers near Latin words. For Cogito Ergo Sum you have: 257.
If you remember the previous messages, you have to put the word THINK twice, and if THINK=Cogito, the code changes to 2257. Use the code to open the lock on the chest in the back of the room to get a Strange Tile.
The Strange Tile looks like it should fit on one of the slots on the locked gate, meaning you have to find three more to complete Escape Academy Where There’s Smoke.
Crank the Clocks Puzzle Solution
You can now go to the big room, back to the book on the middle stand. On the wall behind the book, you can see a clock. Get close to it and inspect the three broken smaller clocks under it. There are two crank handles under the smaller clocks and a slot to put another.
This is perfect because you got a Crank Handle when you solved Tackle The Tablets Puzzle earlier in Where There’s Smoke level. Put the Crank Handle in its socket and interact with the three handles to see what they do.
You can notice that the left crank turns the small clock, the middle crank turns the large and medium clocks, and the crank to the right turns the medium and small clocks. Knowing this, you must use the cranks to make the clocks show the time indicated on the bigger clock above them. You can try until you succeed, or you can use my solution directly, which is the faster option:
- Use the middle crank to make the large clock indicate VI
- Use the right crank to make the medium clock indicate II
- Use the left crank to make the small clock indicate X
Solving the Puzzle opens a secret room for you.
How to Line Up the Ladders
Enter the secret room, and you can see that everything is upside down. The first thing you have to do is move the golden ladder so you can climb on it and reach the balcony nearby.
However, you can only move the ladder on the marked route on the ground. The route is like a small but very easy maze; you’ll have no problems with it. After you’re done, move to the other side of the room and do the same with the silver ladder.
You’ll know the ladders are adequately positioned when you hear the game’s confirmation sound. You should be familiar with it by now. When you’re done, first climb the silver ladder and pull the lever on the balcony.
Then get down, go to the golden ladder, climb it, and pick up the second Strange Tile necessary if you want to complete Escape Academy Where There’s Smoke.
How To Solve Crack the Skulls Puzzle
No time for breaks, The Library is on fire, and you’re running short on time. So get down on the golden ladder and go to the back of the room, where you can find a chest that is upside down like the rest of the room.
Also, it’s important to make a mental picture of the four skulls near the chest: a human, a bird, another human, and a ram. The chest has a lock on it for which you need to find the code.
Now get out of the upside-down room and head right until you reach some glass cases. If you look carefully at all the glass cases, you’ll see a couple of numbered objects, including the skulls from before. So, you have the following numbers for the skulls:
- Human Skull – 9
- Bird Skull – 8
- Ram Skull -6
Go back to the upside-down chest and try to figure out the code by visualizing the whole thing flipped to normal. It can be confusing, so if you don’t want to waste time, here is the correct code: 6869. Put the code in and unlock the chest to get another Strange Tile.
How To Open the Hourglass Door
Leave the upside-down room and head left until you see a door with three Hourglasses on it. There is room on the door for another Hourglass; good thing you have one from when you solved the Where There’s Smoke Tackle The Tablets Puzzle at the beginning of the level.
Put the Hourglass in its socket and take a look at the stained glass window above the door. Rotate the Hourglasses on the door to match those on the stained glass window.
The top right Hourglass must be turned last because, to copy the stained glass window, the sand in it must flow from top to bottom, just like in the screenshot above. And just like that, the door opens for you to enter.
How To Solve Decipher the Globes Puzzle
Inside the new room, you have to study the four globes for a while, and you will notice that on each globe, one of the continents is written differently than it should be. You are probably asking yourself what I mean by differently because they look like random letters put together.
However, if we take EUROPE, for example, you’ll see that on one of the globes, the continent is written FVSPQF, which is still EUROPE but with each letter moved ahead by one in the alphabet. And if you check the other continents written differently, you’ll see that the same case stands for all of them.
Now, if you explore the rest of the room, you’ll also find the following groups of letters: TVO, BJS, and GJSF. Using the same logic from before, you conclude that:
- TVO = SUN
- BJS = AIR
- GJSF = FIRE
All that is left to do now is to go to the globe in the middle and turn the three different colored rings to display:
- Red Ring – SUN Icon
- Orange Ring – FIRE Icon
- Blue Ring – AIR Icon
As shown in the next image.
The middle globe opens and reveals the last Strange Tile for you to pick up.
How To Open the Gate
Now that you have all four Strange Tiles, you must place them correctly in the sockets on the Secret Exit gate, which is located to the right as you leave the globes room from before. Each of the four sockets has a hint written on it to help you out. If you are struggling, put the Strange Tiles like this:
| Tile Icon | Hint |
| Anvil | An Escapist forges their own destiny. |
| Lion | An Escapist takes pride in their work. |
| Bird | An Escapist goes above and beyond. |
| Scale | An Escapist weighs the options. |
Well done, escapist! Nothing could be done for The Library, but you saved Jeb and yourself. Now, focus on the next one, Tea’ N Tea.
nice, but imho , the logic in the upside down room is wrong because if you invert “everything” the items would appear in reverse order, and not just inverted and remaining in the same position therefore each number would read inverted but the order would be reversed as well and the code imho would be 9686. i guess the answer though is dependant on what is considered to be logical, which makes this part of the puzzle somewhat subjective in reality, though not obviously in the context of the game