Hour of Code: Escape Estate

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 "title": "Hour of Code: Escape Estate",
 "rows": [
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 "field": "(link to Mojang Studios article, displayed as Mojang Studios)",
 "label": "Map maker(s)"
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 "field": "Free",
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 {
 "field": "November 9, 2022",
 "label": "Release date"
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 {
 "field": "\n*Communication\n*Creativity\n*Critical thinking",
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 "field": "[https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/lessons/hour-of-code-escape-estate Hour of Code: Escape Estate]",
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 {
 "field": "[https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/hour-code-escape-estate \"Hour of Code: Escape Estate\"] – (link to Minecraft.net article, displayed as Minecraft.net).",
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Hour of Code: Escape Estate is a lesson in Minecraft Education and part of the Hour of Code series. The map is centered around a mysterious mansion where the player solves puzzles with code to escape each room.

The player starts the lesson in a dark room with the key art for the lesson. A window appears welcoming the player, offering to choose between touch screen or their keyboard. Pressing the key art opens a cutscene where the player walks across a taiga biome at night toward a mansion. The gates of the mansion open to them, leading them to the tutorial area in the garden. The player may also skip the tutorial through the option offered. At the end of the path, the player encounters Dr. Dodge Breakowski, the alleged owner of the mansion who invited the player to his mansion to win a million emeralds. He guides them to the front door so they start the challenge, but the door instantly tears into a monstrous mouth, its tongue dragging the player to the attic.

Inside, the attic consists primarily of stripped wood, note blocks, oak slabs, and other wooden blocks, as well as some lanterns and cobwebs scattered across. One of the note blocks on the right has a lost diary belonging to an unknown person, with an entry dedicated to their visit to the attic:

Deeper into the attic, an agent finds themselves stuck under a platform of black stained glass, asking for help from the player in exchange of helping them escape the mansion. They offer them to use MakeCode blocks or Python as a coding tool, and points to a cursor three steps away from the trapdoor that could help them out. The player must code both to open the trapdoor and lift the agent to the surface.

Once freed, the agent opens a door to the green, easy path, and offers the player to talk to them if they need to unlock the yellow, medium difficulty path. In order to do the latter, the agent finds themselves incapable due to lack of power, unless they recharge through lunar power. To help them, the player has to open the four skylights on the ceiling to allow moonlight to come in. This unlocks the yellow path, and the agent offers them again to unlock the red, hard path by helping them get to the blocks of gold on the left. However, they are unable to move, and the path to the gold blocks is blocked by an iron wall which can be raised via the lever. The player then must use code to move the agent to the gold blocks so the latter could unlock the path to them. The player can then choose any of the three paths; green leads to the study, yellow leads to the alchemy room, and red leads to the moat.

Following the green path leads to the study, a furnished white room with a Pointer painting, a fireplace, hanging lanterns, and organized bookshelves. Forward onto the wall is a page of the lost diary:

Pressing the button in front of the painting lowers it, revealing an M-shaped wall of gray stained glass in which the player has to move a clay ball to a gold block. Solving the puzzle brings the painting back to its place.

Lighting the redstone lamps in the correct pattern unlocks a puzzle in which the player must place the same number of jack o'lanterns on the library as the ones shown in the mirror on the opposite side to match the reflection. Upon solving the puzzle, the mirror cracks, unlocking the next puzzle.

Two speedy knights resembling armor stands guard the door to the next room. There are two levers on each side, each lever with an associated color. The levers have to be flicked in the same order as the lighting of redstone lamps above them. This code causes one of the speedy knights to flick the levers as quickly as possible, opening the door leading to the kitchen.

The kitchen is a room consisting of a dining room and a cooking room run by a zombie chef asking for bread. One of the walls has a page of the lost diary attached to it, reading:

To help the zombie chef, the player must order it to perform the actions to bake bread in the correct order: harvest wheat, mill it, make dough, and bake bread. This causes the wall of the kitchen to lower, revealing a sentient brick house with angry eyes and a fiery mouth outside. The house is hungry and needs to be fed apples, cooked salmon, and mushroom stew. The three rails in front of the player with passing minecarts ridden by zombie chefs provide the correct amount needed to feed the house. Once done, a skeleton, a creeper, a zombie, and a wither skeleton spawn around the table in the dining room. The zombie chef gave them the wrong meals and the player must swap the meals correctly according to the paper hung on the wall. This opens the door to the parlor.

After choosing the yellow path, the player finds themselves in the alchemy room. Next to the entrance door is a page of the lost diary reading:

Pressing the button on the block in front of the wall on the right reveals a square glass wall. There, the player has to move a clay ball toward a gold block to solve the puzzle. This closes the wall and opens another to the left of the wall, with a clay golem needing to get to the end. However, pressing one of the two pressure plates along the way opens a hole on the next block. The player has to make it wait until the hole closes so it can pass. Upon solving the puzzle, the barrels next to the wall reveal a hint for the next puzzle, showing the amount of nether wart, phantom membranes, and fermented spider eyes to create a potion pool. Using the funnels above the pool, the player must place the requisite amount of ingredients. This creates a levitation aura that lifts the player to the door toward the conservatory.

The conservatory is a lush, garden-like room with a high roof. On the left is a stone brick wall from which a waterfall appears from a hole. On the left cut copper pillar next to a mycellium garden is a page of the lost diary, reading:

The garden lacks enough irrigation, and to fix this the player has to use the cursor to break the four cracked blocks to allow more water currents to flow. However, the missing blocks along the way causes the water to leak, preventing it from reaching the garden. The player has to fix the leak by filling the gaps with gold blocks, allowing the water to pass smoothly. Upon solving the puzzle, the water surrounds the garden, allowing mycellium to spread on the dirt and huge mushrooms to grow.

Particles to follow appear along the way upstairs through the caps of the mushrooms. The player must jump along them to reach the flower puzzle. There, a small three-row field consists of only one flower on each row: a cornflower on the top row at the far right, a dandelion on the middle at the far left, and a poppy on the bottom at the far right. The player must place the respective type of flower on all the blocks of the field to solve the puzzle according to the planters on the sides. Once solved, the door on the left opens, leading to the laboratory.

The laboratory is the penultimate room for the yellow and red paths. It consists primarily of blocks of iron and other iron-type blocks. On the right, the player must press a button to unlock the first puzzle. The player must fill the four hoppers with the correct amount of blocks hinted above the puzzle. Once done, the player unlocks another puzzle in which they have to place exactly 23 kilograms of mobs on a scale. A chicken weighs one kilogram, a sheep weighs three, and a cow weighs five. Once the requisite weight is met, the puzzle is solved. Upstairs is a puzzle where zombies, skeletons, and creepers on minecarts wait to ride toward their respective tunnels. The player has to help the mobs by choosing the correct paths for them. Once solved, a door to the parlor opens. Next to the door is a page of the lost diary reading:

Upon entering the red path, the player finds themselves in the moat. It is a room with a wooden floor and multiple tables, as well as a drawbridge. Pressing the button will summon the enderman butler on the left of the drawbridge holding diamond particles. To lower the bridge, the player has to bring the butler to the other side by teleporting them to the block of diamond, causing their particles to disappear, then make them flick the lever. Once done, the player can cross the drawbridge for the next puzzle. To the left is a page of the lost diary reading:

In the room, the enderman butler is trapped under white stained glass platform on the floor. There are six iron doors, one opening and the other closing by flicking a lever. The player has to help the butler walk toward the blocks of emerald at the end of the path while opening the doors as quickly as possible.

Once solved, the enderman butler emerges from nine gold blocks surrounded by redstone lamp pillars with their respective colors. A specific pattern appears, and the player must move the butler toward the lit lamps in the correct order three times to solve the puzzle. Once solved, the door to the left opens, leading to the cellar.

The cellar is a room consisting of miscellaneous wooden blocks. On the left, the player has to press a button then create a staircase on the smooth stone wall to reach the rest of the room. Up there is a bridge over a river of green water. Three vents emitting gusts of wind block the way, which the player has to block using gold blocks so they can pass safely. On the other side, a baby zombie working as a crate minion has to press the button but cannot reach it. The player must help it by building a bridge out of gold blocks. This causes a staircase made of polished diorite to appear, leading them to the next puzzle higher up. The door to the drawing room is blocked by stone bricks, and a page of the lost diary on the right reads:

To open the door, the player has to break some blocks from the wall to pass through.

The drawing room is a smaller version of the study, with furniture and a brick fireplace. A page of the lost diary is hung on the wall of the fireplace, reading:

A button behind the right couch unlocks the lamp puzzle in which the player must turn on all seven lamps to open the door. Beyond the door is a larger kitchen-like room with red curtains at the end. Five blocks seem to be missing on the floor, making the player fill them with gold blocks so the curtain opens.

Beyond the curtains is a room with a long table separated from the kitchen by velvet ropes. Pressing the button behind the player transforms the floor, revealing a puzzle. The laser beams must reach the end without getting stopped by the concrete blocks. The player must shift the bar so the lasers can pass through glass blocks, the puzzle increaseing in difficulty as more rows are added. Once solved, the floor is restored, the ropes vanish, and the door to the laboratory unlocks.

The parlor is the last room in all three paths. There are two wooden and granite staircases leading downstairs to the main hall. There, a chessboard has a white rook and bishop, while in between the staircases is a wall with a page of the lost diary reading:

On the right is a sliding puzzle depicting a black king which the player must arrange back then release by clicking it. This makes the king take the place of the bishop. On the left is a library with a black queen on the top right. The player must build a gold staircase to reach then press it, causing the queen to take the rook. Both puzzles require pressing a button and can be done anytime.

Upon solving the puzzles, chalkboards appear on the edges of the chessboard, a row showing the months and another the days of the month. Using the clues scattered around the parlor, the player must place the pieces in the right position, which opens the door.

With the door open, Dr. Breakowski shows up, congratulating the player for having solved all the puzzles in his mansion. However, he soon transforms into the five Time Agents, who were disguised as him through a trench coat and a top hat. One of them, Rascal, informs the player that the entire Escape Estate is actually an interdimensional prison that the Time Agents could not escape until the player solved the puzzles. They then declare the player as a new prisoner for the mansion until TARRA comes in, stopping the agents. Mockingly, Rascal tells them that they and the player are "out of time" and the Time Agents are preparing the Time Orb to escape the mansion. To help the player, TARRA tells them to follow them to the Time Orb Room where they have to use Chrono Cannons to stop the agents from escaping. To access the room, the player has to use the exit door in the parlor.

Inside the Time Orb Room, Rascal prepares the Time Orb but gets surprised by the player. If the yellow or red paths were chosen, the other agents scatter and hide toward different chambers across the room; Pixie chooses the pink chamber, Yeti the yellow one, Banshee the blue one, and Gremlin the green one. Otherwise, they remain in place and the Chrono Cannons immediately become available. At red difficulty, the entrances to the Time Agents' chambers are sealed unless the player places the respectively colored blocks on top of similarly colored ones on a cut copper-framed pattern on the floor.

On yellow and red difficulties, in order to activate the Chrono Cannons the player has to visit each of the four chambers. There, they have to find the puzzle where an agent is trapped behind a white stained glass wall inside a copper maze guarded by the chamber's Time Agent. To activate the respective cannon, the player has to make the agent flick the lever by solving the maze.

Once all Chrono Cannons are activated, or when they spawn if the player chose the green path, they have to activate them in the correct order from outside to inside; blue, green, yellow, and pink. Each ring destroyed will stun its respectively colored Time Agent, and Rascal gets stunned after the destruction of the Orb itself. On green difficulty, the Time Agents get absorbed by the floor and therefore trapped forever. On higher difficulties, four misaligned discs appear beneath the glass floor and the player must align them in order to reverse the polarity and trap the Time Agents.

At daytime outside the mansion, TARRA is intrigued about who owns the lost diary and its pages that were scattered across the Escape Estate. Suddenly, the real Dr. Breakowski emerges from an iron trapdoor and affirms that the diary is his, thanking the player for having released him and telling his misadventure with the Time Agents. After getting asked by the player about the reward, he says that he is broke and instead shares a cookie with them as a thanks. The lesson finally ends and the player is sent back to the artwork void where they can replay the lesson.

• The line “Nobody puts Pixie in a corner!” is a reference to the iconic line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” from Dirty Dancing.
• If Dr. Breakowski actually had one million emeralds, that would be equal to 111,111 blocks with one indivudal emerald left over left over, which would make 1,736 stacks of 64 with 7 blocks left over.
  • The player would require 32 large chests and one small chest to store all these emeralds.
  • 27,777 bells could be purchased with a million emeralds.
• Dr. Breakowski gives the player a cookie as a compensation prize. As a single cookie is only worth about one sixth of an emerald (based on trade prices), he actually owes the player about 5,999,999 more cookies to equal the value of the promised reward.

• 👁 An agent placing a candle trail to find its way through a maze
  
  An agent placing a candle trail to find its way through a maze
• 👁 A view of the titular estate
  
  A view of the titular estate
• 👁 The attic: a cobwebbed room full of various random blocks (including scaffolding, note blocks, and white banners), lit by several lanterns on chains
  
  The attic: a cobwebbed room full of various random blocks (including scaffolding, note blocks, and white banners), lit by several lanterns on chains
• 👁 The coding interface
  
  The coding interface
• 👁 The dining room puzzle
  
  The dining room puzzle

• 👁 Rascal
  
  Rascal
• 👁 Gremlin
  
  Gremlin
• 👁 Pixie
  
  Pixie
• 👁 Yeti
  
  Yeti
• 👁 Banshee
  
  Banshee