The Academy: The First Riddle – Walkthrough Guide

The Academy: The First Riddle
By: Pine Studio / Snapbreak Games

The Academy: The First Riddle is a puzzle adventure game that’s basically a cross between Harry Potter and Professor Layton. The puzzles can be very tricky — often intentionally — so if you get stuck, this walkthrough should help you. Feel free to ask for extra help in the comments section.

Walkthrough:

Since the game gives you plenty of guidance to get from one puzzle to the next, I’ll be mainly explaining how to solve each puzzle rather than how to find them.

Chapter 1, A Glimpse of Mystery:

Broken Pencil:

Fragments:

You need to identify the pencil piece that doesn’t belong because it’s from a second pencil. Notice that two pieces have “The Ac” on them, and only the one that says “Acad” doesn’t fit with the rest of the pieces. So drop the pin on that piece and submit your answer.

Bonus Question, Tape:

For this one, you need to figure out how many pieces of tape Tucker would need to make a fully working pencil. Since you only need the eraser and the piece of lead to have a fully functioning pencil, only one piece of tape is needed. So the answer is 1.

Odd Math:

Operation:

You need to use the equations given to figure out what the blue symbol means and then solve for X. Here’s how you get the answer:

9 + 3 = 12, 9 – 3 = 6, so put them together and you get 126

5 + 4 = 9, 5 – 4 = 1, so put them together and you get 91

7 + 7 = 14, 7 – 7 = 0, so put them together and you get 140.

So the answer is 140.

Bonus Question, Result:

Now you need to solve for the ? on the second sheet of paper. It’s tricky, because it’s not really a math problem even though it says it is. The answer has to do with the shapes of the numbers. Basically, count the enclosed circles on each. Then you get 2 for the number 60.

Clumsy Sandy:

Book Subject:

You need to figure out the subject of the open book. Since it has a red cover and the other red books are music themed, MUSIC is the answer.

Bonus Question, In Progress:

Now you need to figure out which book Sandy was in middle of reading. You can see that there’s only one book where the bookmark is in middle of the book, so that’s the one.

(While in the library, climb up one of the ladders to find a collectible.)

The Pied Piper of Hamelin:

Rat Problem:

You need to figure out how many rats will be in Hamelin after 5 months. The answer is 1 because 1 rat can’t get pregnant on its own.

Bonus Question, The Song:

Here we have to figure out which note is missing from the sheet. It’s another trick question, as it has nothing to do with the song itself, really. Just count up from the bottom to see how many notes you get on each line. It should be in ascending order, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. But line D only has 3, so one is missing. That makes the answer D.

Unpacking:

Suitcases:

You need to choose the suitcase that’s packed in a way that you can lift each piece up without it being blocked by another.

Bonus Question, Label:

You need to choose the suitcase that has shapes inside that resemble the letters F U T.

Suspects:

Running Away:

You need to eliminate a suspect. The suspect was seen running, and since suspect 2 has a skateboard, you can assume that’s not him. So the answer is 2.

Bonus Question, Guard Shift:

The witness came to the scene at 9pm, during the changing of the guards. Somehow, this means the suspect didn’t know the time. Anyway, just choose 3 because he had no watch on him.

Lockers:

Locker Owner:

Basically, just use the information given to figure out which locker is Nate’s. It’s the BLUE one.

Bonus Question, Locker Code:

You need to figure out the code for the yellow locker. There’s a pattern with the locks, so let’s look at the first two. Red locker is number 69 and its lock combination is 86. So you get it by flipping 69 to 96 and subtracting 10. Blue is 71 and the combination is 07. So again, if you flip 71 to 17 and subtract 10, you get 07. So now do it for yellow. Yellow is 73, so reverse it to get 37 and then subtract 10 to get 27. So the answer is 27. I find the game’s explanation more confusing.

Founding of Arbor:

Arbor Academy:

Arbor Academy is below Arboria, to the east of Mikarinos, and NOT east of Foggy Swamp. So it’s basically to the very left of Foggy Swamp or right on it.

Summer Castle:

A size 3 county means it’s a county made up of 3 cities. A size 4 county is made up of four cities. There’s only one city that is part of two size 4 counties and one size 3 county, and that’s Citadelia.

Motor Blueprints:

Pipes:

For this puzzle, you just need to figure out which two pipes can connect to the pipe fragment. The answer is B AND A.

Bonus Question, Serial Number:

You need to find a hidden serial number. To do so, use the drawing tool to complete the pipes. The lines will make up the number 4. That’s the answer!

Animal Tracks:

Animal Math:

You need to solve the equation. Either you can figure out the value of each animal track by working out the math, or just count the number of toes on each. You then get 2 for deer, 3 for emu, 4 for wolf and 5 for bear. So Bear (5) – Deer (2) = Emu (3). So place the pin on the Emu footprint.

Bonus Question, Missing Track:

This one is easy. There’s only one animal with an odd number of tracks, and that’s the bear. So place the pin on the bear footprint.

Violin Painting:

Orchestra:

This is an easy one. The song is 5 minutes long and an orchestra would all play it at once, so the answer is 5 minutes.

Music Notes:

This one’s a bit odd, but the photo shows you violinists playing with either their left or right hand. The bow is the dominant hand, though I’m not 100% sure someone could get that just from the photo itself. Anyway, if you picture Dante facing the notebook, the bow would have been in his left hand before he placed it down. So you can guess that he’s left-handed and the answer is LEFT.

Strange Events:

Strange Photo:

This puzzle is annoying because it asks you to find one odd thing in the photo, but the whole photo is odd. I mean, some of the buildings are tilting. But whatever. The answer is the blue flag that’s blowing in the opposite direction of the wind.

Windows:

I honestly don’t understand the question or the answer no matter how many times I read it. I’m not even sure which building I’m looking at, since there is no yellow “A” building — the brown one is labeled A. Anyway, the answer is 32.

Missing Books:

Borrowed Book:

You need to figure out who borrowed a book in January. It’s pretty simple — just add up how many books each student took out and returned in February. If they returned more than they took out, then one of those books is from January. Kei took out 2 books but returned 3, so the answer is KEI.

Missing Book:

You need to locate where the missing book would be. Since there are five orange books and number 4 is missing, place the pin where it would go.

Family Tree:

Aetius:

You need to figure out which brother didn’t have any kids and therefore left his inheritance to his brother’s kids. It’s not difficult. Just find two brothers and one without kids. That one’s Aetius.

Bonus Question, Divorce:

This one’s trickier. You need to figure out which couple got a divorce after this family tree was made. There’s one couple where the husband and wife face away from each other, so that’s the answer.

Pyramids:

Language:

Use the symbols and numbers on the pyramid to figure out what the double circle symbol would represent. It’s made up of the symbols for 4 and 2, so it’s 6. That makes the two symbols at the top 65. That’s the answer.

Bonus Question, Language:

You need to find the four dots shown on the piece of paper. Notice there’s dots on each corner of the pyramid. So the last ones would be on the hidden corner.

Fog Machine:

Switches:

You need to make a path from one switch to another that covers wires in this order: red, red, green, green, yellow, red. But the game is tricking you — you’re allowed to backtrack over a wire more than once. So the switches you would press are the top and bottom.

Bonus Question, Buttons:

To make the numbers symmetrical, swap a 4 with a 0. Then you can draw a line diagonally and it will be symmetrical.

Caves:

Mushrooms:

You need to start at A and see how many mushrooms you can pick up on the way to B without walking over the same ground more than once. The answer is 4!

Bonus Question, Cave Exploration:

I’m so angry at this one that I’ll just let the game explain it to you.

Comic:

Shapes:

Count the shapes in the comic and figure out which one appears the most. The answer is RECTANGLE, because the panels and speech bubbles also count.

Bonus Question, Panels:

The two panels in the middle should be switched, because the two people have to trade shapes before they can be holding different ones.

Paper Mix-Up:

Papers:

How many papers can you see in the first photograph? One is crumpled, and apparently you’re supposed to somehow know for certain that the paper airplane isn’t just drawn on, so the answer is 6. Kill me now.

Bonus Question, Papers:

You have to figure out which piece of paper in the third photograph has Barbara’s letter to her father on it. Since we’ve seen both sides of every other sheet of paper (except the crumpled up one, I guess?), we can assume it’s on the other side of the paper with the hearts on it. (I don’t know how this question gels with the first one, since the first one claims the paper airplane is not drawn on. Good lord.)

Fog:

Foggy Road:

The fourth photo is the same section of road because you can see the back of the street sign.

Bonus Question, Road Sign:

You need to figure out the last letter on the sign. It’s E, making it PROQILFE, because every other letter is the same as the one before it but with an extra stroke.

Newspaper 1:

This is not explained well, but basically you need to place numbers down so that no numbers repeat in any row or column. A higher number means it’s taller and will block the light from reaching the shorter numbers next to it. The goal is to make it so only one tile is NOT lit up on each row or column within view from the candle.

Newspaper 2:

And that’s the end of Chapter 1! I doubt I’ll bother with Chapter 2 because I’m not enjoying the game, but feel free to help each other in the comments section.

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. itsninja

    need chapter 2

  2. Milk

    Please can someone tell me where are the daily books I cant find them 😭😭

    1. Delia_Ironhand99

      if you wait to the last day they are all over the place. look especially at out of the way places like window ledges and areas that may have previously been off limits. take the whole school top to bottom and all wings and you should find them all. 🙂

      1. Mike

        I can’t find the last three books …… only last three please help me

  3. Seamoan

    This was… A letdown of something that could have been quite enjoyable. Honestly, it just made me want to replay some old prof Layton games, so i guess some good came out of it at the end. thanks for the hilarious walkthrough, I thought I was crazy and realized… No, it’s the game. These puzzles are all over the place.

Leave a Reply to Seamoan Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.