Teacher note
Enter the teacher password to see the answers and testing tools.
How it runs
- Teams of 3 or 4 share one Chromebook. The game tells them to pass the mouse after every puzzle so everyone gets a turn to drive.
- Plan on 60 to 75 minutes (it can be split over two class periods with progress codes). Students explore 10 rooms on 3 floors plus the Control Room, help 9 characters, collect 9 clues, find the hidden Master Key, then decode the reset password to stop the lockdown.
- The factory opens up as they go: the gummy bears give the Elevator Card (middle floor), Sir Sprinkles gives the Top Floor Pass (top floor), and Captain Ginger's lock opens the Control Room. Professor Peppermint's Code Wheel goes into the backpack and is needed again for the final password.
- Skills: logic ordering clues, balance scale equations (substitution), money and making exact change, repeating patterns with division, fractions of a whole (halves, thirds, sixths), planning moves (Tower of Hanoi), a shift cipher, a Venn diagram, a 3 digit code breaker with "right number, wrong spot" clues, and elimination from 10 clues (every clue is needed).
- Wrong answers lock that puzzle for a short wait (15 seconds, then 30, 45, 60) so teams talk instead of guessing. Puzzles with pieces (the bears and the candy sort) also clear the board after a wrong check. A wrong machine search adds 2 minutes to the clock plus a wait that grows each time (1, 2, 3, then 5 minutes), so trying every machine is a bad plan. A wrong reset password waits 20, 40, then 60 seconds. Hints: 3 per puzzle, one every 45 seconds.
- Bonus: 11 golden candies are hidden in the rooms for teams that like to explore. The count prints on the award.
- Progress codes: after every puzzle the team gets a 10 letter code (like
KDHTM-7XQMP), also shown on the side. Have one student write the newest code on paper. If a browser resets or the team switches Chromebooks, they type it on the start screen and get back their crew name, every solved puzzle (in any order), open floors, items, the Master Key, hints and time. Made-up codes do not work, and after 3 wrong tries the box makes them wait 20 seconds. Typing their own code again on the same computer keeps any wait that is still running, so reloading the page cannot skip a wrong answer wait. A code always brings its own crew name, and that name prints on the award. - The "Left this page" counter on the side goes up every time someone switches to another tab or window. It does not stop the game. A high number can mean someone went looking for answers, for example by taking a screenshot to an AI helper, so it is worth a quick check in.
Timer
Minutes until the chocolate tank overflows: (teams can keep playing in overtime; the award says "Finished in overtime")
Answers
- Gummy Room, the Gummy Bears: Yellow, Orange, Green, Red, Purple (spots 1 to 5). Gives the Elevator Card, which opens the middle floor.
- Chocolate Kitchen, Chef Cocoa: 14 marshmallows. 1 bar = 3 caramels = 6 marshmallows, 1 caramel = 2 marshmallows, so 6 + 6 + 2 = 14.
- Bubble Gum Room, Bubbles: 3 quarters and 2 nickels (25 + 25 + 25 + 5 + 5 = 85). It is the only way to make 85 cents with exactly 5 coins.
- Lollipop Studio, Lolly: 7 blue and 14 yellow. The pattern pink, blue, pink, yellow, yellow repeats 7 times in 35 stripes.
- Cotton Candy Room, Fluff: 6 pink slices, 4 blue, 2 yellow (any order). The yellow fraction is 1/6 (2/12 is also accepted).
- Freezer, Sir Sprinkles: move the 3 scoop tower to the right cone in 11 moves or fewer (7 is best); Start Over puts the tower back but does not give moves back, so random moving runs out: small to right, middle to middle, small to middle, big to right, small to left, middle to right, small to right. Gives the Top Floor Pass.
- Invention Lab, Professor Peppermint: the slide is 2 (M to O). UYGGV VTGCVU decodes to SWEET TREATS. Gives the Code Wheel.
- Packing Room, Boxy: Chocolate only: chocolate bar, chocolate drop. Sprinkles only: sprinkle lollipop, sprinkle gumdrop. Both: sprinkle truffle, sprinkle chocolate pop. Neither: gummy bear, candy cane.
- Control Room Door, Captain Ginger: 1 7 0. (Check: 4 3 5 are not in it. 8 1 0 has the 1 in the wrong spot and the 0 in the right spot. 7 9 5 has the 7 in the wrong spot. 2 6 1 has the 1 in the wrong spot. 1 5 2 has the 1 in the right spot. No other code fits all five clues.) Opens the Control Room.
- The search: the Master Key is in the Sugar Spinner (Cotton Candy Room). Every one of the 10 clues removes a different machine.
- Reset password: the panel shows CNN ENGCT. Using the same slide of 2, it decodes to ALL CLEAR.