Teacher note
Enter the teacher password to see the answers and testing tools.
How it runs
- Teams of 2 to 4 share one Chromebook. Teams pick a crew name with the word arrows (no student names are typed, so any group can pick up a progress code later, even with new partners). The game reminds the team to pass the mouse after every lock.
- Plan on 45 to 60 minutes (it can be split over two class periods with progress codes). This is a point and click escape room on a pirate ship with three places: the main deck, the captain's cabin and below deck. The cabin and below deck stay locked until the team opens them.
- Built for grades 3 to 5: a third grade team can finish with some hints and a little help, and a fifth grade team should be able to do it on their own. "Stuck? Get a Hint" on the side always gives a hint for the next thing to do (3 hints per lock, one every 45 seconds).
- The story: Captain Marigold went ashore and hid the 4 cannonballs. A rival ship, the Rusty Barnacle, sails up. Every cannonball the team finds gets fired from the cannon: first the front of their ship, then the back, then the side, then the mast falls. At the end the rival crew jumps into the water and holds on to pieces of their ship (everyone is safe, just wet and grumpy) while the team sails away.
- Skills: careful observation and counting, coin values (10, 5 and 1) with multiplication and addition, following directions on a grid with port and starboard, matching signal flags to a code book, a number pyramid (addition and missing addends), and logic with four clues that all have to be true.
- Built as a real escape room, not a walkthrough: the notes on the locks are short and a little cryptic, and the key piece of each puzzle sits somewhere else (the coin values in the ledger, the loading rule on the wall, port and starboard from the parrot, the flag book in the cabin). Teams have to search, connect clues and talk it through. The game never says where to go next; the hints do that slowly if a team is stuck.
- Wrong answers lock that puzzle for a short wait (15 seconds, then 30, 45, 60). Opening the wrong barrel waits 20, 40, then 60 seconds and names the clue it breaks. Aiming the cannon at the wrong spot also locks it for a moment.
- Bonus: 7 golden starfish are hidden around the ship. The count prints on the award.
- Progress codes: after every lock and every cannon shot 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 moves to another Chromebook, they type the code on the start screen. It brings back the crew name, every lock opened, every shot fired, hints and time. Made up codes do not work, and codes from the other escape rooms do not work here. - 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, so it is worth a quick check in.
- Everything here (the ships, the captains and the crew) is made up.
Timer
Minutes until sunset: (teams can keep playing in overtime; the award says "Solved in overtime")
Answers, in order
- Cabin door (main deck): the lock has 3 wheels with a little picture on each (a barrel with a green flag, a sail with a black flag, a round window with a black flag). The note says green flag means our ship and black flag means the Rusty Barnacle. 5 barrels on our deck (two in front, one partly behind the mast, two stacked by the hatch), 3 sails on the Rusty Barnacle, 7 round windows on the Rusty Barnacle = 537.
- Sea chest (cabin): the chest note only says it opens with what the coin pouch is worth. The coin values are in the Captain's Ledger on the book stand in the cabin, and the ledger warns that Pickles hides chocolate coins in the pouch. 10 gold coins in the pouch, but 2 have a bite out of them (chocolate, worth nothing). 8 real gold (10 each) = 80, 4 silver (5 each) = 20, 7 copper (1 each) = 7. Total 107. Inside: cannonball 1 and the spyglass.
- Deck map (cabin): the steps start "on the tallest thing on our deck," which is the mast (C4). Port and starboard are not on the map; Pickles the parrot says them when clicked (port is left, starboard is right). 2 toward the front (C2), 3 to starboard (F2), 4 toward the back (F6), 1 to port: square E6. Cannonball 2 is under that plank.
- Hatch (main deck): the note only says the code "flies high above the deck, where only Pickles can see it clearly." Look at the flags at the top of the mast with the spyglass (from the backpack, or click the flags). The flag book is on the cabin bookshelf. Top to bottom: white over blue = 7, blue left and white right = 3, red and yellow diagonal = 8, blue over white = 2. Code 7382.
- Crate stack (below deck): the rule is not on the crates. It is on the LOADING RULE sign painted on the wall below deck: each crate is the sum of the two under it. Bottom layer 6, 9, 4, 8; middle 15, 13, 12; next 28, 25; top 53. The anchor crates, bottom to top: 8, 13, 53. Inside: cannonball 3 and the barrel clue card.
- Six barrels (below deck): not on an end (rules out 14 and 9), 3 iron bands (rules out 30), no fish stamp (rules out 22), even number (rules out 27). Cannonball 4 is in barrel 18, the fourth from the left. Each clue rules out at least one barrel that the others do not.
- Cannon (main deck): after each cannonball, click the cannon, click the spot from Captain Marigold's battle plan, then Fire. Shot 1: the front of their ship (the pointy end on the left), shot 2: the back (the tall end on the right), shot 3: the middle of their side, shot 4: their tallest mast. The fourth shot starts the ending.