13 Days to Escape Secrets Guide: Openable Hiding Places and Tunnels

The secrets you can actually act on in 13 Days to Escape are openings: places the game lets you break into with the right tool at the right moment. Two of them are confirmed by a full recorded run, and this secrets guide covers how each one opens, what you need to carry, and what you find on the other side.

Quick answer

Two hiding places can actually be opened in 13 Days to Escape: the barred window of your cell and the toilet in Cell 13. Behind the window you'll find cash stacks and a free Power Drill; under the toilet waits a vertical tunnel you can drill through.

• The window opens during the RETURN TO CELLS alert: get back to your cell before the countdown ends, saw the bars, then climb out during LOCKDOWN.
• The toilet opens with a screwdriver: 'Unscrew' the bolts, choose 'Move aside', then jump in and drill the dirt walls with the Power Drill.
• In one recorded run, dropping into the toilet tunnel ended in a 'Day 2' restart of the daily loop — not the ending.

Which hiding places can you actually open?

The official 13 Days to Escape page lists the escape as a compact checklist: hide your tools, move the toilet, and dig your way out. The same description promises dark tunnels to explore and prison secrets to uncover, and frames the daily grind around them: work prison jobs, earn cash, buy tools from OJ's Deals, and keep roll call, guards and CCTV from raising your suspicion. What the checklist doesn't give you are locations — for those, a full recorded run of the game is the map. Two places can actually be opened:

• The barred window in your cell — opens with a saw; in the recorded run this happened during the RETURN TO CELLS alert, so timing matters.
• The toilet in Cell 13 — opens with a screwdriver, and what's underneath needs a Power Drill.

Both are tool routes. The recorded player had a saw in hand for the window opening and a screwdriver for the toilet, and picked up the Power Drill along the way, as covered below. For what equipment exists and how to get hold of it, the tools guide is the starting point, with prison jobs and OJ's Deals as the official cash-and-purchase loop behind it. And while you gather all of this, the same checklist warns you to stay ready for roll call and keep your suspicion low — the suspicion guide covers that side of the game.

Opening 1: the cell window during RETURN TO CELLS

The window route doesn't start from your cell — it starts from an alert. When the RETURN TO CELLS alert kicks in, a countdown begins, and the recorded player made it back to the cell before it ran out. That timing, with a saw already equipped, is the entry condition for everything that follows.

Mechanic flow

1. 1

   RETURN TO CELLS alert

   A countdown starts.

2. 2

   Saw the window bars

   Use the saw on the bars. A 'Saw bars' progress bar fills and the bars come off.

3. 3

   LOCKDOWN

   The cell door locks. During LOCKDOWN, the opened window becomes your way out.

4. 4

   Climb out and sneak

   Go through the window into the area behind the cell block and sneak into the vehicle area.

5. 5

   Collect what's outside

   Cash stacks sit inside an open prisoner transport, and a workshop with yellow-and-black hazard markings holds a free Power Drill on its workbench.

The Power Drill is the find that matters most for the rest of this guide: it's exactly the tool the toilet tunnel needs, and in the recorded run the player carried it straight from the workshop to the toilet. So even if cash isn't your goal, the LOCKDOWN window route is a free way to get the drill — the digging guide and tunnels guide cover what happens once you're breaking ground.

Opening 2: the toilet tunnel under Cell 13

The toilet is the opening the official checklist points at with 'move the toilet, and dig your way out.' Opening it needs two tools: the screwdriver for the bolts and the Power Drill for what's below. In the recorded run it goes like this:

1. Back in your cell, crouch at the toilet base.
2. Use the screwdriver on the bolts — the game offers an 'Unscrew' action.
3. Once the bolts are off, choose 'Move aside'. The toilet shifts and reveals a vertical tunnel opening where it stood.
4. Jump in with the Power Drill and hold the left mouse button to drill through the dirt walls.

Inside is the 'dark tunnels' half of the official promise: a vertical drop, dirt walls, and a drill that chews through them while you hold the left mouse button. If you don't own a Power Drill yet, remember one is sitting free on the workbench in the hazard-marked workshop from the window route. The move toilet guide breaks the unscrewing step down further.

What to expect after you drop in

The recorded run keeps going after the player drops in and starts drilling — and then the game cuts to a black screen with typewriter text: 'Day 2'. The player wakes up and the daily loop starts over exactly as before: ROLL CALL, sorting books in the library, delivering an item labelled #043.

So in that run, the toilet tunnel was genuinely openable, but drilling into it did not lead to the ending — the day simply restarted. That's one recorded outcome, not proof of what happens every time you drop in. It still sets a fair expectation: opening the tunnel and drilling through dirt is real, accessible progress, and it's not automatically the finish line. A tunnel attempt can end with the daily routine restarting rather than freedom.

The secret you can't unscrew: the STAFF ONLY door

Not every secret in 13 Days to Escape is something you pry open with a tool. The official page sets the scene: welcome to Cell 13, where your release date never comes. After lights out, prisoners are taken behind a door marked STAFF ONLY — and they don't come back the same. The game's challenge is to escape before it's your turn, summed up as 'Act normal by day. Plan your escape by night.'

That STAFF ONLY door is the prison's story-level secret, and it sits outside the two tool-openings above: neither the saw nor the screwdriver touches it in the confirmed routes. If what happens behind it is the thread you want to pull, the staff-only door guide and the story guide follow it separately.

Where to go from here

The full walkthrough follows the entire recorded run end to end — alert, window route, Power Drill, toilet tunnel and the Day 2 restart included — while the Cell 13 guide focuses on the cell where both openings start. For the loop you'll repeat between attempts, the prison routine guide and the day-night cycle guide cover roll call, jobs and the rhythm that decides when you can work on your escape.