Mission Christmas
Hints and Tips

The door is locked by a four-digit code- The head of elves refers to the visitor’s ID in her letter.

The symbols in the corner of the visitor’s ID catch one’s eye, right?

The code for the door lock can be read in the upper right corner of the visitor’s ID. The individual symbols are mirrored numbers and thus reveal the combination 2715.

It truly is difficult cracking the password of a person one does not know at all.
There must be an easier way. What would the secretary do if she could not remember the password herself?

Clicking on “Forgot password” gives you the chance to work around it by answering three security questions.

The boss’s favourite dish can probably best be found out in the kitchen. Packages are being packed in the workshop, surely the accompanying ID can be found there as well. And the boss’s last travel destination? He likes to write postcards to his employees, who then proceed to happily hang them up on the message board in the hallway.

Comparing the fingerprints on the ingredients to the ones in the employee files and the recipe book shows that the boss loves to eat Polish Christmas carp above all else.

The latest postcard on the message board in the hallway has been sent from Mount Cook, which lies in New Zealand. This is the boss’s last travel destination.

After having arranged the presents in the workshop in the correct way, you receive the following package ID: N15S03G1995E

Now there is nothing holding you back from entering the secretary’s private message inbox! You receive the three-piece password 3j7 and just have to enter it.

Here you can figure out Santa’s favourite dish. For that you need the recipe book on the kitchen table and the utensils on the kitchen counter.
And it would certainly help if you knew who is responsible for preparing the meals. The secretary has all the employee files collected in her cabinet.

The note on the kitchen wall and the comments in the employee file of Nico are worrying.
He does not seem to be a very talented chef, yet he is still responsible for preparing the favourite dish of his boss. Luckily, he left his fingerprints all over the ingredients he used.
Now you only have to compare them to the recipes in the book et voilà!

Nico, the incompetent kitchen help, has left fingerprints all over the utensils and ingredients he used in his last cooking attempt.
You can identify those with the help of his employee file in the secretary’s cabinet and realise: he used a cutting knife, a peeler, salt (white) and pepper (black).
And those are exactly the things one needs for preparing a Polish Christmas carp.

One can always discover something useful on a message board! The message board itself can be discovered down at the bottom of the right wall in the hallway.

There are several postcards on the message board that Santa has sent to his employees. Look out for the newest addition to the collection.
If you are not entirely sure which country they have been sent from, feel free to consult an internet search engine of your choice.

The last greetings from Santa to his employees were written from Mount Cook. It is located in New Zealand, which is therefore his latest travel destination.

Chris’ present is the second biggest. It is dark green and has a yellow ribbon.

Leo’s present is the one on the far right. It is wrapped in dark blue and has a red ribbon.

On the far left is Alice’s present. It is orange with a blue ribbon. Next to it is Mila’s present with red wrapping paper and a dark green ribbon. In third place lies the dark green package with a yellow ribbon; it belongs to Chris.
Lastly, on the far right lies Leo’s present. It is wrapped in dark blue with a red ribbon.
If you arrange the presents like this and send off your solution, you will receive the package ID of your location: N15S03G1995E

The contents of this trash can will only become interesting to you after having logged in to the secretary’s computer.

Would you look at that, it is the lost piece of sheet music! The secretary wrote to the assistant that she had cut up said piece of paper.
Santa’s wife, however, is very determined to get it back. What a tricky situation, the secretary’s scissors seemed to have done a remarkable job. Good luck putting it all back together 😉

Additionally, it might be a good idea to write an email to Santa’s wife. Just use an email service of your choice and contact her at [email protected] / [email protected] she will be glad to help you out.

Oh no, Santa plays only every fourth note in the first and third line?
That sounds unnecessarily complicated. Luckily, a lot of the notes are already labelled and some additional research on the internet is not forbidden if you are no musical geniuses.
After that, why not try to play the little tune on the piano in the hallway?

You need some sheet music to play the piano. The private chats and emails on the secretary’s computer will be of help to you.

You managed to glue the sheet music back together and asked Santa’s wife for help in an email?
Then you surely know that Santa only plays every fourth note in the first and third line. This means he indeed starts directly with the fourth note, not with the first.

If you strictly follow the instructions from Santa’s wife in her email and only play every fourth note as well as leaving out the second line completely, you will get the following haunting tune:
E G F F in the first line and F E F in the third. You receive the key to Santa’s office!

With help of the notes on Santa’s desk you can figure you the secret meeting place. There is also a world map in the office to help you. Try to rule out the countries one by one.

After having combined all the clues written on the different notes we can conclude that the host country must offer the following characteristics:

-lies in the northern hemisphere

-is a coastal country

-is not an island

-is smaller than 5 000 000 km²

-has an uneven number of colours in its flag

There is only one country on the list that ticks all the boxes! Feel free to use a globe, atlas or the internet for help.

The only country which meets all the requirements is Italy and the code word is therefore “giggle”.

what3words.com is an external website beyond this game that can bring you up close to different locations in the world by describing them with only three words, which are entered as follows:
word1.word2.word3

Use now the notes on Santa’s desk to find out the three code words which will lead you to the secret meeting place of all the Santas.

The first word has already been kindly given to you in the notes: counts

The second word leads you back to the hallway. There is a blue piece of paper pinned to the message board.

The third word can be found out by figuring out the host country with help of the notes.

Be careful to enter the words precisely on the website. Look out for verb tenses and remember to put a full stop between the words. Only then you will find out at which natural sight the Santas planned to meet.

The words you are looking for are “pixies” (given), “guessing” (found on the blue piece of paper on the message board) and “giggle” (code word of the host country Italy).
These must now be entered in the correct way: pixies.guessing.giggle

Only one place in the whole world is titled this way and it lies of course in Italy: it is Mount Vesuvius.

Now transmit this information to the detective agency so that they can send a special unit to the rescue!

After you have transmitted the location of Vesuvius to the detective agency, you will now be sent to rescue the Santas.

To travel to  Mount Vesuvius is one thing, it is another to get into it. However, the suspect from the catering service seems to have made it somehow.
With a little luck the security camera has caught how they proceeded.

It is important to keep the same order as the suspect when interacting with the objects and animals.
The time stamps on the security footage will be of help to you here. Visit dog, goat, pile of presents, wood stack and gingerbread house one after the other to get access to the inside.

Festive lighting is a must for every Christmas but it looks like something got a bit messy here.
At least the bulbs on the string of lights have the exact same colours as the ones mentioned in the text box.

The light bulbs must be chosen in the same order as given by the text box.
The remaining question is: should you rather trust the word itself or the colour in which it is written? Your chance to be right is 50% in any way.

In this case, the written word counts more than the colour it is displayed in.
This means that the order in which the light bulbs must be chosen is blue, green, purple, red, orange and yellow.

You receive two combinations for the red door: in third place the yellow square must be combined with the snowflake and the red hexagon with the christmas tree in fourth place.

Yummy, this all looks so very tasty. How could you ever make a choice?
Luckily, the catering service has already narrowed down the options and made a menu for the evening.

Even after the catering service is looking more than shady right now, the dishes still convince with their optics.
The Christmas Menu, which was secured by WatsonHolmes before, tells you from which starters, main dishes and desserts the Santas could choose.
Just select every option in the security query to find out: the christmas ornament is the key for the lock with the green star in fifth place.

Looks like a maze but something seems to be missing…
As long as only the horizontal walls are drawn in, you will not get very far. It would be good to know where the vertical walls are in the room.

When laid over each other, the strange note and the already given structure of the maze show you the complete constellation of walls.
To get from the start (yellow square) to the end (red circle) you have to follow this path: one step to the left, five up, two to the right, one down, one to the left, one down, one to the right, one down, one to the right, one up, two to the right, three down, and one to the left. Piece of cake 🙂

You receive two combinations for the red door: the black triangle fits the reindeer in first place and the blue circle the christmas hat in second place.

The secret conference would not be as secret if it were not sufficiently secured!
You can find out more about which key fits which lock on the different screens next to the door.

We know from the fairy lights on screen one: in third place the yellow square must be combined with the snowflake and the red hexagon with the christmas tree in fourth place.
The security query on screen two tells us that in fifth place the green star fits the christmas ornament.
Lastly, the maze on screen three reveals: in first place the black triangle belongs to the reindeer and in second place the blue circle goes with the christmas hat.

The way to the insides of the volcano is free at last, the Santas will undoubtedly be grateful!

Modern displays, including laptop displays, have many adjustments to offer customers a better screen resolution. Unfortunately these preset settings could lead to minor problems within the game. The problem here is often the preseted scaling. With just a few clicks, you can adjust the resolution scaling of your device and optimise the gaming experience.

Instructions:  Windows

1. To check the current screen resolution, right-click on a free space on your desktop and select “Display settings”.
2. A settings window will open, in which the sub-item “Scaling and Arrangement” can be found. Look for the item “Scaling”.
3. If the displayed scaling deviates from 100%, we recommend that you adjust it to 100% for a better gaming experience.
4. Refresh the website with the incorrect screen resolution and, if necessary, set your browser scaling to 100%.

Instructions: Apple

1. To check the currently set screen resolution, select the Apple menu and go to the sub-item “System Settings”.
2. Click on the menu item “Monitors”.
3. If the displayed scaling differs from 100%, we recommend that you adjust it to 100% for a better gaming experience.

Attention with Retina Displays: Retina Displays display some information as too small, which is why it is advantageous to increase the scaling here.

4. Refresh the website with the incorrect screen resolution and, if necessary, set your browser scaling to 100%.