Holiday Hack 2024: Act I
With challenges solved, we’re ready to head to the North Pole! Let’s hope Santa is back already to direct operations.
With Santa away, Wombley Cube and Alabaster Snowball have each tried to lead. Surely they won’t mess up the naughty and nice list…
Snowball Badge
Story
On November 11 around noon EST, the badge updated, with a new story section:
The “Go to” buttons are how I move between locations.
Objectives
There are three new objectives in the badge (including two parts for Hardware Hacking 101):
Map
The badge also has a map of the Front Yard:
Act 1 Locations
Front Yard
Act 1 mostly takes place in the Front Yard at the North Pole, which will be familiar to participants of previous KringleCons.
In addition to seven elves and four terminal challenges, there’s two items to find. The UV Flashlight is behind a set of crates towards the top of the yard on the right side:
The Frosty Book is sticking out behind another smaller crate in the top right corner:
There is an Easter egg crate labeled “TOP SECRET ARMY INTEL 9906753 DO NOT OPEN!” to the left side of the yard near Tinsel:
This is a reference to the crate that the Ark of the Covenat is packed into in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
North Pole Monitoring Station
There’s an entrance to this undergroup facility in the tree towards the bottom center of the yard:
Inside it’s dark, with screens showing memes, Christmas films, and games:
The interactive station launches the scoreboard.
Frosty’s Beach
At the bottom left corner of the map, there’s a path with an exit and a sign labeled “Dock”:
Taking this leads back to Frosty’s Beach, but now it’s basically empty except for the six geese (now with names) and Jason’s annual cameo, this year as a tiny crate:
The Geese each have story hints to drop:
James / Goose of Steampunk Island
CLUCK CLU… I think I might be losing my mind. All the elves are gone and I’m still hearing voices.
Barry / Goose of Film Noir Island
You want me to say what exactly? Do I really look like someone who says MOOO?
Evelyn / Goose of Christmas Island
Ugh, so happy we can all be ourselves again!
Lucas / Goose of Pixel Island
(Spanish mode) Hi… welcome to Frosty’s Beach! Nice to meet you!
Oliva / Goose of Space Island
GRUNT! Oh silly me. I don’t need to pretend anymore, do I?
Grace / Goose of Island of Misfit Toys
Who knew all-inclusive meant just us and a campire? Amirite?
Jason makes his annual cameo as a tiny crate in front of Santa’s Surf Shack:
Jason
Hi, I’m Jason!
Where did everyone go?
Guys?
Helloooooooooo?!
Plot
As the act says in the badge, both Wombley Cube and Alabaster Snowball mention that Santa is missing:
Alabaster Snowball
Well hello, I’m Alabaster Snowball!
As you can see all around you, we’re still unpacking from our return from the Geese Islands.
Strangely, Santa is still nowhere to be found. When we couldn’t find him on Christmas Island, we thought he must already be here in the North Pole, but nope.
Even though he’s not here, I know he’d still want us to start preparing for the holiday present deliveries, so that’s what we’re gonna do!
With all our equipment all jumbled up in boxes, we’ve been experimenting with ways of securely storing the lists related to our gift-giving operations. We tried implementing the Naughty-Nice List using Blockchain back in 2022 but Jack Frost hacked it and we are trying to find a suitable technical approach for securely storing it. Integrity is of critical importance.
Without them, naughty listers may get all the good presents, and those that have been nice may get coal. Can you imagine? The horror! This isn’t Halloween!
I’ve asked my fellow elves to help out with this, since I’m not the most tech-savvy of the bunch. Many got right to it, but some are being quite ho-hum about it. That seems a little strange to me, but maybe they’re just tired from the journey home.
I may not be the sharpest tool in the repository when it comes to the technical stuff, but it seems I’m quite the galvanizer!
Anywho, why not join Bow for a game of cURL? And then go help Morcel and Jewel with securing the Wish List, please. Thanks a bunch!
Wombley Cube
Greetings. It’s great to see you’ve finally made the journey here to join us.
Erm, by that I mean all of Santa’s elves, of course. The big guy’s not here, so I’ve been coordinating holiday preparation efforts.
We’re just hard at work getting things set up for… the holiday season. Present deliveries and what not.
Some of us are also busy researching the best way to keep the Wish List and Naughty-Nice List uhh.. safe.
Not to cut our conversation short, but you must be tired from your journey. You should go over to the fireplace and relax with the others that are taking a break.
We’re doing very important work over here and I need to make sure we stay on schedule.