Introduction

Find and Shutdown Frosty's Snowglobe Machine

Difficulty:❅❅❅❅❅

You've heard murmurings around the city about a wise, elderly gnome having a change of heart. He must have information about where Frosty's Snowglobe Machine is. You should find and talk to the gnome so you can get some help with how to make your way through the Data Center's labrynthian halls. Once you find the Snowglobe Machine, figure out how to shut it down and melt Frosty's cold, nefarious plans.

In the Hack-a-Gnome challenge I started my way into the dark corridors of the data center, but immediately went upstairs to find Chris Davis and that challenge. If I continue past the elevator, there’s another corridor:

This leads to the data center maze!

The yellow glow shows doors that transport to other rooms (other than the one I came in from). Going into a door leads to another similar room, and I can see other rooms. Zooming way out shows nine of them:

Spinning around a bit there’s another room on the other side of the nine:

That looks like the target room. The goal is to navigate the maze to the end.

On each wall, the three doors are B, A, and Arrow:

If I walk through the wrong door, I’m dumped back outside the data center:

Solution

Solve by Path

The challenge prompt suggest I need to find the elderly gnome who has had a change of heart.

Over by the train station in the fenced in encampment is the Elder Gnome:

Elder Gnome

A change of heart, I have had, yes. Among the gnomes plotting to freeze the neighborhood, I once was. Wrong, we are. Help you now, I shall.

The route to the old secret lab inside the Data Center, begins on the far East wing inside the building, it does. Pitch dark, the hallways leading to it probably are, hmm.

A code outside the building, the employees who once worked there left, yes. A reminder of the route, it serves. Search in the vicinity of the Data Center for this code, perhaps you can.

A story I recall, yes. Another computer person like yourself, ten years ago there was. Lost inside the Data Center, an intern had become. Found, they were, by this person. But before the reconstruction, that was. Exactly the same, the current route likely is not, hmm.

Search for the Data Center’s past in the historical archives of the Internet, you should. More information helpful to you, may be found there, yes.

There are a couple clues in here. The most straight forward is the hint to look at the data center for a reminder of the route. On the back wall of the data center I’ll see oddly colored bricks:

I can download this image by finding it in the browser dev tools:

Each section of colored blocks has eight bricks, and they are one of two colors. In binary, that would be:

In ASCII, that’s “imanoK”:

That’s Konami backwards!

There is also a hint about an intern who got lost in the data center 10 years ago. 2015 was the last time Holiday Hack was set in the Dosis Neighborhood, and there was a challenge getting through a maze. From Michael Pella’s winning entry:

The Elder said the path was similar, but not the same, and I have the string Konami backwards. The solution is to walk that pattern backwards. The Konami code is:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A.

I’ll make sure I’m oriented so that North is up:

The room the corridor leads to doesn’t matter. Any door will work. This puts me in the top left room of the nine. Here I’ll start the Konami code backwards, going to the A door on the top wall. This jumps me to the top right room. Now the B jumps to the top middle room. Right means any door on the right wall (arrow, A, or B), jumping to the center left room, and so on:

Room	Door	Next Room
Starting	Any	Top left
Top left	Any A	Top right
Top right	Any B	Top center
Top center	Any right	Mid left
Mid left	Any left	Mid right
Mid right	Any right	Middle
Middle	Any left	Bottom right
Bottom right	Any Down	Bottom left
Bottom left	Any Down	Bottom middle
Bottom middle	Any up	Extra room
Extra room	Any up	Snowlab

Solve with Door Names

If I right-click and inspect any NPC or terminal or door (the shiny yellow stuff that marks the portal), I’ll see that inside the div with the camera class there’s a div with the ent class for me and each other item that I can interact with in the game:

Each of these have a location on the grid that is the map. Inside the data center corridors, there are no NPCs, terminals, or items, only doors:

In the room from the corridor, all of the doors have the class datacenter1-datacenter2:

However, in the next room, most doors have the class datacentermaze-city:

But the A doors have datacenter2-datacenter3:

In the next rooms, it’s the Bs that are good:

Where all the other doors are bad:

I’ll write some JavaScript I can dump into the dev tools console that will label the doors:

const camera = document.querySelector('.camera');

document.querySelectorAll('.door-clicker.one').forEach(door => {
  const classes = [...door.classList];
  const transitionClass = classes.find(c =>
      c !== 'door-clicker' &&
      c !== 'one' &&
      c !== 'two' &&
      c !== 'three' &&
      c !== 'four'
  );

  if (!transitionClass) return;

  // Get the door's transform and copy it for the label
  const transform = door.style.transform;

  const label = document.createElement('div');
  label.textContent = transitionClass.replaceAll('datacenter', 'dc').replace('maze-city', '-city');
  label.style.cssText = `
      position: absolute;
      transform: ${transform} translateY(-150px);
      background: ${transitionClass.includes('city') ? '#ff4444' : '#44ff44'};
      color: black;
      padding: 4px 8px;
      font-size: 14px;
      font-weight: bold;
      white-space: nowrap;
      border-radius: 4px;
      pointer-events: none;
  `;

  camera.appendChild(label);
});

console.log('Labels added! Green = correct path, Red (X) = wrong path');

After running, my maze looks like:

This is much easier to navigate.

Solve with Teleport

For the competition this year I spent a while at the start working on a TamperMonkey script for the game. I’ll cover the script in detail in Appendix A, but there are a couple features that come in handy here. First, I’ve added the labels from the previous step. But it also uses the websocket data (see my Hacking KringleCon post from 2022) to draw a mini map at the top right of the screen:

In this area, it shows the walkable pathways and all the rooms and doors. For this year, I’ve updated it so that clicking on the minimap teleports my character to that place. So solving this challenge is as simple as teleporting to the final room and figuring out to walk up.

Outro

When I make it through the last door, I’m in Frosty’s Snowglobe Lab:

Find Frosty's Snowglobe Machine

Congratulations! You have completed the Find Frosty’s Snowglobe Machine challenge!

Frosty reveals his evil plot:

Frosty

Every spring, I melt away. Every year, I fade into nothing while the world moves on without me. But not this time… not anymore.

The magic in this old silk hat - the same magic that brought me to life - I discovered it could do so much more. It awakened the Gnomes, gave them purpose, gave them MY purpose.

Refrigerate the entire neighborhood, that’s the plan. Keep it frozen, keep it cold. If winter never ends here, then neither do I. No more melting, no more disappearing, no more being forgotten until the next snowfall.

The Gnomes have been gathering coolants, refrigerator parts, everything we need. Soon the Dosis Neighborhood will be a frozen paradise - MY frozen paradise. And I’ll finally be permanent, just like Santa, just like all the other holiday icons who don’t have to fear the sun.

There’s a door back out to the city. On leaving, I take with me the Snow Crystal:

Snow Crystal

A crystal powered by holiday magic. Legend has it this crystal manifests its owner’s most-desired gift during the holiday season. In Frosty’s case, that gift was the power to cover the city in snow forever. Hm… didn’t something similar happen in a movie once?