The Key was Found!
The key to Santa's Sleigh has been found and Christmas is saved! Thank you to everyone who played!
We've released the remaining clues / puzzles. We encourage you to continue playing if you find it fun! And don't look ahead unless you need to!
Try to figure out how many more days you'd need before you could find Santa's key.
Submit Answers:
You can guess as many times as you like.
Which city/town is the key in? (city only. spaces do not matter)
Help Santa find his key!
Santa lost the key to his sleigh and needs it back before Christmas. He's offering a $1000 reward to the first team that locates the key. Each day the elves will be releasing a clue. The first 10 clues will be puzzles. These puzzles will interact with the Treasure Map in some way to help you locate the key. The clues on the last two days will help give you insight into how to connect all of the dots. It's perfectly possible that a team connects the dots early and solves this before the last day. It may not be easy, but it is possible. Don't stress if you don't have time to solve a puzzle on one of the early days. You have plenty of time to catch up. Things will start to get serious around a week in.
Released Clues
This contains spoilers. You'll want to complete the puzzle for all of the days before looking in here.
When filled out the hint reads: FIRST LETTER OF WORDS IN STINK STANK STUNK.
This is referring to the song from the original Grinch.
Notice the notes on every day's puzzle?
Count the words in the song and look at the first letter. Use the number on the notes to figure out how many words to count.
You end up with these letters: IAAIQNSQTNAA. But that's not the correct order.
When you arrange each day's puzzle in a way that the snowflakes line up the letters get re-arranged.
It becomes: ITSINQAANAAQ.
This is ITS IN QAANAAQ. The town is QAANAAQ.
You need to drive around Qaanaaq on google maps and look for a church. The church has a lot of white crosses on it.
The church has a number 129 on it. The answer is 129.
You need to find a building with a shield up top as described.
The building has "44A" on it. The answer is 44A.
You're looking for a satellite dish and large star up on a hill.
There is a large generator between them. It might be hard to find the number. Look carefully.
The number on the generator is 229. The answer is 229. You're done!
The gray boxes indicate letters of a scrambled word.
To solve the sudoku you might find it easier to convert the pictures to numbers.
You can open the sudoku here and play it. There are hints to solving it available.
The letters you get are IFTGS
This unscrambles to GIFTS
You may want to use what is called a Logic Puzzle Grid to solve this
Cross off the easy ones first
You will have to keep going over the list of facts. Every time you discover something its worth revisiting the other facts in case they become more relevant
After figuring out which place each reindeer got and who trains them you should look at the True or False section.
Cross off anything that is false.
The remaining letters are CKNOSGIT.
This unscrambles to STOCKING. The answer is STOCKING.
Trace the symbols to letters to get a couple of the letters of the word.
The letters you get from the tangled lights are ?R??????E??E.
From here on out it's just a "Wheel of Fortune" style puzzle. Use any method you'd like to find a word that fits these letters.
The word is FRANKINCENSE.
You must choose exactly one of the ham, turkey, or prime rib. Without one you can't get the price high enough. With more than 1 the prices is too high.
Ham and turkey are too cheap. Even if you pick the most expensive remaining items you cannot get a total high enough. You must choose the prime rib. You now need to pick 5 items totaling $8.47
There are 4 even prices remaining and 5 odd prices remaining.
An odd+odd=even. An even+even=even. An odd+even=odd.
The remaining $8.47 is odd. This means we either need 1 odd number, 3 odd numbers, or all 5 odd numbers.
Choosing all 5 odd prices does not work, and there's no single odd number that works with all 4 even numbers. This means we need 3 odd numbers and 2 even numbers.
Let's focus on the even numbers. You cannot choose both the peas and cherries. That's too cheap. You can't pick both the pumpkin pie and the pineapple. That's too expensive.
Now let's look at the odds. Given what we know, you must choose the gravy. Without the gravy you cannot get the total high enough. The only exception is a variation that totals $8.73 and that's the wrong total. You choose the gravy and now need 4 numbers to total $6.04
The pumpkin pie is too expensive now that we picked the gravy. The three lowest prices you can make using the pumpkin pie are $5.82, $5.88, and $6.44. None of those are correct and you are already too expensive. This means you need the pineapple. You need 3 items to total $3.60
The peas are now too cheap. Even if you pick the most expensive odd numbers you cannot reach a high enough total. You must pick the cherries. You need 2 odd numbers to add to $2.78
The last two items are the mashed potatos and the corn.
Start off by crossing off every house without a chimney.
Pay close attention to corners. When a cell only has 2 possible options it must choose both of those options.
Avoid loops. A loop will prevent Santa from ever reaching all houses.
The path Santa takes will spell out a riddle.
You can open this puzzle here. There are hints to solving it available.
The path spells out WHAT IS EVERY ELFS FAVORITE TYPE OF MUSIC?
The answer is WRAP
The keyword here is "digital"
Understanding how binary numbers work would be helpful
A leaf represents a 1. The number of berries on the leaf represents where the 1 is located. For instance, an A=00001, C=00011, M=01101, etc
The word at the bottom is: 00010, 01111, 10101, 00111, 01000
The answer is BOUGH
When you find a difference scan over to the right to find a letter.
The 5 letters you find will unscramble into a word.
The snowman is missing a face. (T)
A window is missing. (S)
The polar bear's bell is missing. (E)
A small branch is shortened. (R)
A small cloud behind the polar bear is missing. (E)
The answer is TREES
Every occurence of A will be the same letter, but it will not be an A.
The way letters are mapped is random. Knowing what A maps to does not help you figure out what B maps to.
Starting on shorter words helps limit the possibilities of certain letters.
Everywhere there's a W replace it with an I
Everywhere there's a Y replace it with a D
Everywhere there's an F replace it with an A
The top riddle decodes to: WHAT DID SANTA DO DURING CHRISTMAS DINNER? HINT: HE ATE MOST OF THE FOOD.
Knowing these letters allows you to decode the answer: FEASTED
Count the number of lights per color.
You get 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18
These can be mapped to letters.
E, G, I, K, L, N, R
This unscrambles to KRINGLE
The keywords here are "dark" and "bumpy" and "could not see"
This is braille.
The boxes spell out KISS SOMEONE UNDER
The answer is MISTLETOE
Section 1: Take the appropriate letters from the answer for each day and place them in the correct spot in the HINT on the treasure map.
Section 2: Imagine where the spaces would go. Reading the hint spells out something talking about a Christmas song.
Section 3: When you find the Christmas song treat dashes as if they are spaces. Fourty-two would be two separate words.
Section 4: You will count the words in that Christmas song. The count comes from the notes on each day's puzzle. Order the notes based on a "path through snow"
Section 5: If you did everything correctly a town will be revealed. Use this as the first answer.
This is the "path through snow" that you are bound.
Arrange each day's puzzle in a way that snowflakes line up.
Take the letter for the note from the top left puzzle and use it as the first letter on the treasure map's note section.
The order of the days is: 4 ,9, 7, 1, 10, 8, 11, 2, 6, 12, 3, 8
Enjoy the Reindeer Race?
We have a mystery box built around a puzzle just like this! It's still on sale for $5. Print off multiple copies and compete against your family! Click here for more info.
