Christmas Mystery Update

The Christmas Mystery Update (v1.44.4400) was released in December 2019. See Updates for dates for each platform. The Christmas Mystery Update introduced:

When the update was released and downloaded, the Christmas Mystery Event triggered automatically.
 * Christmas Mystery Event
 * 1 new picture - Snowy Village
 * 76 new quests
 * 13 new collections - 5 for the Event, and 8 others
 * 3 new Artifacts - Christmas Mistletoe, the Explorer's Star Amulet and Mirror Puzzle.
 * Santa's Bag Everyday Gifts
 * Christmas Tree Gift Tree

Christmas Mystery Event
The Christmas Mystery Event ran for several weeks and ended when the event timer expired. The timer is shown on the desktop and under the event name in the event window. There are 3 challenges during the event. Players can complete any or all of these during the event. The prizes are not be available after time expired. These are not part of the challenges, but they temporarily reward prizes during the event.
 * Collect 500 Pine Cones by winning games of Christmas Gem Match to win or upgrade the Pyramid of Wonder award.
 * Complete 30 special quests to win the one-off Christmas Mistletoe which increases rewards for visiting friends by 100% for 48 hours.
 * Achieve Academician level in Snowy Village to win 2 unique avatars, one female and one male.
 * Christmas Tree rewards a set of gifts every 24 hours.
 * Christmas Gifts from Santa's Bag can be opened anytime during the event.  They contain game items.

The Christmas Gem Match Challenge - Pyramid of Wonder
The Pyramid of Wonder desktop award rewards special items, Fire Flies, Carrots, Lady Bugs, Cupid's Arrows and Tokens every 12 hours. 500 Pine Cones were needed to win or upgrade the Pyramid of Wonder. Pine Cones can only be won by successfully completing the Christmas Gem Match puzzle. For each successful win of Special Gem Match, you will win between 2-5 Pine Cones as one of the rewards for completing the puzzle. On average you will get 3.5 Pine Cones per play. Therefore it will require approximately 143 plays of Christmas Gem Match to complete the challenge.

Christmas Gem Match replaced Special Gem Match on the board and was available to play while the Christmas Mystery Event was live and was located next to the Christmas Mystery event picture, Snowy Village.

When you open the Research Window for Christmas Gem Match by tapping on the Christmas Gem Match puzzle icon on your Home Desktop you will see Pine Cones listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Pine Cones were available to win for every play of the puzzle at every puzzle level.

Once you have collected 500 Pine Cones, a congratulations window will appear and the Pyramid of Wonder will automatically appear on the desktop and move to it's place in the row of desktop awards.



However daunting it may seem, all of the Timed Challenges are designed to be able to be completed within the given time limit, so it is possible to collect 500 Pine Cones well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible! For more information, see Hints and Tips for Event Challenges

In addition to playing Christmas Gem Match to win Pine Cones, you will win some of the new Combining Elements that are needed to combine the challenge collections. These are: Jingle Bells, Candy Cane, Elf's Hat, and Confetti Jar. These can be won from Christmas Gem Match and Night Garden. The availability may change when the event timer expires, and it may change again with a future update.

Gingerbread Cookie Special Items required to play Snowy Village
Until a future update removes the requirement, Gingerbread Cookie special items were required in addition to energy points to play the Snowy Village scene. Gingerbread Cookies are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles.

Gingerbread Cookie special items cannot be gifted between friends, however, they are given as rewards for combining the Christmas Mystery Event collections; they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder desktop awards; they are included in the daily rewards from the Christmas Tree; they are sometimes contained in the Santa's Bag Everyday Gifts. Also, Gingerbread Cookies are sold in the Shop for crystals. You can see your current inventory in a counter in the upper right of your home desktop. The table in The Unique Avatars section below shows how many you will need.

Related

 * The Secret Society Home
 * Updates
 * Pictures
 * Hints and Tips for Event Challenges
 * Collections
 * List of Collections
 * Combining Elements
 * Talismans
 * Artifacts
 * List of Artifacts
 * Special Items
 * Celebration Hall
 * Elegant Party Update  (previous)
 * Quests
 * Timed Challenges
 * Everyday Gifts
 * Gift Tree