👑🔒 Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused [Book Review]

Pure interactive fiction magick

Location: at home

Date Played: July 4-6, 2026

Team Size: 1

Duration: 2-5 hours

Price: about $32-40

2026 Golden Lock Award Winner

“Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused weaves puzzles, story, and art into a beautiful and touching work of interactive fiction. A high water mark in the puzzle book genre that nearly defies its label.“

REA Reaction

Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused wove tactile puzzles, diegesis, fables, and interactive art into a beautiful book about the human condition in all its horror and splendor.

Truly elegant puzzle design allows players to feel connected with the designer. Diegetic puzzle design places players within a story, wherein the solve both fits within and progresses the plot. Stories with morals aim to connect readers’ lives to the characters’ experiences. Beautiful art inspires and encourages viewers to look for deeper meanings. This book demonstrated how to handle all these elements succinctly and masterfully.

At its core, Codex Regenesis presented me with five short but poignant fables warning against pride and greed. Author and artist H. M. Batsel brought these moral-centric fictions to life with striking linocut illustrations, bold and playful typesetting, and breezy-yet-thoughtful prose.

A red, black, and white linocut illustration of a robed woman with a sickle standing on a towering serpent with the head of a lion. — Image via Chronicle Books

What truly drew me in was the artful symbiosis between the puzzles and the story. Each fable demanded me to physically engage with a physical element contained within (and often affixed to) the book. Puzzle replayers and regifters rejoice: These puzzle interactions were all nondestructive! Through these solves, I demonstrated an understanding of what flaw prompted the character to conduct their titular misuse of magick. Thick cardstock elements invited folding, bending, and extraction to retrieve a word. Even when the required interaction initially stymied me, the solve proved satisfying, euphoric, and logical. The extracted word demanded entry in the corresponding character dial in the back of the book. Each solve brought me one step closer to unlocking the concluding meta-story.

The marriage of these elements culminated in a product far greater than the sum of its stunning parts. The writing intrigued me, and the tactile puzzle elements attracted me. But the elegant way in which the two served and strengthened each other is the apotheosis of story-based puzzling. The work to reach the conclusion gave weight to the emotional finale that fundamentally recontextualized the entire narrative in a way that was both surprising and fitting.

A picture of an opened book. The left page is red and features the text, "Identify the prize that led each one astray and my innermost chamber will open to you." The right of the book features 5 cardboard dials, each with a red, black, and white linocut illustration of a person and their name in an ornate font. The dials each can rotate to point to five words, such as "prestige," "judgment," and "deathlessness." In the background, there is a white terrier lying in bed. — The book’s production quality was so doggone good.

For experienced players, the puzzles may be overly simplistic. Figuring out how to interact with the material is the sole challenge — no multilayered solves, deciphering, or searching required. I’ll admit that my first sitting with the book resulted in me having solved neither of the first two puzzles. The sturdy puzzle materials in two cases initially caused me to errantly believe that an interaction wasn’t possible. However, after a little distance and a closer and more literal reading of the fables, everything clicked. The three subsequent puzzles solved much more quickly once I understood the way to approach them. (An English teacher overcomplicating things? Unheard of!)

Codex Regenesis is a book (though it’s more similar to a slim novella in length). Codex Regenesis contains puzzles (though not many). Technically, Codex Regenesis is a puzzle book. However, I feel such labelling is both inaccurate and unimportant. The tome thoroughly recompensed its lack of quantity through its unparalleled quality. This interactive fiction appropriately used its magick to create a story from which all readers, players, and creators could learn a lesson.

A picture of a hardcover book entitled Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused. The book is stark red with black and gold illustrations and text. The border of the book shows symbols of a sickle, snake, fiddle, bull, book, and vase repeated. There is a large linocut illustration of a snake and a serpent with a lion's head eating each other's tails, forming a perfect circle. — Image via Chronicle Books

Who is this for?

Puzzle lovers
Literary fiction aficionados
Any experience level
Aesop fans who hate how mainstream “The Tortoise and the Hare” is

Why play?

You appreciate well-crafted puzzles and experiences
You seek whimsical and novel stories

Story

The owner of an antique/ occult bookstore left town and then passed away. In his office, little remained besides this one book: Codex Regenesis. Could this mysterious book with puzzles and locks provide an explanation or closure for his tragic end?

An open book with a swirling, marbled background of red, black, and white. A blue envelope is affixed to the left side, and the right side boasts a graphic of a paperclip appearing to hold the publication information. Atop the book rests an unfolded letter printed with black modern font on a white sheet of paper.

Setup

Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused contained [checks notes] five short stories, each with their own associated puzzle. The puzzles each utilized one or more unique tactile elements built or otherwise secured within the book. Puzzles solved through non-destructive interactions with unique, thematic elements. Each puzzle solved to a word to input into a dial in the back of the book. No writing implement or scratch paper was required for any puzzle.

An open book on a grey table. The left side of the book features stark black renaissance-style text describing a snake writing in a box; the text is typeset to mimic the snake's movements, and several lines are curved in subtle arcs. The right side of the book contains a linocut illustration of a red wooden box filled with white, red, and black creatures, including a scorpion, frog, beetle, and centipede. The box is made of sturdy cardstock and folds out, the crease line depicting the hinges of the box. Sitting on the lid of the box is a curled snake with black and red markings. — The narrative, like the book itself, unfolded in interesting and surprising ways.

Gameplay

Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused was a deluxe puzzle book with a low level of difficulty.

The puzzles required manipulating unique physical elements within the book, making connections, and noticing fine details.

Analysis

➕ Each puzzle connected clearly and directly to one fable. Players needn’t look more than a page away for context to solve the puzzle. The interactions with the book and text serve as the focus, not searching through the book for hidden links.

➕ This book’s production epitomized extra. The gold foil accents on the vibrant hardcover. The built-in bookmark ribbon. The fold-out papers. The thick cardstock. The dials in the back that secured a hidden compartment. Chronicle Books brought Batsel’s ideas to life with elegance and flair.

➕ The prose shifts styles appropriate to the setting and the character. The typesetting additionally imbues the writing with its own personality.

An opened book on a grey table--a red page on the left and white page on the right. The red page has cardstock thumbs holding a removable letter with words in either black or red handwritten font. The text on the left is a letter from a brother to a sister, and the text on the right discusses the sister's struggle to formulate a reply. — What’s got two thumbs and loves holding letters? This book!

➕ Unlocking the back panel of the book and reading the denouement floored me. The book inserted me into the story, allowing me to read between the lines to comprehend the true ending’s poetry. I am a sucker for a story that can stick the landing, and this one crushed it.

❓ While the puzzles in hindsight are all straightforward with no real red herrings, puzzle novices might be flummoxed by the lack of a hint system. Each story offers context for how characters handled objects, though. The discovery and the effort to understand the puzzle feel like part of the story. The addition of a hint system would likely overemphasize the puzzle element.

An opened book on a grey table. The two-page linocut illustration depicts white stars with red borders on a black background. The footer of the pages has medieval-looking text describing how a character swept their sickle across the sky. The stars in the illustration occasionally have thick white lines connecting them to form rudimentary constellations. — The first puzzle of the book, which was woven seamlessly into the narrative of the first fable

☝️ Um, actually… The book’s subtitle, Five Fables of Magick Misused, may be a lie. Fables require anthropomorphic animals, objects, or natural elements. One or two of the stories don’t necessarily meet this criteria, thus making them parables. However, Codex Regenesis: Three-ish Fables and Approximately Two Parables of Magick Misused isn’t as catchy of a title. If you are a purist when it comes to literary taxonomy, this discrepancy may be a dealbreaker.

➖ The stiff cardstock at one or two points caused me to question if my attempt at solving the puzzle would damage the beautiful elements.

🏳️‍🌈 Buried within this book is a subtle yet touching LGBTQ+ romance. Chronicle Books’ website highlights LGBTQ+ readers as an appropriate audience for the book. I appreciate the gentle, realistic way Batsel portrayed the relationship, but the representation isn’t prominent enough to be a defining trait of the story. Many readers will feel particularly seen by the ending (and Esther the fiddler), but people of any orientation should marvel at the tender humanity of the story’s conclusion.

❓ In the realm of puzzle books, this was firmly one of the best produced puzzle books I’ve ever seen. Its production compared to the ambitious JJ Abrams’ novel S. — and, in some ways, surpassed it. This premium product comes at a premium price, however. Some may bristle at the thought of 5 short stories, 5 puzzles, and a couple letters costing $32-40. I believe the craftsmanship required to write, draw, and produce this beautiful experience supports the cost. Compared to a traditional hardback cost, though, the novelty of the experience may make its price point a steal. I can’t imagine this was easy to produce, so there may not be an abundance of copies. If you want one, you better book it to your preferred online retailer.

Tips For Players

Space Requirements: a cozy place to sit and read
Required Gear: an open mind and heart

Buy your copy of Chronicle Books’ Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Buy Codex Regenesis: Five Fables of Magick Misused

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