The Stormlamp Rituals: Volume I (Jack Fallows, PostCurious) // Review

The Stormlamp Rituals: Volume I is the first in a series of interactive puzzle books written and illustrated by Jack Fallows and published by PostCurious. Join Anna as she embarks on a magical journey where she’ll encounter intriguing characters, strange lands and confounding riddles. Perform rituals, reveal her story and cast back the shadows…

What you need: A pencil and some scissors. No internet connection required.

Disclaimer: The copy of The Stormlamp Rituals used for this review is a handbound, digitally printed prototype. The final production run will be commercially bound and professionally printed, so some elements may look slightly different. The finished book is available as part of a crowdfunding campaign launching on Kickstarter on Tuesday, 2 June 2026.

First Impressions

A few years ago, I stumbled across a hidden corner of the internet, namely the Cryptogram Puzzle Post website. I don’t even remember how I ended up there, but I was immediately drawn in by what I found. A series of intricately designed envelopes, each containing a set of puzzles interwoven with a sprawling fantasy narrative. I bought as many of the original issues as I could, though some of the earlier releases had sold out. Since then, Jack has released a run of limited-edition zines available exclusively on Patreon and their website. These feature updated versions of the original series, with reworked puzzles, narrative and artwork.

Fast forward to 2026, where Jack announced that PostCurious, a highly respected game publisher, would release The Stormlamp Rituals. This is the ‘Ultimate’ edition of the series, offering further enhancements in puzzles, narrative and design. It’s the first puzzle book release from PostCurious, and they’ve pulled out all the stops to do it justice. Jack previously collaborated with PostCurious on the critically acclaimed tarot card puzzle game, The Light in the Mist.

Story

The Stormlamp Rituals follows the story of Anna, a young witch who finds herself drawn into a dark mystery. As she embarks upon a dangerous and challenging quest to unearth long-buried secrets, she must enlist the help of strangers along the way. Her travels take her over land and sea, through forests and valleys and across the veil into another reality: Twicelore. Plagued by a menacing force, she must learn to master arcane magic and reveal the way forward. It’s an epic journey of self-discovery that delves into a hidden past, with every step arming Anna with the tools required to face future adversity.

Jack has crafted a rich and expansive fantasy world, full of mysterious characters, foreign landscapes and magical iconography. The world-building really is exceptional here, and it’s clear that countless hours have been spent crafting fully fleshed alternate realities. This is revealed through various maps and illustrations throughout the book, as well as the prose.

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials has been cited as one of Jack’s initial inspirations. As a fan of that series, I definitely felt some influences and spotted at least one nod to a character. The Stormlamp Rituals is definitely its own entity, though, exploring magic and rituals rather than science. If you are a fan of fantasy books in general, you’ll find so much to love here.

Presentation

When I first saw the cover for this book, I was blown away. The colour palette is sublime, featuring autumnal oranges and deep bluey greens. Hidden within the cover are references to Anna’s journey, with the dual image hinting at multiple realities. An important symbol takes centre stage, incorporating the book’s main protagonist with her satchel and storm lamp in hand. Casual book store browsers will be in no doubt that this is a fantasy book.

Jack has a really distinctive art style that marries perfectly with the fantasy aesthetic. There are no AI creations; each illustration has been meticulously hand-drawn and perfected by Jack. From the ornate map to the striking cover, every piece of artwork is highly detailed and refined. I particularly love the stripped-back black-and-white line drawings, but the colourful double-page landscape illustrations are also wonderful.

Gameplay

Finding your way

The Stormlamp Rituals will transport you to another world for 10+ hours, depending on your experience with puzzles. Gameplay is entirely analogue, so you aren’t required to scan QR codes or go online at any point. This is a very wise choice, as interacting with screens would disrupt the player’s immersion in the fantasy world. Everything you need is inside the book, so no outside research will be required to progress.

The story is broken up into eighteen chapters, each with its own double-page landscape illustration to set the scene. The chapter title and a poem appear on the first page, with subsequent pages featuring narrative text and illustrations. Each chapter contains multiple puzzles hidden within the illustrations. These must be completed in order, as the answer to each puzzle forms a part of the next one. Without the previous answer, you could find yourself utterly confused or straying down the wrong path.

I enjoyed this as a solo experience, especially given how intimate the story is. It is possible to play this through with another person, but any more than two may detract from the experience.

Quest Supplies

You’ll find a brown satchel at the back of the book that contains key items to assist with Anna’s quest. These are paper-based components, labelled with a satchel icon and a letter for reference. When you see one of these in the book, retrieve the item from the satchel with the corresponding letter. You’ll then need to work out for yourself what you need to do with it. When turning to the satchel for the first time, you’ll also find a red bird-shaped bookmark tucked in the front. This can be used to mark the page you are on, but it also has another use. More on that later!

Puzzles & Rituals

One of my favourite aspects of the book is how the puzzles and narrative are seamlessly interwoven. The prose hides words or phrases that hint at how to solve the puzzle, and this cluing prevents players from getting stuck for too long. I found that this led to great puzzle flow, and the layered structure of the puzzles is very satisfying. The fact that each chapter follows the same structure for solving the puzzles means you know exactly how to approach them.

The puzzles generally take the form of rituals or forks in the road, where you’ll need to solve them to figure out which way to go. There is only one correct answer, so if you find yourself heading down the wrong path, it will become clear pretty soon. You’ll then need to step back and try again. Puzzles take many forms, including ciphers, riddles, jigsaws and mazes. Some feature wordplay, logic or maths, while others require observation skills. I found that everything felt varied enough so as not to feel stale.

The book has been designed to be written in at certain points. I did manage to avoid this generally, but a couple of crossword-type puzzles were a little too fiddly to take off the page. You could use tracing paper for these to avoid writing on the book. In some cases, you will need to use additional materials from the satchel. These are likely to involve cutting, folding, overlaying or some other form of manipulation. While the materials included are single-use, a PDF will be available so that these can be printed and passed on to another player.

Hints & Difficulty

Compared to the existing PostCurious catalogue, this game definitely skews on the easier side. It is a lot easier than The Emerald Flame, for example, and probably more in line with the Ministry of Lost Things games. I didn’t find it so easy that it was unenjoyable, and actually feel that if it had been too hard, it might have disrupted the narrative flow too much. I feel that the perfect balance has been struck.

It was imperative for Jack and the team at PostCurious that The Stormlamp Rituals remain a completely offline experience. Any use of technology would detract from the otherworldly setting, so in their wisdom, they opted for an in-book solution. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a red double-page spread with seemingly illegible writing scrawled all over it. This is the hints page, with the hint text obscured to prevent readers from seeing any spoilers. It’s a well-known technique for hiding text that can only be revealed by viewing the page through a red transparency. This is where the red bookmark comes into play. If you lay this horizontally over the top of the page, you can reveal the hint text hidden underneath. Simply move it down the page to access the next tiered hint, ensuring you move slowly so as not to read ahead. A small storm lamp icon denotes the final solution, so only read next to this if you want to see the answer.

Verdict