The Wooden Book You Have to Solve to Read

Codex Silenda is a unique five-page book that requires solving a series of mechanical puzzles for a reader to open and move from one page to the next. One can’t read this book if one is unable to solve the puzzles. 

If you haven’t figured it out already, Codex Silenda is not your typical book. Rather than being made of paper its pages are laser-cut wood. The book was designed and developed by Brady Whitney, an industrial designer who made his first wooden puzzle book in 2016 as a part of his research thesis. 

He later founded Arcane Concepts, a company that specializes in making toys and puzzle books made of laser-cut wood. 

“Laser Cutters are marvelous machines capable of turning ordinary, flat wood into almost anything your mind can conjure so long as it remains in the realm of physics,” the Arcane Concepts team notes.

What makes Codex Silenda different?

Codex Silenda is a mechanical puzzle book made by assembling five thick wooden pages. Each page has a complex puzzle on the front side. Once you solve that, you can continue reading the story written on its backside. 

“It’s a series of wooden, laser-cut puzzle pages that must be solved in order to unlock and progress to the next page. As you progress through the puzzles, a story is revealed on the back of each page, providing hints and clues as to how one might solve the next incoming puzzle,” the Arcane Concepts team said.

The book tells the story of an apprentice of Leonardo Da Vinci who must escape a trap before Vinci returns from a trip. However, what makes this book special is its interactive storytelling. While its story provides hints at solving the puzzles, a reader feels like they are helping the apprentice escape the trap as they solve each puzzle.

Another intriguing feature is the nature of the puzzles you get to solve. Codex Silenda doesn’t come with ordinary word games or number play. 

“We even offer five unique themes & stories to pick and choose from, each featuring unique engravings and storylines while the puzzles remain the same. The best part is you can even store things inside and re-lock the book up to have family and friends give it a go,” the Arcane Concepts team said.

The success story of Codex Silenda

After completing his research project, when Brady Whitney posted the photo of his puzzle book, it went viral. Over 120,000 users viewed his post and many of them showed interest in buying it. 

This encouraged Brady to start a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter. He aimed to raise $30,000 but within a week, he received a funding of $210,000. This amount was enough to produce hundreds of Codex Silenda.

A second campaign was launched in March 2020. It was also successful and ended up raising over $700,000 from 1,400 individuals. 

“Ever since, thousands of Codex Silendas have been cut out, assembled, and shipped all over the world, the Arcane Concepts team claims” 

In the following years, the Arcane Concepts team also developed various other beautiful products made from laser-cut and laser-engraved wood. These include wall art pieces, toys, and puzzle collections based on planet movement and crop patterns.

Whitney and his team are currently working on Quest Compendium, an upcoming puzzle book that will carry on the legacy of Codex Silenda. 

“After spending the last seven years refining our techniques, materials, and assembly & design processes around the Codex Silenda, we were able to develop what we are now calling the 2nd Generation in Puzzle Book Technology, aka the Quest Compendium. The Compendium is everything the Silenda could never be, featuring a level of customization and interchangeability not seen since the Rubrik’s Cube,” the Arcane Concepts team notes.