Seven kinds of thinking, woven in.
Some puzzles you read. Some you draw. Some you tap a glyph at the right star. The widget renders the puzzle in its own shape, not as a wall of text.
LogicLateralSpatialDiceGridCipherConstellation
A narrative puzzle adventure · Chapter 1 of 5She left.
She left.
She came back for a notebook.
Seven years after she walked out, Cora Verras returns to Vellestria for her grandfather’s funeral, and the leather notebook he left in her name. The workshop is sealed, the cipher is half-finished, and the brass pin on her collar feels heavier than it should. The map he started is waiting to be finished.
They called it his heart. The notebook says otherwise, and I am the only one left to read it.
A narrative puzzle game in the Professor Layton tradition — playable in your browser, no install.
Free to play · One new daily every morning · No tracking
133Hand-curated puzzles
8Lieux to visit in Vellestria
5Nations in the saga
Every morningThe daily puzzle
NoAccount required
Five nations
One continent. One sundered isle waiting to be found.
Cora’s grandfather left a coordinate. To decode it she has to cross five nations. Vellestria first, four more to come. Each one with its own culture, its own mystery, its own 8-chapter arc. The brass medallion you wear on her collar is the key to every chapter she opens.
- 01Playable
Vellestria
Mediterranean port, the heart of the Cartographer's Council
- 02Coming
The Sundered Isles
Archipelago shrouded in permanent mist
- 03Coming
Kinare
Monastic highland plateaus
- 04Coming
L'Endeem
Underground karst civilization
- 05Coming
Aurelae Caliphate
Desert with oral cartography traditions
Vellestria
Vellestria is open. Four more nations unlock as the saga grows.
Every map hides a puzzle
133 hand-curated riddles, written one at a time.
Logic puzzles, lateral thinking, dice and grids, observational anomalies, cipher decoding. Each one written for a specific lieu and rooted in someone Cora knows. No procedural generation. No filler. Every solve pays a line back from a character.
Three nudges per puzzle.
Buy a hint with cogitats when you’re truly stuck. Pro shows the headline before you spend.
An NPC says something.
“The harbour still smells like salt and old rope. Theodor used to say it was the oldest clock in Vellestria.”
— Tomás, Old Town
JournalAtlasCodexSouvenirsThemes
04 / 27Chapter I · Vellestria
First letter. Cora’s name spelled out across the dock where Theodor used to keep his harbour watch. The medallion is colder than the wind.
The Sealed Compass
“The map is finished when you can fold it and the corners still meet.” — Theodor, in his hand, in pencil, in the back.
Theodor’s notebook
A bound journal that fills itself as you play.
Every chapter you finish stitches a page into Cora’s carnet. Every NPC dialogue lands as a souvenir she can re-read. Every sextant letter you decode lights up a glyph in the cipher grid. Choose the parchment. Choose the ink.
- Journal, 16 dated pages
- Atlas, 10 cartographer’s pages
- Codex, 36-letter cipher
- Souvenirs, replays
- Themes, 4 bindings
Today, Sunday 24 May
Three Sisters at the Inn
The daily is a single hand-picked riddle, drawn before sunrise. No account needed, no streak pressure, just a sit-down with coffee. Signed-in travellers earn cogitats and unlock the archive of past dailies.
From the Atlas
Notes from the workshop.
Why we built a Layton successor for the web, how the puzzles are designed, and what shipping each nation costs.
19 May 2026
Designing the cogitats economy
Why hint prices in Cora's Atlas are 40, 80, and 120 cogitats — and why the first version was four times cheaper, and why that was the problem.
19 May 2026
Building five nations from one playbook
Vellestria is one of five named nations in the saga. Here's the shared skeleton that lets each one feel different without feeling like a different game.
The notebook is open.
Begin where Cora began.
Eight chapters, 133 puzzles, one mystery that has been sitting on Theodor’s desk for seven years. The first chapter is free.
“Hold the carnet steady when the wind picks up.”Theodor Verras · 1998