£199 once, and then about £2.50 a book

One machine and 6 books, which is enough to find out whether this is a thing your house actually does before you spend anything else. If you never buy a Story Pack, nothing stops working and nothing asks you to.

A Story Pack is a world rather than a top-up. Put one in and that is where the story happens and who turns up in it — though whether that character is the hero is still theirs to decide. A pack of 6 works out at £2.50 a book.

A picture book in a shop is £8 to £13, and it was written for everybody’s child. These are £2.50, and the child sitting next to you decided what is in them.

£199 is a considered amount of money, and the honest comparison is not a book. It is the other things bought for the same reason — a craft box that gets made once and goes in the bin, an afternoon out in the rain, a tablet that buys you an hour and then an argument about giving it back.

This is the one where something comes out at the end and stays out. A month later it is still on the shelf, bent at the corner, being asked for by a name they gave it.

Talebrix has not been made yet, and how many get made depends on how many people ask. Reserve now, nothing to pay until it ships. Reserving is a note of your email address and nothing else — not an order, not a deposit, and not a queue you can lose your place in.