Filament Preview – Puzzle action and relaxation in space

You can travel across town, countries and even the vast intergalactic distances of outer space itself, but there’ll always be a thread between you and something precious that creates an intangible link that cannot be severed. It’s an idea that’s present in Filament, a puzzle game that has you investigating a seemingly derelict ship one room at a time as you rebuild the connections between machines, people and the past.

The core idea is easy enough to grasp: Each room needs to be reconnected via your little robot buddy and its life-giving tether of light, but to do so requires some heavy thinking as you plot your path between pillars and link them up. It’s kind of like Snake and a Lightcycle race in Tron as you can’t walk through an established line. Minus the horrific digital death of losing one of those races that is.

Anyway, the catch here isn’t just in how you angle your line to make contact but how you adapt to the other spanners thrown your way. A single pillar unobstructed by walls is easy enough, but one that only has a single side to connect with? Challenging stuff and made even more devious as Filament ups the difficulty ante with coloured pillars, barriers and the re-establishment of power lines to name but a few of the obstacles.

It’s simple yet deceptive puzzle action, bookended by a touch of spaceship exploration and a one-sided conversation with a lone survivor desperate to escape and eager for your assistance. Something happened on the Alabaster spaceship, and it’s up to you to get to the bottom of it. Filament’s puzzles may start on the same foot, but it takes its ideas and combines them into an addictive pursuit for answers. Developer Beard Envy says that there’ll be over 300 puzzles on launch day.

There are some areas where the game could be a tad bit better, aspects which will hopefully be fleshed out on launch: A bump in speed for your tethering bot pal would be appreciated, while a more expansive soundtrack could help stave off audio monotony. Overall though? Beard Envy’s game shows compelling creativity with its puzzling premise and relaxing pace as it heads towards a Q1 release this year.

Last Updated: January 16, 2020