Filament

Filament is a game with the elements of adventure and puzzle games, in which exploration and discovery of secrets is accompanied by solving increasingly complex puzzles. The game was developed by the independent studio Beard Envy in the UK and published by Kasedo Games.

Plot

In Filament, we play the role of an astronaut, who, on behalf of The Filament Corporation, is taken on board of an abandoned spacecraft called Alabaster. The hero's task is to solve the mysterious disappearance of the ship's crew. On the spot it turns out that there is a pilot of this unit, Juniper, with whom the protagonist is in constant voice contact. However, in order to get to it, the astronaut has to restore a large part of the ship to its working order, gradually learning its secrets along the way.

Mechanics

In Filament the action is shown from the bird's eye view. During the game, we walk on the Alabastra deck, where we can find both living rooms and all kinds of offices or technical rooms. Plundering them, we read the messages and logs left by the crew and find various personal things, so that we can gradually put together the elements of the story. New light is shed on the events that have taken place here, also by Juniper who contacting us.

To gain access to the next rooms we need to gradually restore power on Alabaster. This process has been carried out in the form of over three hundred increasingly complex logic puzzles in which we take control of a robot pulling a luminous wire behind it through small rooms filled with vertical relays. The riddles consist of pulling the cable so that it touches all required knots. It is worth remembering that a robot cannot walk on an unfolded wire.

Although the first puzzles are not difficult, things are quickly becoming more complicated. There are more and more relays, and with them there are various obstacles, such as black knots, which cut off the power supply completely after contact with the cable. In addition, over time we come across relays that cause a certain effect (like opening a blocked section of a room or changing a black node into a standard one) or affect the color of the cable.

Fortunately, the error can be easily corrected by retracting the extended cable. Besides, puzzles can be solved in almost any order, so nothing stands in the way of leaving an extremely problematic puzzle for later.

Technical aspects

Filament has decent quality graphics. The full details of the living quarters contrast in an original way with the sterile rooms where we restore power to the ship. The audio layer is also noteworthy; we are talking about the atmospheric soundtrack as well as the voice of Juniper speaking to us.