A ship adrift. A trapped pilot. All controls accessible solely through a series of mechanical interlocking puzzles. This is the situation that the player finds at the start of Filament, a new puzzle game from developer Beard Envy.
Filament places players at the control of an unnamed space salvager who has just forced entry onto a seemingly abandoned Filament Corporation ship named The Alabaster. In this universe, the Filament Corporation seems to be the major employer and a driver of space exploration, sending exploratory vessels throughout the universe to investigate new planets for possible human colonization. The Alabaster is one such ship. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.
As players navigate through The Alabaster, snippets of journal entries, environmental puzzles, and other items left behind by the crew begin to reveal the true tale of what happened to the ship and her crew. Most critical to the whole endeavor are the Anchors, a series of physical puzzles that the crew created in a desperate attempt to retain control of their vessel. Only by solving these anchor puzzles can the player unlock the ship’s systems and understand the fate of the crew.
Hey, the solution to this puzzle is printed right there on the wall! How tough can this game be, really?
Since this is first and foremost a puzzle game, Filament revolves primarily around solving the hundreds of Anchor puzzles scattered around the ship. Puzzle mechanics quickly build on each other. Each new type of puzzle is introduced in a simple manner, but the difficulty escalates quickly through each sequence. At the core, however, the concept is fairly simple: players navigate a tiny robot that drags a powered tether behind itself. Touching pylons with the tether activates them. Activate the correct series of pylons for the level, and the exit opens. It sounds simple enough, but late-stage puzzles can look like a tangled mess of spaghetti once a solution has been achieved.
All of the puzzles can be completed, however, many of them are fiendishly complex. While puzzles in the first three floors of The Alabaster are restricted to a single mechanic, a massive final section on the bridge combines multiple puzzle elements to further challenge players. Filament is one of those puzzle games where all but the most dedicated puzzle gamers will likely find themselves searching the Steam forums, the game’s Discord, or YouTube for a solution at some point.
No puzzle here, but that planet sure is pretty. Also, there’s a terminal that will become active on the right, and an environmental puzzle hint on the left…
Not required for game completion, but necessary for grasping the full story of the game, are various environmental puzzles strewn around the ship. Some of these are as simple as a set of boxes bearing an obvious pattern in which the player can enter at one of the ship’s computer terminals. Others are far more complex, such as a series of cards that the player needs to find to create a hexadecimal code which can then be converted into a computer memory archive.
Graphically, Filament is played from an isometric perspective in both the exploration and puzzle segments. A top-down view of each puzzle may be obtained, however, the puzzles can’t be solved from that perspective. This feels like a needless complication at times, since a big picture view would definitely aid in solving some later puzzles. The best approach often ends up being to view the big picture, plan out the approach to the puzzle, then view and re-evaluate when things go astray. For players who have difficulty visualizing a solution, and prefer to solve a puzzle via trial and error, this may be especially unsatisfactory.
Not all puzzles can be solved with just one little bot. Here we’re using multiple bots pulling different color tethers to light up Anchors with the correct colors.
One oddity with Filament is the strain it seems to place on GPUs. While my test rig is far from cutting edge in 2020, it certainly holds its own in most games. However, I noticed a distinct uptick in fan noise signifying a hard-working system which I don’t hear even in a graphically intense game such as MechWarrior 5.
Filament’s soundtrack does an excellent job of providing an atmospheric complement to the game. Beautiful and moody, it’s an excellent pairing to the game’s brain-bending puzzles. The soundtrack is also available on Steam as a separate DLC for those who are so inclined. Aside from the soundtrack, most of the audio consists of voice tracks from The Alabaster’s pilot as she guides you through the puzzles and dribbles out little tidbits of information.
Sometimes Anchors are paired. Light one, not the other, and make sure the sequence aligns. Easy, right?
Most players can expect at least ten hours of puzzle-solving fun out of a single run of Filament. Several more hours can be had chasing down all of the side collectibles or simply glaring at certain puzzles in utter frustration. The biggest issue that I had with the game was with the apparent level of understanding that is expected out of players. There is no introduction or help for any of the puzzles. While this may be appealing to the truly hardcore puzzle game enthusiast, it seems as though a simple “Oh yeah, they said that this batch needed to be solved by doing X.” could have gone a long way towards flattening the learning curve just a little bit.
For hardcore puzzle fans and Mensa members, Filament is a treat. It makes zero concessions to players but it is also completely fair in puzzle design. Every puzzle has a logical, ordered solution. Sometimes those solutions only become apparent after seeing it completed by someone who’s better at puzzles, but even so, there’s no ridiculous moon logic here, only a forehead-slapping realization of “Duh! Why didn’t I think of that?”
For gamers who want a mysterious puzzle without an unreliable, borderline evil GLaDOS-type antagonist, Filament is a lot of fun. Just try a few times on your own before resorting to a strategy guide. . .
A review copy of Filament was provided to Marooners’ Rock for this review. More information on Filament on the official Beard Envy website.
