Thank you Kasedo Games for sending us an Early Access preview code!

In Filament you find yourself aboard The Alabaster, a spaceship which is unusually vacant and it’s up to your character to rescue the trapped crew members. Between you and your shipmates are over three hundred puzzles that have to be solved. The ship has many sections with groups of puzzles that need to be completed to advance to the next area. You can solve many of the puzzles in any order you choose.

I found out the hard way that if you quit the game before completing a whole section, you have to redo the puzzles in that group that were previously solved. The first time I left the game early, it was my own doing. The second time I got penalized for not completing an entire section was due to multiple game glitches. On one of my playthroughs, the main character ran out of cable and the game menu would not recognize my button presses to return to the main menu. Hopefully, these issues will be addressed before the game releases.

Normally, your character has an endless supply of cable, and to clear a room/puzzle you have to have your cable touching all of the pillars to open up the exit. The pillars are gray and often illuminate to white when they come in contact with your cable. You have to plan your moves so that you don’t block access to an exit or another vital area in the room.

The angling of your cables is vital and changes as you connect different pillars. To help, you’ll have some posts and fences that you can use to guide your cabling. Some of the pillars are connected by circuits and you’ll be able to open up closed doors by illuminating the connected pillars. Many of the pillars have a column on one or multiple sides limiting where your cable can touch them. Some puzzles have only one solution.

Filament is played from an isometric perspective. The puzzle rooms usually have a monochrome look to them while the rest of the ship is very colorful. As you’re spreading the thick white cabling across the pillars it looks more like toilet paper than cable.

This game prides itself on being challenging and it doesn’t take long for the difficulty to ramp up. It is quite rewarding to solve a puzzle that’s been stumping me for several minutes. I also welcomed help from people watching me play. I appreciated the relaxing background music that was both futuristic and soothing.

From what I’ve seen, there’s little to complain about morally. The word d*mn was used in the dialogue. As of this preview, this title has not been rated by the ESRB.

If you enjoy puzzle games and spaceships, Filament is worth checking out. The game has lots of promise and I look forward to its stable release.