Video Game / Filament

In order to boost morale and make the lives of our operatives more efficient, The Filament Corporation provides its employees with vibrant colour-coded equipment, jumpsuits and names.

Your assigned colour is [BLUE]
Your assigned name is [JUNIPER]

Filament is a 2020 Puzzle Game by Beard Envy Games, available for Windows, Linux, and Nintendo Switch. The nameless player in a space suit boards a derelict space ship, the Alabaster, orbiting planet Arnold-475M. The Alabaster has odd physical locks called "anchors" that prevent access to the bridge. A voice on the other end of the comm link claims to be Juniper, one of the crew members, stuck in the cockpit. Juniper gives the player the nickname "Pluto" and tells him the story of the Alabaster's woes as the player unlocks anchors, finding the crew logs as they go. But something doesn't quite add up here...

The basic anchor puzzle mechanic is to guide a robot that trails a filament behind it around a room, such that the filament touches and lights up each pillar in the room, opening up the exit. More complicated puzzles add black pillars that must not be touched, pillars that must be touched a specific number of times, light screens that must be passed through a certain number of times, multiple robots, colored pillars with various rules about how they must be touched, and more.

Completing anchors gives access to code cards that can be decoded by drawing filaments around a 4x4 grid; in addition, more cards can be found lying around the ship. These cards unlock crew logs and messages. Other cards and objects hide codes that can be used to unlock corrupted messages, including bits from the crew's job interviews and notes about other parts of the universe.

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You have been instated as a(n) [TROPER]:

• Ambiguous Ending: Clearly Pluto has ended up with the surviving members of the crew. But where are they, and how did they get there?
• Ambiguous Time Period: The game claims to be set in 1983, and some technology looks apropos for the time, like the video game cartridge and Vermillion's vinyl albums. However, space colonization has been going on for long enough that characters were born off Earth and are unfamiliar with it...and yet Vermillion saw its inception.
• An Arm and a Leg: Inverted; after the radiation pulse, all that is left of Pistachio is her hands. Played straight at the end. Pluto, and the surviving crew, are transported somewhere without their augmented body parts. Pluto and Marmalade have no arms, Juniper is missing an arm and her eyes, Canary is missing one arm, and Aubergine is missing both arms, both legs, and his eyes.
• Apocalyptic Log: The crewmembers' logs and emails are unlocked via code cards.
• Artificial Limb: All the crew members have 'augmentations' of some sort, typically arms and legs. Apparently just about everyone off of Earth does this.
  • Averts Artificial Limbs Are Stronger - one of the corrupted logs specifically says that augmented limbs are still anchored in human bodies, and recommends not trying to lift anything you couldn't lift before until you've gotten used to it.
• Big Brother Is Watching: There are cameras everywhere, and they turn to watch you whenever you're in line of sight. One of the corrupted logs is a conversation from people who had TFC come in and install cameras near their apartment while nobody was there.
• Body Uploading: One possibility for what the radiation pulses did. The biological parts of the crew disappeared, and they reappeared in a place clearly meant to look like Vermillion's photo album; in Pluto's case, it's after seeing corruption-style glitches on the screen. However, there may be other explanations for what happened.
• Can't Take Anything with You: Subverted. While a person transported off the ship by the radiation pulses leaves behind their uniform and augmentations, they appear to retain their underwear.
• The Captain: Canary, as chief science officer, is the ranking person on the ship and acts as one would expect the captain to, including trying to be a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Colorful Theme Naming:
  • The Filament Corporation names all normal employees after colors; the Alabaster's crew consists of Canary (yellow), Vermillion (red), Pistachio (green), Juniper (blue), Marmalade (orange), and Aubergine (purple). The remote captain is Swan (white). Even the ship's cat, Sable, maintains the theme.
  • Yellow seems to be the color for scientists, indicating that the colors may be role-related. Canary previously worked with Dandelion and Butterscotch.
  • "Colorless" (white) is used for ship's captains and other managers; one document says it is restricted to colorless roles only. The captains that we see mentioned are both named for animals: Swan and Fox.
• Cool Old Guy: Vermillion, the ship's doctor. He's actually from Earth, unlike most of the rest of the crew.
• Corrupted Data: Hidden patterns let the player unlock corrupted messages in the system. The screen glitches while you access them.
• Crapsaccharine World:
  • The Filament Corporation spared no expense in giving the Alabaster not only what it would need as an exploration ship, but making it downright luxurious, making it roomy and including a pool, a gym, an arboretum, a library, and a spacious observation deck; and making sure there was enough plant life on board to the points of some sections of the ship could be described as lush. Compare this to Pluto's single-man ship, which was essentially a tube with few amenities. The crew had good chemistry, to the point that they were likely selected for compatible personalities.
  • Despite their good times, and Filament Co.'s apparent magnanimity, there were some red flags. They insists that their crews only use their codenames. Cameras are everywhere on the ship, meaning no privacy outside of their personal quarters, and to enforce that the crew embodies the facade of the chummy, family friendly corporate culture at all times. Misbehavior or failure to live up to the standards of the company are taken for disciplinary action, which is hinted to be a form of reeducation. And there's the issue of the crew being considered completely expendable in the pursuit of mission success.
• Cute Kitten: Sable's kittens are adorable. Everybody but Canary loves them, and even Canary is mostly concerned with them getting into her fish. Swan doesn't care for them, and that's one of the first clues that she's who you're talking to, not Juniper.
• Dehumanization: The likely explanation for the Colorful Theme Naming. It's easier to treat people as cogs in the machine if they don't have names, just colors.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Each crew member's message logs are stored separately. Message threads that involve all of them are, therefore, stored in each set of logs, so the player ends up re-reading them up to six times.
• The Driver: Juniper is the ship's pilot and communications officer.
• Earthy Barefoot Character: Pistachio gets in trouble early for leaving muddy footprints, and there's a specific note from an interview with her where she talks about the feel of dirt between your toes.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: What's left behind after a radiation pulse. The wearer's clothing...and augmentations. Pistachio is taken first; we don't see her clothes, but her hands are on the shrine in her quarters. Juniper is taken from Pistachio's room, and Canary, Marmalade, and Aubergine from the bridge. Also, apparently, Sable - her collar is found, but nothing more of her or the kittens is found.
• The Engineer: Both Marmalade and Aubergine; Marmalade is officially the ship's engineer, while Aubergine is a technician. Marmalade is in charge of the ship itself, while Aubergine fixes things like the crew's augmentations.
• False Utopia: The Firmament. It's described as a fantastic place, but TFC can put cameras anywhere whenever they want, and crimes like graffiti, possession of unauthorized media, and even "persistent incompatible personality traits" are punished by re-education at "The Opal".
• Fatal Family Photo: Vermillion has a photo album of where he lived on Earth. He's killed by Swan activating the escape pod engines, and is the only crew member not to make it to the place that looks like the photo album at the end of the game.
• Final Exam Finale: The bridge puzzles are largely combinations of previous puzzle types. Subverted for the final puzzle, which is the easiest one ever.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The onboard crew of the Alabaster consists of three men (Vermillion, Marmalade, and Aubergine) and three women (Canary, Juniper, and Pistachio). The people involved in the game are one man (Pluto, the player) and one woman (Juniper). Or, actually, Swan. At the end of the game, when Pluto joins the surviving crew, he rebalances the genders, replacing the late Vermillion.
• Heroic Mime: Pluto never says anything. The name given to him is a nickname from Juniper.
• High-Tech Hexagons: The windows looking out over Albert from the top edge of the first level are made of hex panels.
• Hologram: Marmalade has a hologram fireplace. The planet Albert is actually a hologram as well.
• Human Popsicle: Cryosleep for long-distance travel. Time passed during a trip may be years. Vermillion is put back in his cryopod after he is killed by the escape pod engines.
• Interface Screw: When a corrupted log is first viewed, the screen has random glitches and some characters on it are corrupted. When the player leaves the ship, the same effect appears just before he appears, armless and missing his spacesuit, on the planet.
• Ironic Name: The Impossible Puzzle, the last puzzle in the game. It's at least as easy as the very first puzzle.
• Kill It with Fire: Vermillion's fate. Swan turned on the escape pod engines while he was standing behind them. Swan claims it wasn't intentional.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Inverted. Swan does not like cats, kills Vermillion, and forces the crew to mutiny to try to get away from Albert.
• Late to the Tragedy: The player arrives at a seemingly-abandoned ship after the crew has gone missing.
• The Man Behind the Man: Ship captains are monitored at all times, and as they stay behind, they can be directly punished for any failures. Swan says she didn't want to do what she did, but she had no choice.
• The Medic: Vermillion, officially the "Wellbeing Officer". He comments that he could have taken out Juniper's appendix on his own if he'd needed to, but the machines did it for him.
• MegaCorp: The Filament Corporation (TFC), which runs The Firmament, owns a significant percentage of augmentation providers, sends out exploration ships like the Alabaster, and sells Equinox Tea™.
• Mission Control:
  • Juniper, to the player. She gives advice and tells the player what happened as they explore the ship.
  • Swan, to the crew. She's the ship's captain but isn't there with them, presumably so that she can control them remotely if needed. One of the corrupted logs, a message to another ship's captain, says that given the choice between the crew and the mission, the captain is to choose the mission.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Swan clearly thought the crew had left in the escape pods. Seeing the pods all still in the bay is a shock to her. She starts telling the player to leave after that, and accelerates it around the time that they find Canary, Marmalade, and Aubergine's clothing on the bridge.
• Neat Freak: Canary. Juniper comments that, other than the fishtank, her quarters look exactly like they did when they arrived on the ship.
• No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture: Played straight, and averted.
  • Vermillion brought along some records; Aubergine apparently hadn't heard music before.
  • The tabletop games that were brought along, however, avert this; they're unfamiliar to us, called Indigestion and Smash, Muddle, Scrub.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Everyone. The crew is only known by their Colorful Theme Naming; the player is called Pluto by Juniper.
• The Prankster: Juniper.
  • When Aubergine asks if anyone needs help with their augmentations, Juniper replies that her eyes don't work. By email. It takes him a moment to realize the problem.
  • She stacks the deck for Canary's first game of Smash, Muddle, Scrub.
• Ruptured Appendix: Juniper has one; fortunately Vermillion and the ship's medical systems can handle it.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Activated by Swan after Pluto accesses the cockpit and finds that there isn't anyone there.
• Shrine to the Fallen:
  • In Pistachio's quarters. It has a photo, flowers, several of her origami cranes, and her augmented hands.
  • At the end of the game, there's a gravestone on the pathway that probably was put there for Vermillion.
• Sinister Surveillance: By Swan, once the crew started to mutiny. Eventually they stopped using email out of the belief that Swan could read it.
• Space Station: The Firmament, apparently. It's TFC's headquarters and home, and where some of the crew were born.
• Spotting the Thread: Juniper's logs don't line up with what she tells you. It's actually Swan, as clued by her referring to Pistachio's origami cranes as swans. At the end, Swan implies that this was intentional, an attempt to convince you to stop what you're doing and leave without the people watching over her shoulder realizing what she's doing.
• Surprise Litter of Puppies: Well, kittens. Sable is pregnant, and has four kittens. Intentionally invoked by TFC as an experiment, to see how the crew reacts.
• Surprise Party: For Marmalade. It goes surprisingly well.
• Take Your Time:
  • After you solve enough puzzles to unlock the bridge, Juniper encourages you to come up and do so. However, if you decide to work on more puzzles or corrupted logs instead, she'll wait patiently and happily chat with you about her memories of various places.
  • After the self-destruct is activated upon you reaching the cockpit, you have all the time you need before you get to the exit; however, most rooms are locked off, so there isn't anything to do.
• Team Chef: Vermillion. After the spacewalk accident, he cooks a roast to raise the crew's spirits.
• Theme Naming: TFC ships that we hear about are named for light-colored minerals: Alabaster, Dolomite, and Celestine.
• Tradesnark™: Dirt™, an essential part of Equinox Tea™.
• Trapped in Villainy: Swan. She's still on the Firmament, and TFC is watching everything she does.
• Unreliable Expositor: Juniper. It's actually Swan.
• Unusual Pets for Unusual People: Canary keeps fish, and her logs include careful measurements of their water quality. This helps to demonstrate her uptightness and attention to detail.
• We Have Reserves: Captains are explicitly told to be willing to sacrifice their crews to complete the mission.
• Weird Currency: "Grams", although of what is never stated.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't know what happened to Sable or her kittens.
• What Were You Thinking?: Word-for-word from Swan, once you reach the cockpit and give her control of the ship again, forcing her to activate the self-destruct.
• You Monster!: To Swan, after she killed Vermillion by activating the escape pod engines.

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