In the distant future, a girl named Eleanor leaves Earth on a voyage into deep space.

Three cycles later, the crew has vanished… leaving Eleanor to tend to the ship all on her own. 

This phenomenon?

THE ISOLATION PROJECT!!!

Okay, you got me–that’s not where the name comes from. I think. Developed by solo dev Avery Hylton, The Isolation Project is a sci-fi survival horror game that juggles bizarre puzzles with survival horror gameplay. Maybe. Truth is, the demo glitched out on me multiple times during my playthrough. While I attempted a few clean resets, I ultimately had to give up on Eleanor’s quest. The demo’s intriguing, I’ll give it that, but it’ll need a bit of work before it’s ready for a proper review.

Isolator? I ‘ardly Know ‘er!

As mentioned above, The Isolation Project gets the backstory out of the way pretty quickly. Eleanor–that’s you–leaves Earth aboard the Aurora 9, a research vessel host to a plethora of bizarre puzzles and, as you soon find out, a disappearing crew. That’s right, Eleanor’s left on her lonesome. Whether this is some test by management or something far more sinister remains to be seen. Taking her best shot at running the ship herself, Eleanor soon realizes her efforts are akin to bailing water out of a boat without patching the leak. Her solution? Head down to LEVEL 0 and do a full reboot!

I’m still not too sure how this will solve things, but that’s why I’m not a survival horror protagonist. Luckily Eleanor isn’t leaving without some hardware: besides a trusty flashlight, she’s also armed with the aptly named SCANNER-500 and a handful of syringes. I’m still unclear on what’s inside the latter. In the immortal words of Ex-FBI Director William S. Sessions, ‘Winners Don’t Do Drugs‘, but Eleanor ain’t no loser. The former tool is used to match a door’s frequency and open it up. Simply match the frequency with the number on the door and POOF! Open sesame! It’s a fun little gimmick, albeit simple in practice.

Ship Shape?

The Aurora 9, however, is nowhere near as simple. Departing from Eleanor’s modest quarters, I soon learned why our plucky heroine would rather reboot the whole damn thing. The Aurora 9 is BIG. Multiple floors big. I only visited LEVEL 0 in my brief playthrough, but even that was jam-packed with spacefaring essentials. There’s the research room, of course, and the library, and let’s not forget the art room as we-

… Wait a sec.

Yes, The Isolation Project demo is one of those survival horror games–one where the Aurora 9 was apparently put together by the distant relative of a Resident Evil architect. No, you don’t have to collect any crests, but you do have to complete several puzzles to move around the ship. With the main staircase to the engine safe behind a busted door, Eleanor must find another way around. Easier said than done, however.

Can I Get a Hint?

I’ve mentioned it in previous reviews, but I don’t consider myself a very intelligent man. With that fact reestablished, please take what I’m about to write with an Aurora 9-sized grain of salt:

I did NOT get the puzzles in this demo. At all.

Mind you, I’m a seasoned graduate of the Roberta Williams Sierra Adventure Game School of Hard Knocks. I know my way around kooky video game puzzles. Some game puzzles, I’ve found, require backtracking to multiple rooms. Others require a note or a clue of some kind. In the Isolation Project demo, the only puzzle I managed to solve was in the aforementioned art room and I still don’t understand how I did it!

There are notes strewn about the ship, though, and peculiarly placed art pieces with questionable color choices. The issue’s that during my playthrough I couldn’t link any of them to the puzzles. Considering this is a demo–and, presumably, the first part of the game–I feel a bit concerned when I get stumped by the first puzzle. That’s not to say the game should be dumbed down, of course, but it might deserve some reworking.

My attempts at tackling the demo’s other puzzles were met with similar futility, minus the success I somehow managed with the first one. What made me give up, however, was the breaking of an asset in the library. At the time I assumed I figured out the puzzle in there, but after further experimentation I can’t help but wonder if a whole row of books was meant to phase through the bookshelf. Restarting the game didn’t do anything to assuage the situation, however, so here we are.

Highly Illogical, Captain…

After my admittedly short encounter with the demo, I can safely say there’s a good game hidden away somewhere. The issue is that it’s buried beneath several strata of befuddling puzzles and run-ending glitches. I can stomach the dithery art style and the controls being regulated to a Post-It Note in your dorm, but this game needs some more polish before being demo worthy. I didn’t even get to meet the monster.

In conclusion, I’d wait a little longer before giving The Isolation Project a try. There are good bones here, but they need to be dusted a bit first. I am eager to see how it develops.

The Isolation Project was part of the Steam Next Fest: June 2026. Avery Hylton has no Twitter, Discord, or website, so just click “follow” keep an eye on the Steam updates, I guess!