The Spectrum Retreat Reviews
The Spectrum Retreat impresses with its devilishly tricky puzzle solving, which rewards exploration and new ways of thinking about challenges. A real delight — check yourself into the Penrose Hotel today.
The Spectrum Retreat is a challenging, first-person puzzle game set within the near future. As you awake and being to explore the Penrose hotel, you will begin to unlock your memories through the various colour-based logic puzzles and various interactions you have with the mysterious Cooper. You must solve each of these ingenious puzzles as you uncover the truth behind why you are in such a place and who is behind your imprisonment. The Spectrum Retreat has AAA quality voice acting, an amazing soundtrack and the perfect amount of mind-bending and thought-provoking puzzles all contained within a single package.
Expertly created puzzles, a setting which is as equally enticing as it is unsettling, a thought provoking narrative, excellent music and top draw voice work combine to form a truly enjoyable puzzle game that’ll have me leaving a very positive Trip Advisor review.
The Spectrum Retreat is a game that I had been following, and I'm happy I got a chance to play it since I definitely liked its lush futuristic hotel setting, the color-based puzzle solving, and the great story. The one complaint would be the weird-looking mannequins, but that's about it! Hopefully Dan Smith gives us some extra puzzles as DLC since I had fun with this 5-7 hour release and wouldn't mind more puzzles, or a full-fledged sequel!
But, those challenges are all in the later half of the journey, so getting to them will be a chore. I think all of the concepts here, warrant a sequel, that I would gladly come back to. A few tweaks here and there, would assist in the overall experience, but all in all I recommend checking into The Penrose for a few puzzling nights.
Putting these two halves together The Spectrum Retreat is a surprising treat, with both elements of the gameplay motivating me to get further so I could understand or solve more. While I wish there were more room for discovery in the hotel sequences I suppose the deliberate and slow doling out of clues keeps the revelations around what’s happening at a specific pace. I will say that some of the backtracking through the hotel got tedious when there wasn’t anything of value to do along the way, but it usually didn’t waste too much time. Right through the game’s conclusion I was pretty satisfied with the experience and would love to see more titles with this pairing of gameplay styles in the future.
Despite some excesses in the levels structure, and the evident low budget, The Spectrum Retreat is a real game design diamond, with a well-structured and engaging narration.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Spectrum Ward is a creative little title that manages to craft an interesting world and some memorable moments, but it feels a bit lacking in the gameplay department. Still, while its puzzles may not wow, it’s an experience worth having
The Spectrum Retreat is a wonderful first-person puzzle game. It contains clever puzzling and a mysterious story involving the past of the main character you play as. It's $12.99 on the Switch eShop, had a 5 year development cycle from Dan Smith himself, and is totally deserving of the price tag. There's an appreciated elegance to The Spectrum Retreat. I'm sure Dan Smith Studios is goin' places and most likely up from here.
The Spectrum Retreat is a valiant stab at a Portal-esque puzzler which largely pulls off what it sets out to achieve. It lacks the dynamite script and surgical timing of Valve's masterpiece, but the test chambers (sorry, ‘authentication challenges') withstand the comparison. If Gone Home's pace is a touch too navel-gazing for your liking, we'd heartily recommend a trip to The Penrose Hotel.
Thanks to its appealing aesthetics and accessible mechanics, players will very much enjoy navigating through the mysterious game area and solving the obstacles until they reach the final floor.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Spectrum Retreat is a clever and fun puzzle game with a good story that will keep you engaged for around 5-6 hours depending on how good you are with puzzles.
If you're looking for puzzles, atmosphere and drama, The Spectrum Retreat is perfect for you. If you join a walkthrough simulator with a puzzle game and add a few drops of mystery you have a good mix. This mix has its flaws, but the result is certainly very tasty.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Narrative The Spectrum Retreat remains quite exciting and stands out from the standard "walking simulators", so that one is curious to see how the story goes on. Even the narrative offers some space for interpretation. Technically, the game is solid and does its job well, especially the soundtrack is very atmospheric and the speakers deliver a good performance. Fortunately, the English language version was kept here, but there are German subtitles. The Spectrum Retreat is for anyone who likes narrative games like Firewatch and can also start with puzzles.
Review in German | Read full review
An interesting puzzler that does not surprises, but does almost everything ok.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Dan Smith's game is a perfect study material for any rookie game designer. It shows how to create an engaging story with clever gameplay mechanics, while being vague in terms of presentation and original at the same time.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Small and not too deep, but still fun experience with smart puzzles and solid story.
Review in Russian | Read full review
The Spectrum Retreat is a refreshing independent game with some big ideas and ambition. It creates a truly compelling environment with excellent acting and narrative progression.
An original title with a split personality, half puzzle game and half walking simulator. Both parts are brilliantly developed, but their forced dichotomy breaks the rhythm of the game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
As far as hybrid genres go, this is an interesting one.