The Spectrum Retreat

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.

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The Spectrum Retreat is a first-person puzzle game set in a mysterious hotel. As the game's protagonist, you'll uncover secrets and solve challenging puzzles by manipulating colored streams of light. With its immersive storyline and innovative gameplay mechanics, The Spectrum Retreat offers a unique gaming experience.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

Reviews

73%

Audience ScoreBased on 306 reviews

story102 positive mentions

grinding20 negative mentions

The puzzles are well-designed and progressively increase in difficulty, providing a satisfying challenge.
The narrative is intriguing and well-presented, with a strong atmosphere that keeps players engaged.
The game features excellent voice acting and a unique color manipulation mechanic that enhances the puzzle-solving experience.

The game suffers from excessive backtracking and a slow walking speed, which can make exploration tedious.
There are no checkpoints in the final puzzle stages, leading to frustrating restarts if players make mistakes.
The story and puzzle elements feel disconnected, with the narrative often feeling padded and not fully integrated into the gameplay.

story
345 mentions
30 % positive mentions
68 % neutral mentions
3 % negative mentions
The story in "The Spectrum Retreat" is a mixed bag, with some players finding it intriguing and emotionally engaging, while others criticize it for being slow-paced, predictable, and disconnected from the puzzle mechanics. Many reviewers appreciate the atmospheric setting and the gradual unfolding of the narrative, but feel that the story often feels forced or lacks depth, with repetitive elements that detract from the overall experience. Overall, while the game attempts to weave a compelling narrative into its puzzle gameplay, the execution leaves room for improvement, leading to a divide in player satisfaction.
- “But the real star is the story.”
- “The story is intriguing, but expect to take your time because of how slow the game makes you move.”
- “The story is very well written, including a dash of poignant social commentary.”
- “The story-line is irrelevant to the puzzles and plays out too slow and boring to be of any interest.”
- “The puzzles are mostly tedious and have absolutely nothing to do with the story being told.”
- “Ultimately the biggest issue is that everything outside of the puzzle rooms is very shallow, and the story is so thin that by the time the twists arrive, you've already seen them coming from a mile away.”
gameplay
142 mentions
37 % positive mentions
61 % neutral mentions
2 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by creative puzzle mechanics, particularly a color manipulation system that allows players to absorb and use colors to navigate barriers. While the puzzles are engaging and progressively challenging, some players noted issues with repetitiveness and the potential for getting softlocked, as well as a lack of manual save options. Overall, the game offers a polished experience with a solid narrative, though it may leave some players wanting more depth and variety in its mechanics.
- “The gameplay is solid and the puzzles are fun to solve without any puzzles being overly difficult.”
- “The puzzles have a very good progression of complexity and mechanics that keep them fresh and interesting without becoming tedious.”
- “I especially love the puzzles as the mechanics introduced are quite unique and really well implemented, and also the story, whilst told cryptically and through visual 'anomalies' in the puzzle sections, is really quite good.”
- “There's too much text on screen at a time (I had to stop gameplay just to move the camera to a place where I could read the text), and the text doesn't flash disappear which makes it hard to tell when the text changes.”
- “The problems with the puzzle mechanic are that firstly you only have autosaves, no manual or quicksaves, and that you can easily get softlocked.”
- “Generally there are more positive than negative things to say about it, but it does feel like there was a lot of potential left undeveloped in both the gameplay and the story.”
graphics
45 mentions
51 % positive mentions
42 % neutral mentions
7 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with many praising the stunning visuals and polished aesthetic, particularly in the hotel environment and puzzle rooms. However, some users report choppy performance even on higher settings and limited graphical options, which detracts from the overall experience. Despite these issues, the game's atmosphere and art style are generally well-received, contributing to an engaging storytelling experience.
- “Great use of puzzles and brain power with beautiful graphics and a telling story.”
- “Graphically, this game is stunning to look at.”
- “The whole experience was very polished, with great visuals, rich sound design and just the right amount of creepy vibes (although this game is not a horror game).”
- “- Mediocre graphics with a boring art style.”
- “- Graphics are choppy even on the 'fast' graphical setting.”
- “Bare-bone graphic options.”
music
34 mentions
41 % positive mentions
50 % neutral mentions
9 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received high praise for its excellent production and fitting scores that enhance the narrative and atmosphere, with many players expressing a desire for a soundtrack DLC. While some found the music repetitive, the majority appreciated its emotional depth and how well it complements the gameplay and story. Overall, the soundtrack is considered a standout feature, contributing significantly to the game's immersive experience.
- “The game is pretty good, the mechanics for the puzzles are very creative and the soundtrack works very well with the setting of the story and its narrative.”
- “The OST is awesome and I can't stop singing it in my head; the puzzles are really good and I love the mechanics that are introduced in every chapter, each mechanic goes beautifully hand in hand with the others, making a ballet that is more than most majestic and goes perfectly with the OST.”
- “The music is okay as it does a decent job of being emotional for what you've found out about yourself.”
- “- annoying, repetitive music.”
- “The music is well set to the environment, including some elements that'll subconsciously cast some influences on you.”
atmosphere
26 mentions
46 % positive mentions
42 % neutral mentions
12 % negative mentions
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its eerie and unsettling qualities, effectively immersing players in a beautifully crafted, glitched-out hotel setting. The combination of strong narrative, quality voice acting, and thoughtful sound design enhances the overall experience, although some players noted that repetitive puzzle mechanics can detract from the pacing. Overall, the atmosphere is considered a standout feature, contributing significantly to the game's appeal for those who enjoy story-driven and psychologically stimulating gameplay.
- “The slightly spooky atmosphere works well to have you on edge and give the feeling that something isn't quite right.”
- “It has an intense, well-presented, well-written story, with great voice acting and solid dialogue, a fantastic atmosphere supported by everything from graphics, to theme, sound design, to soundtrack.”
- “The color-coded puzzles are intelligently designed and present a decent challenge, while the Penrose Hotel is an absorbing backdrop that creates an unsettling atmosphere.”
- “Strong, unique narrative and a really unsettling atmosphere.”
- “The background story and atmosphere of the glitched-out hotel simulation was interesting and made a nice change of pace in between puzzle sections.”
- “The colour coded puzzles are intelligently designed and present a decent challenge, while the Penrose Hotel is an absorbing backdrop that creates an unsettling atmosphere.”
grinding
20 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The grinding aspect of "The Spectrum Retreat" is characterized by tedious and repetitive puzzles that often require backtracking and can lead to frustrating soft-locks, lacking features like undo or quick save. While the puzzle mechanics and aesthetics are praised, the overall experience is marred by the excessive time spent on monotonous tasks that detract from the enjoyment and challenge of the game.
- “The puzzles are mostly tedious and have absolutely nothing to do with the story being told.”
- “Before each set of puzzles, you're forced to backtrack and repeat events each time, which doesn't add anything except tedious time to the game.”
- “Walking is painfully slow and having to double-back repeatedly to progress the story is tedious.”
emotional
12 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The game "The Spectrum Retreat" unexpectedly delivers a deeply emotional narrative, despite its repetitive gameplay. Players report feeling nervous during progression and appreciate the music's ability to enhance the emotional experience tied to self-discovery within the story. Overall, the emotional depth of the plot stands out, making it a compelling aspect of the game.
- “Yes, they are repetitive, but they tell an interesting and very emotional story.”
- “The music is okay as it does a decent job of being emotional for what you've found out about yourself.”
- “The Spectrum Retreat is the type of game you don't expect to be very emotional; I didn't even expect it to have a very complicated story.”
optimization
6 mentions
33 % positive mentions
50 % neutral mentions
17 % negative mentions
The game's optimization is generally solid, providing a stable performance; however, the puzzles lack rigorous testing, leading to more fail states than seen in similar titles. While some players may find achievements engaging, the overall experience does not encourage replayability for alternate endings.
- “Solid performance”
- “The game is not fun enough to replay for the second ending, neither of which are especially satisfying, but there's that and some performance achievements to keep dedicated players further engaged.”
- “While the puzzles are designed well enough, they do not feel as rigorously tested and optimized to minimize the amount of fail states as in other examples of the genre.”
replayability
4 mentions
75 % positive mentions
-25 % neutral mentions
50 % negative mentions
The game offers limited replayability due to its short duration of around five hours, but players can enhance their experience by engaging in time challenges and exploring alternate endings. This aspect appeals to those interested in uncovering different narrative outcomes.
- “The game itself is pretty short (about 5 hours), but there is a time challenge that adds to its replay value.”
- “There is a replayability element for those interested in discovering the ending they didn't choose.”
- “The game offers a unique replayability factor that encourages players to explore different outcomes.”
- “The game itself is pretty short (about 5 hours?), but there is a time challenge for replay value.”
- “[spoiler] - (spoiler) replayability element for those interested in discovering the ending they didn't choose (like myself).”
stability
2 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
Users report that the game experiences several glitches, indicating issues with stability.
- “And yes, there are some glitches.”
humor
2 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is generally considered lacking, especially when compared to titles like Portal, which are known for their comedic storytelling. Overall, players feel that the game's narrative does not deliver the same level of wit or humor.