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

76%

Audience ScoreBased on 147 reviews

story50 positive mentions

grinding10 negative mentions

The game features a captivating design and atmosphere, creating an engaging experience for players.
Puzzles are well-crafted with a gradual increase in difficulty, providing a satisfying challenge without being overly frustrating.
The narrative is intriguing, with a unique story that unfolds as players progress through the game.

The lack of checkpoints in the final puzzle stages can lead to frustrating restarts, as players may have to redo lengthy sequences if they make a mistake.
The walking speed is painfully slow, making exploration tedious and detracting from the overall experience.
Voice acting and dialogue can feel overdone and repetitive, detracting from the immersion and pacing of the story.

story
170 mentions
29 % positive mentions
68 % neutral mentions
3 % negative mentions
The story in the game 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 appreciate the dark themes and the gradual unfolding of the narrative, but feel that the storytelling often lacks depth and subtlety, with some elements feeling forced or cliché. Overall, while the story has its moments of brilliance, it struggles to fully integrate with the gameplay, leading to a disjointed experience for some players.
- “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
70 mentions
37 % positive mentions
59 % neutral mentions
4 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by creative and engaging puzzle mechanics, primarily revolving around color manipulation, which are introduced at a well-paced rate to maintain interest. While the puzzles are generally enjoyable and challenging, some players noted issues with repetitiveness, potential for getting stuck, and a lack of manual save options. Overall, the game offers a solid experience with a compelling narrative, though it may leave some players wanting more depth and variety in its mechanics.
- “The puzzle mechanics are excellent.”
- “The gameplay is very good too; I expected to be just one person puzzles with colors, but it plays with mobility and gravity, making the puzzles even harder to figure out.”
- “The unique puzzle mechanics are very entertaining, and you feel a sense of achievement when you beat a particularly intricate level.”
- “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 or 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 quick saves, 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
22 mentions
50 % positive mentions
36 % neutral mentions
14 % 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 and limited graphical options, which can detract from the overall experience. Despite these issues, the game's atmosphere and art style are generally well-received, complemented by good voice acting and sound design.
- “Great use of puzzles and brain power with beautiful graphics and a telling story.”
- “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).”
- “Graphically, this game is stunning to look at.”
- “- mediocre graphics with boring art style”
- “- graphics are choppy even on 'fast' graphical setting.”
- “Bare bone graphic options”
music
17 mentions
41 % positive mentions
41 % neutral mentions
18 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received high praise for its excellent production and emotional resonance, enhancing the overall atmosphere and narrative. Many players appreciate the fitting orchestral scores, particularly the main theme, which complements the gameplay and story beautifully. However, some users found certain tracks to be repetitive and annoying, indicating a mixed reception in that regard.
- “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.”
- “Fitting musical scores and soundtracks, particularly the main theme with the orchestra.”
- “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 annoying and repetitive.”
- “The music is okay as it does a decent job of being emotional for what you've found out about yourself.”
- “I’m terrible at trying to describe music but it strikes a perfect balance while exploring and solving puzzles.”
atmosphere
12 mentions
42 % positive mentions
33 % neutral mentions
25 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its immersive and eerie qualities, enhanced by strong voice acting, compelling graphics, and a well-crafted narrative. Players appreciate the unsettling moments and the unique design of the hotel and puzzle rooms, although some find the repetitive mechanics and pacing to detract from the overall experience. Overall, the game's atmosphere effectively engages players, creating a captivating blend of tension and intrigue.
- “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.”
- “Great atmosphere and good unsettling moments, that give the game that last kick that it needs.”
- “The slightly spooky atmosphere works well to have you on edge and give the feeling that something isn't quite right.”
- “The background story and atmosphere of the glitched-out hotel simulation was interesting and made a nice change of pace in between puzzle sections.”
- “Strong, unique narrative and a really unsettling atmosphere.”
grinding
10 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The grinding aspect of "The Spectrum Retreat" is characterized by tedious and repetitive puzzle mechanics that detract from the overall experience. Players often find themselves frustrated by the lack of quick save options and the necessity to backtrack frequently, which adds unnecessary time without enhancing the challenge or enjoyment of the game. While the puzzle design and aesthetics are praised, the overall execution leads to a sense of annoyance rather than engagement.
- “The spectrum retreat is a narrative puzzle game where the narrative is underwhelming while at the same time the puzzles are tedious, repetitive, and annoying.”
- “I don't understand why you would make a puzzle game where the already tedious puzzles are incredibly easy to soft-lock and not include any form of undo or quick save; this doesn't make your puzzles more difficult or fun, it just makes them annoying.”
- “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.”
emotional
6 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The game delivers a surprisingly emotional narrative, despite its repetitive gameplay and some visual clarity issues that can lead to frustrating moments. Players noted that the music effectively enhances the emotional experience, complementing the complex story that unfolds as they progress. Overall, the emotional depth of the game exceeds initial expectations, making it a noteworthy aspect of the experience.
- “Yes, they are repetitive, but they tell an interesting and very emotional story.”
- “Actually made me feel nervous once or twice because of the lobby progression.”
- “The music is okay as it does a decent job of being emotional for what you've found out about yourself.”
optimization
3 mentions
67 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
33 % negative mentions
The game's performance is generally solid, providing a satisfactory experience for dedicated players, but it lacks the engaging replay value and rigorous optimization found in similar titles, particularly in its puzzle design, which may lead to more frequent fail states.
- “Solid performance.”
- “The game features 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
2 mentions
100 % positive mentions
-100 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The game offers limited replayability due to its short duration of around five hours; however, players can enhance their experience by engaging in time challenges and exploring alternate endings, which adds a layer of incentive for multiple playthroughs.
- “The game itself is pretty short (about 5 hours), but there is a time challenge that adds significant replay value.”
- “There is a replayability element for those interested in discovering the endings they didn't choose.”
- “The game itself is pretty short (about 5 hours), but there is a time challenge for replay value.”
- “There is a replayability element for those interested in discovering the ending they didn't choose.”
stability
1 mentions
0 % positive mentions
-200 % neutral mentions
300 % negative mentions
Users report experiencing some glitches, indicating that stability may be an issue in the game.
- “There are frequent crashes that disrupt gameplay.”
- “The game is riddled with bugs that make it unplayable at times.”
- “I experienced several freezes that forced me to restart.”
humor
1 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is generally considered lacking, with users noting that it does not reach the comedic levels found in titles like Portal.