The Spectrum Retreat

Intriguing game has its moments, but flubs story section

At its core, The Spectrum Retreat has a tragic story about a family cast aside by the American health care system. That much becomes apparent early on, but the finer details are hidden behind too many consecutive puzzles. There's a narrative worth hearing here, but the cadence at which it's told is just a little bit off. That, mixed with the good-but-not-outstanding puzzle design, keeps The Spectrum Retreat from being a truly great stay.

The Spectrum Retreat is a pleasant surprise. 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. While it's a shame more isn't made of this setting, the game's storytelling, design, and puzzle solving is a compelling mix, and for less than a tenner, provides a unique experience across its six-hour runtime.

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.

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.

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.

The Spectrum Retrait combines the mysterious story with a puzzle system that focuses on thinking, trial and error. and that system allows us to look at it from a different side.

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.

The Spectrum Retreats is an interesting and fun puzzle game. The best parts of the game are the color puzzles that lock and unlock panels that will allow you to move through the levels. It’s a well thought out and challenging game that will give you an estimated 5+ hours of fun.

The Spectrum Retreat is an interesting project, made by one person, which guarantees several hours of active brain work in exchange for a variety of emotions.