- Publisher: Ripstone
- Release Date: Jul 13, 2018
- Also On: PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
-
Jul 9, 2018Despite 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.
-
Jul 17, 2018Dan Smith begins his career with a fusion of walking simulator and a puzzle game that is quite attractive, but can still go deep much more.
-
Aug 9, 2018If you enjoy Portal-like puzzles and don't look for an interesting story, The Spectrum Retreat may appeal to you.
-
Jul 18, 2018By combining elements of puzzle-games with those of walking simulators, The Spectrum Retreat creates a coherent whole.
-
Jul 13, 2018It’s a shame that the two sides of The Spectrum Retreat don’t really come together, creating a cohesive narrative adventure filled with engaging puzzles to solve. But even though the Penrose Hotel quickly becomes boring to walk through, there’s still a lot to like – from the art direction to the story and the often-wonderful puzzle design.
-
Jul 11, 2018The whole narrative was shallow. The game shows potential, but it is so incohesive and unimpressive that it flounders as a whole.
-
Oct 11, 2018Combining a story-based exploration of a mysterious virtual hotel with an interesting colour-based, Portal-esque puzzler, The Spectrum Retreat doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its disparate parts.
-
Jul 16, 2018The Spectrum Retreat is a short psychological puzzle game with a subtle but thought-provoking story and comfortably challenging puzzles, although it can be repetitive at times.
| This publication does not provide a score for their reviews. | |
| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
| These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation. | |
-
Jul 13, 2018The color puzzles take place within specific sections of the hotel which make up an entirely new world and aesthetic. It makes me wonder why they couldn’t have been left well alone, to fend for themselves, without this clunky narrative device. It’s a good demonstration of the difficulty inherent in grafting story and character together, so wonderfully achieved by the inclusion of GlaDOS in Portal, but missed here, by a long way. But for all its faults, The Spectrum Retreat is a decent puzzle game at a reasonable price.
-
Jul 24, 2018The Spectrum Retreat may be the perfect holiday resort, but I can’t really say I’ve enjoyed my stay.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 7 out of 16
-
Mixed: 5 out of 16
-
Negative: 4 out of 16
-
Jul 21, 2021
-
Jul 15, 2021