The Spectrum Retreat

It's a puzzle adventure that sprinkles a bit of philosophy into its narrative. It doesn't break new ground, and the pacing can feel sluggish at times, but there's a quiet simplicity to it—neat and unpretentious.

The Spectrum Retreat is a bizarre game that is quite uneven, and yet it’s somehow captivating. I will have to split the game into two parts: the exploring part and the puzzle part. Why the split? Let me try to explain it to you.
Let me start with the puzzle part of the game. Puzzles are based on simple mechanics; you have a device that lets you use colors. They let you pass matching-color barriers and teleport. At some point, you will be introduced to room rotation, which will spice things up a little bit. In my opinion, puzzles are fun, and I liked that those puzzles were gradually getting harder. Yes, there is one section of the game that can be frustrating, and that is level 5. If you get stuck at that level, then you will have to press the restart button. It's a quite long level, so it may be frustrating and tedious. Let’s now talk about the exploration part of the game.
You wake up in the hotel (I know, scary), and you have no context on who you are, where you are, and why there are some weird robots talking to you. You'll get a call from Cooper; she will tell you that you’re put here not by your will and that she will help you. At the beginning you may feel confused, so naturally you will try to unravel the mystery. You will realize that this game has a repeating-the-day motive. You will repeat the day and do the same thing, and then you go explore, and I feel that the game here is… uneven. Let me start with the positive side of this part of the game. Firstly, the atmosphere in this game is amazing. It sometimes feels like you are in a horror game, but this is not a horror game; it will never try to scare you, and it doesn’t have jump scares. It tries to make you feel uneasy, and every time I was walking around the hotel, it looked and felt like I was in the hotel from The Shining—especially the ballroom, which feels like it was inspired by The Shining. Every day, I was intrigued with the mystery behind the hotel, and I wanted to see more. Unfortunately, The Spectrum Retreat is not focused on exploring the hotel. Exploring sections are short, and it's more like a quick break from puzzles at times. There are some cool ideas with environmental storytelling, but it doesn’t use the full potential that I think this game has. Exploring feels tedious because your character is slow. You don’t have a sprint button, and I sometimes wish it had or that the character was a bit faster. The Spectrum Retreat slows you down, but I have yet to get an idea why it does it. It doesn’t build suspense; it sometimes ruins it. To be fair, even though I have written these negatives, I still didn’t regret it. Why? Let me answer it with one word: story.
You have probably seen that some reviews tell you that the story is a bit of a letdown (especially the ending), and I disagree with it. In my opinion, the story of The Spectrum Retreat is intriguing and asks you certain philosophical questions about identity, memories, free will, and trauma. It’s not an easy task for me to talk about it without spoiling it much, so let me tell you this. When you’re in the puzzle rooms, there will be some weird, glitchy furniture with documents on them. Study them, listen to some memories, and when you are at the final choice, don’t think about the choice itself. Think about the idea behind the choices and how your character got to this moment. Maybe I’m overanalyzing stuff, but in my opinion this is a quite tragic game that tells us that the most scary thing is that we sometimes wake up and don’t know who we are. To be fair, puzzle sections feel a bit detached from the story. I understand the logic behind them, but it is quite confusing when at one moment you’re in an art deco hotel and then at the other moment you’re in a more futuristic room. I wish puzzle rooms were connected to the story, that they had some theme behind them (the glitchy furniture parts of the room were not enough for me). Only level 5 felt like it was connected to the story, and I wished there were more levels like that. I understand why people find the story quite mediocre or that it is not up to par with other games with this kind of motive, but I think otherwise. I think it's a clever philosophical game.
Should you play it? I think you should try it, especially if it’s on sale. If you’re just looking for a good puzzle game, then this game will give you some decent puzzles. If you’re looking for an amazing story and want to unravel a mystery… then you should be ready that it may not meet your standards. It’s an uneven game in this aspect, and the ending can be quite anticlimactic, and you wish it gave you more context… on the other hand, I quite liked that it doesn't reveal some secrets. It lets you build your interpretation and theories.

It is a decent enough first person puzzler to recommend playing, even though I have some nitpicks to its structure.

Due to the nature of the puzzle elements, it is very easy to 'brick' yourself inside a puzzle without any indication, having to restart the whole puzzle. It's usually not a big deal, as the puzzles are pretty short, but the last puzzle of the game spans a few pretty big rooms with no checkpoints, so if you mess up with a puzzle piece, get stuck in the jumping physics or accidentally walk off the edge due to the floaty walking physics, you have to restart the whole thing again. Redoing what you just did is not a very satisfying experience.

The endings kinda follow the same pattern - you have to redo the whole game over again to see the other ending and get the achievement for them despite the only relevant choice being at the very very end. Yeah you can speedrun the game in about an hour when you know the puzzle solutions, but still, kind of annoying that you have to do that instead of just loading a checkpoint (the game deletes your save file after completion).

Still, the puzzles are novel enough and the story, while pretty predictable and not very innovative, was interesting to follow. If you like first person puzzlers, you will enjoy this game.

This is a fun game...love the puzzles very much a portal type game...and just as fun.

Another chamber-based physics puzzler. Which is fine as I love this style of game. The puzzles are good although, by the end I felt that the game mechanic had been stretched to its limit. And the story that builds through the game was intriguing. However, the story-based, walking-sim activities and the chamber-based puzzle activities, didn't really go together. But all-in-all I enjoyed it; it's not in the Portal or Talos league, but it's a solid 7/10.

Very good puzzle game. I was recommended to me by ChatGPT when I asked for games like Portal or Talos. I was not disappointed. Good puzzles and moving story. Only thing that I would add is more puzzles. Definitely recommended if you like puzzle games.

It's not hard to figure out the basics of what to do, however, knowing what to do and completing each level are two different things. It takes a shift in thinking as the levels get more complicated. It kept my interest though due to the puzzles, even though the story behind is forever not going anywhere. Hopefully all will be revealed later.