The Spectrum Retreat E3 Preview
The Spectrum Retreat is an exploratory puzzle game set in a spooky art deco hotel. You’re the only human there, the rest of the hotel is staffed by androids. You’re taken care of pretty well, but you can’t leave. Eventually you’re contacted through your phone by a woman who tries to help you escape. The mechanics revolve around you absorbing and dispensing colors to and from these huge glowing cubes. If you do it right, you can advance through the levels’ many locked doors. Continued success will let you unlock more of the hotel room, which starts out locked off with these impossible hallways that ignore most laws of physics. I like the twin aesthetics of art deco and sterile futurism.
The puzzle mechanics are that proper blend of tactile satisfaction and slowly mounting difficulty that can really hook you in short order. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this one when it comes out later this summer. On top of that, spectrum retreat is coming to the Nintendo switch! The structure of the stages means you can pick up and put down this game after a relatively bite-sized play session. My only grievance came with the color system. It takes some getting used to, knowing when a cube has or hasn’t been tapped for its hue. At first, I was unsure whether I’d absorbed a cube already or not. It takes a bit of getting used to, but soon I was swapping colors with breathless ease.
I’m intensely curious about how this story is going to play out. Beyond your current predicament of imprisonment, why are you in this hotel in the first place? Who put you there? Will we learn anything at all about the world outside the front doors, or is this something of a ‘locked room’ mystery? Between the clean visuals, the fascinating mechanics and the moody soundtrack, there’s a lot to look forward to about The Spectrum Retreat. Definitely keep attuned to this one when it drops this summer.
