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The Spectrum Retreat is due to arrive on Nintendo Switch next week

The Spectrum Retreat image

The Penrose Hotel is waiting for you to explore its puzzling mysteries.

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Ripstone Games and Dan Smith Studios announced today they will be bringing The Spectrum Retreat to Nintendo Switch, the perfect follow-up to its arrival on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC this July. Soon, you'll be able to take the puzzling adventure with you wherever you go, perhaps even to a hotel.

The Spectrum Retreat presents players with a pristine hotel environment. The Penrose is a relaxing haven where you have lived out as many of your days as you can recall, and yet it's clear there is mystery all around you. To get to the root of that mystery, you'll need to solve a series of increasingly complex, color-coded puzzles.

Honestly, it sounds a bit to me like The Witness, which had plenty of puzzles of that variety and others. But the environment is different, anyway, and presumably numerous other aspects of the game's design. A mere prototype won the BAFTA Young Game Designers award in 2016, when Dan Smith was a mere 18 years old, and Ripstone Games has worked with him since then to evolve that core design into the more ambitious project you will soon find on Nintendo Switch.



"Developing The Spectrum Retreat took up nearly a quarter of my life," said Dan Smith, who by now must be at least 20 years old. "Launching it earlier this year was a massive moment for me and I'm delighted that Nintendo Switch owners will finally get a chance to experience it."

Ripstone Games, which is based in Liverpool, England, boasts a "world-class" development team, and has been involved with a variety of familiar titles that include Stick It To The Man and Plague Inc.

"The Spectrum Retreat was a real labor of love for both Dan and everyone at Ripstone who believed in his vision," said Matt Southern, Head of Development at Ripstone Games. "What began as a clever puzzle game expanded into a rich, contemplative narrative about the role of technology in an ever complex society and we're thrilled to bring it to Nintendo Switch."

Just to recap: The Spectrum Retreat is coming to Nintendo Switch and everyone involved in the effort is thrilled or delighted. Maybe even both of those things at the same time. And maybe you will be too, when you play it. But first you have to buy it, which will set you back £9.99 / €12.99 / $12.99, depending on the region you occupy.

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Staff article by Jason Venter (September 06, 2018)

Jason Venter has been playing games for 30 years, since discovering the Apple IIe version of Mario Bros. in his elementary school days. Now he writes about them, here at HonestGamers and also at other sites that agree to pay him for his words.

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