HomeMain MenuPress ReleasesBAFTA YGD Award Winner Dan Smith Launching ‘The Spectrum Retreat’ This July

BAFTA YGD Award Winner Dan Smith Launching ‘The Spectrum Retreat’ This July

BAFTA YGD Award Winner Dan Smith Launching ‘The Spectrum Retreat’ This July

Pre-order available now for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with a 10% discount

London, United Kingdom – June 19th, 2018 – BAFTA Young Game Designer winner, Dan Smith, and publisher, Ripstone Games, are proud to share the release date for The Spectrum Retreat for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The upcoming first-person narrative puzzler will come to PlayStation 4 from July 10th. The game will launch globally for Xbox One and PC on July 13th with Nintendo Switch following later this summer. In The Spectrum Retreat players must explore the pristine and uncanny hotel, The Penrose, solving a series of ingenious colour-coded puzzles, all the while uncovering the reasons behind their seemingly never-ending stay. To celebrate the news, Ripstone Games has produced an all-new launch trailer, showing never seen before footage. The Spectrum Retreat will launch for £9.99 / €12.99 / $12.99.*

Having won the BAFTA Young Game Designers Award (YGD) 2016 for the prototype when he was only 18 years old, Dan Smith has subsequently developed The Spectrum Retreat with the support of Ripstone, building an intriguing narrative around the intuitive first-person puzzle action. Putting players in the role of a guest at a peculiar, pristine hotel where nothing is as it seems, The Spectrum Retreat is a trippy, art deco-inspired sci-fi adventure, albeit grounded in the possibility of current technology.

“I can’t wait for people to finally play The Spectrum Retreat now that we’re only a few weeks away from launch,” said Dan Smith, Designer of The Spectrum Retreat. “The game has been a part of my life for the last five years and to get to this stage is hugely exciting. I’m really proud of the game, and working with Ripstone I’ve been able to create something that looks and plays great, with an intriguing story and new mechanics.”

“Announcing the release date today makes us realise how close we are to the culmination of such focused hard work,” said Matt Southern, Head of Development at Ripstone Games. “Dan’s puzzle design has got stronger as we’ve worked with him, and the game is now a must-play for fans of elegant first-person puzzle design. But remarkably it’s also a milestone in emotional, intelligent narrative adventure, especially for anyone interested in how new technologies might impact our lives very soon.”

The Spectrum Retreat takes place in the near future at The Penrose hotel, a peaceful yet unsettling refuge from the outside world. As a valued guest, your existence is embedded into the corridors and guest rooms of The Penrose. Through exploration of the striking art-deco hotel you will begin to uncover the mysteries of both The Penrose and the uncertainties surrounding your current stay. Your desire to unearth the truth is obstructed by an array of colour coded first-person puzzles, mind-bending physics challenges and the growing fear of exposing your true intentions.

*Price liable to change depending on platform.

To pre-order the game on PlayStation 4 please visit: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP2070-CUSA11954_00-0000000000000000
To pre-order the game on Xbox One please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/the-spectrum-retreat/c1wrvqg6430c
Visit The Spectrum Retreat webpage on the Ripstone website: https://ripstone.com/game/the-spectrum-retreat
For more information about the BAFTA Young Game Designers please check out http://ygd.bafta.org

About Dan Smith
Dan Smith Studios is an independent game development studio, represented by Dan Smith. Founded in 2016, its first focus has been on the development of first person puzzle game ‘The Spectrum Retreat’, which is due for a 2018 release for PC and consoles. Dan Smith is a BAFTA YGD Game Making Award winner and Computer Science student at the University of Leeds. He is based mainly in Newcastle and Leeds, England.

About Ripstone Games
Ripstone is an independent games label that fully fund the development, distribution, marketing and sales of games made by indie teams worldwide. Founded in 2011 by publishing and film industry veterans, to date they have financed and published 15 games across 14 platforms and have worldwide sales in excess of 10 million units. Their focus is on supporting indie developers to make games for PC and home consoles, making sure gamers know about them, and rewarding the talent for it.

Ripstone’s back catalogue includes Ironcast, Stick It To The Man, Pure Pool and Extreme Exorcism. At their home in Liverpool, England they also have a first-party development studio, and their stunning first title Chess Ultra launched in Summer 2017. www.ripstone.com