Hues and Cues: A Comprehensive Game Review

It’s not often that board games get their inspiration from home improvement stores, but for Hues and Cues and the paint chip wall, it really worked out! This vibrant game, named for its gameplay, mixes Hues, defined as graduation or a variety of colors, with Cues: a hint or guiding suggestion. Unsurprisingly then, you’re going to be giving Cues so that fellow players can guess the Hues.

Introduction to the Game

Hues and Cues is a vibrant party game that challenges players to make connections between colors and words. This award-winning game is designed to be fun and engaging, perfect for players aged 8 and above. With its unique gameplay mechanics, Hues and Cues is an excellent choice for large groups of players, accommodating up to 10 players. Whether you’re hosting a family game night or a gathering with friends, this game promises to bring much fun and laughter to the table.

What is Hues and Cues Game

Hues and Cues is a game of identifying colors, but not your standard range of primary and secondary colors – instead it’s those and every shade in between. Do you really think you can pick out a specific color when there are so many different shades? This is where you find out. You’ll also find out what your friends think about colors too, so be prepared for an unusual debate over what the color of an Oreo actually is!

In Hues and Cues, a player gives a hint as to the color on their card. The other players must then mark on the multicolored board which color they think is being alluded to. It sounds simple enough, but when you have to guess with only a one-word clue, and then provide a second guess with a two-word clue, it’s much harder than you think. After all, if I were to say “grass”, could you figure out the exact hue of green that I intended? Would saying “summer park” help, or not? 

The game was published by The Op in 2020, and has remained a popular party game since. 

Gameplay Mechanics

In Hues and Cues, players take turns giving clues to help their fellow players guess a specific hue on the game board. The clue-giver earns points if players are able to identify or get close to the square’s location. The game involves a clue-giving mechanism, where one player gives a one-word clue and then a two-word clue to help players guess the color. Players score points based on how close they came to the correct hue with their guesses. This dynamic creates an exciting challenge as players try to interpret the clues and pinpoint the exact color on the board.

Unique Twist

What sets Hues and Cues apart from other party games is its unique twist on colorful communication. Players must use their imagination to connect colors with words, making it a fun and challenging experience. The game’s design encourages players to think creatively and use descriptive vocabulary to help their fellow players guess the correct hue. This aspect of the game not only makes it entertaining but also highlights how everyone imagines colors differently, adding an extra layer of intrigue and enjoyment.

Game Components

The game includes:

• 1 Game Board featuring a large palette of colors

• 98 Color Cards with unique hues

• 30 Player Pieces for up to 10 players

• 1 Rulebook with easy-to-follow instructions

• 1 Scoring Frame to keep track of points

These components come together to create a visually appealing and engaging game that is easy to set up and play. The game board’s extensive range of colors ensures that each round is a new and exciting challenge.

How to Play Hues and Cues

Hues and Cues Players

Hues and Cues is a game for 3-10 people to play, though as it’s a lot of fun, a 2-player version is frequently requested. There’s no official way to play it with just two players, but unofficially, you could play non-competitively just for fun. 

Set Up

How well can you describe a color? You’re about to find out. To play, each player gets three colored player pieces, one of which is used to mark their score, and the other two are used in the game to mark their guesses. 

Hues and Cues gives you a stack of cards that each contain four different colors on them, labelled in the same way as they are on the game board. The clue-giving player will draw a card and select one of the four colors. The game is ready to begin… 

Playing Hues and Cues

With their color chosen, the clue-giving player must provide a single word to guide the other players to the correct color. This process involves connecting colors through the clues given by the players. Perhaps we had a light brown color, so the clue (technically cue, but more commonly referred to as clue when you’re playing) given is “cardboard”. The other players must then put their first token onto the game board, on the square they think is most likely to be the color referred to.

This will be your first chance to see how rarely color selection is universal – many players can get close, but almost always give a range of that color. Indeed, players can’t utilize the same square, so a little variation is subtly encouraged.

After everyone has placed their token, the clue giver can now give a two-word clue. Perhaps in this example, the shade people went for was slightly off, so to replace that, the next clue could be “strong latte”. Players place their second token down in the opposite order, and then scoring begins.

There are some restrictions to clues that can be given. You cannot use a color in your description, but you can be a little more abstract, with something like Lavender. You’re not allowed to hint at the position of the color – which includes things like hinting at the code, or in the second round, saying things like “lighter” or “darker”. You cannot reference an object in the room, and you cannot repeat a hint that’s already been said. Otherwise, it can be anything!

Scoring in Hues and Cues

To score the points in Hues and Cues, you use the scoring frame to figure out who had the more accurate guesses. This is a small cardboard square that covers nine squares, so you place it on the board with the correct answer in the center. If this shows that someone has guessed correctly, they get three points. If they are incorrect, but within the square, they get two points. If they’re outside the square, but touching it, they get one point. Any further, and they get no points at all. These rules apply to both guesses, so it’s a maximum of five points for the player. The clue giver gets one point for every piece within the scoring frame, meaning they can gain a maximum of 9 points. 

Educational Value

Hues and Cues is not only a fun party game, but it also has educational value. The game helps players develop their critical thinking skills, creative vocabulary, and problem-solving abilities. By encouraging players to think outside the box and make connections between colors and words, Hues and Cues is an excellent choice for families and educators looking for a game that is both entertaining and educational. It’s a fantastic way to learn while having fun, making it a perfect addition to any game collection.

Hues and Cues Review

Hues and Cues is a fantastic and eye-catching game, that’s easy enough for people to learn to play, and fun enough for people to come back to. You can play with different groups easily, and there’s nothing within it likely to put players off of playing again and again. Here are our favorite reasons why you should play this game: 

Hues and Cues is for anyone

Family-friendly, and even family encouraged, and thats why it made our list of the best games for eleven year olds.. There’s no real reading required, and players need to only know shades of colors. Whilst particularly young family members may find difficulty in finding the vocabulary to describe nuances, this can actually be a benefit – learning subtlety in language leads to a wider vocabulary, all within a fun game. Games that have an accidentally educational element are often the best teachers. With that though, the rulebook even acknowledges that it could be made easier for younger family members by having them instead pick a color, rather than being constrained to the four on the card, which they should note before the game begins. 

Equally, Hues and Cues works well as a party game. The best party games are quick to explain and have high player counts, and Hues and Cues is both. You can explain it by saying simply “What color would you pick on this board, if I gave you this clue?”, and with one round of scoring, there’s little more you need to understand to play. Plus, it works for 3-10 players. Theoretically, you could increase this with more markers, but as only one marker is allowed to occupy a space, it could lead to more disputes over placements and the order of play. Unless of course you adapted it a little, but more on that next…

Adapting Hues and Cues

The rulebook already offers adaptations for younger players and a variation that lets you pass on providing a second clue. This lays the foundations, but Hues and Cues is so easily adaptable to the way you like to play, that – much like Monopoly! – you can find your own rhythm for how you like to play best for your own ultimate experience. For example, you may find it more fun to continue offering clues, requiring people to move their markers around, until one player finds the correct color – and then score from there. You may prefer to remove the clue rules and let clue givers provide longer clues. Perhaps you’ll let players crowd one spot so that you can exceed the upper player count – nothing is stopping you!

Our favorite variation though, is theming. Hues and Cues lets you use any clues from anything you can think of, but we love setting a theme at the beginning of the game and going from there. It could be anything from sports teams to Disney characters, to animals, to food. So long as the topic covers a wide range of recognizable things, it can offer a really different way to play. After all, what color is Sleeping Beauty’s dress? – and that’s after you’ve decided if it’s pink or blue! For extra difficulty, you could try requiring more abstract terms. What color is math? It’s something you perhaps never thought about, but now you’ll need to assign a color. These are particularly fun when inexplicably, everyone is thinking the same. Math is grey, but why do we all think that (or not)?

There’s an argument to be had that a game that benefits from being altered cannot then be a great game, but we prefer to see it as an inspiring one. The game is fun on its own, but being able to personalize it with our own interests within the core of the game itself is a fantastic opportunity. 

Where to Buy Hues and Cues

Hues and Cues is available from all your favorite game stores, as well as the likes of Target. You can also find Hues and Cues on Amazon, so it’s easy to pick up your own copy!

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