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Hues and Cues

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RRP €28.99
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Hues And Cues is a party game by The Op. This is a game all about different colours – it’s like looking through a range of named paints! It’s a competitive game, where everyone’s playing against one another, trying to score the most points. But you need to help your opponents out sometimes. You’ll give out clever clues and word associations, that help both you and them! Th…
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Category Tags , , SKU ZBG-USOPA135725 Availability 3+ in stock
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Awards

Exceptional Components

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You Might Like

  • Easy and fun
  • Accommodates a large player count
  • Looks impressive on the table
  • Children can easily join in

Might Not Like

  • Need at least 4 for it to be effective
  • It's a party game, nothing more, nothing less
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Description

Hues And Cues is a party game by The Op. This is a game all about different colours – it’s like looking through a range of named paints! It’s a competitive game, where everyone’s playing against one another, trying to score the most points. But you need to help your opponents out sometimes. You’ll give out clever clues and word associations, that help both you and them!

The main board is a massive 30x16 grid of squares, each square being a different colour. It’s akin to looking at a spectrum, with similar shades sitting next to one another. The yellows fade into greens, which fade into cyan and blue, around to purple, and so on. The active player (The Cue-Giver) gets a card with four different colours on it. Each one has its corresponding coordinates, so they can locate them within the grid. The Cue-Giver picks a colour in secret. Then they give a one-word clue (a ‘cue’) to the rest of the players.

For example, if their chosen colour was a light shade of blue, they cannot say “Blue”. Neither can they say a clue regarding direction, such the number of the column it’s in, or the area of the board it resides. Neither can they use a clue word of an object within the room! But they could, in this example, say something like “sky”. Then, in clockwise player order, each player places their pawn onto a single square, onto a colour. Colours are first-come, first served.

The Cue-Giver can then give a second clue (two-words this time). This gives everyone another chance to place a second pawn. (They can opt not to do this, if they think it isn’t beneficial to them!) Then the Cue-Giver places a 3x3 ‘fence’ over the coordinate of their colour. Every pawn inside this fence scores the Cue-Giver 1 point each. Any pawn on the exact square scores that player 3 points. Any pawn elsewhere within the fence scores 2 points. Any pawns on the immediate outside edge of the fence scores 1 point. Then the board resets, and the next player becomes the Cue-Giver…

Can you give out cues in such a way that it helps you score a few points, without dishing out free points galore to your opponents? That’s the trick in Hues And Cues!

Player Count: 3-10 Players
Time: 30 minutes
Age: 8+

Hues and Cues

I love a party game. They are engaging, fun and can be played with ‘non-gamer’ friends and mixed groups. But, by their very nature, they can quickly outstay their welcome if played too often with the same group. The same jokes keep cropping up, the same clues, the same visual charades. A sort of group shorthand develops, which can sap the fun from them. I like to keep the party game section of my shelf well refreshed with enough options to alternate. It’s important to give a favourite a rest before it becomes stale! The latest game to hit the party quadrant of my Kallax is Hues and Cues from The Op.

Hues and Cues cards

Here’s Looking at Hues, Kid

The thing that first drew me to Hues and Cues was its appearance. A vast and glossy board filled with a rainbow-encompassing grid of different shades and tones. A sort of Dulux Paint Chart in board game form (or Farrow and Ball, if you’re more that way inclined). I wasn’t sure whether to play it or start a mood board for a living room  makeover with it.

The other components are also quality for the price bracket. The player markers are brightly coloured wooden cones that match the minimalist, slick, chic design of the boards. The cards are robust enough for how they’re used. The square used to determine points is a clever solution for speeding up scoring. Even the box is chunkier and stronger than most games of its type and cost.

The artistic design of Hues and Cues is almost faultless. My only niggle is the thick black margins surrounding colours on the cards! It creates a visual perception effect that makes them appear slightly different to how they appear on the board. More on this later.

Hues and Cues scoring

Hue You Gonna Call?

As you’d expect from a party game, play is fast and easy. Players take turns to give the titular cues. You draw a card from the deck and choose one of the four options presented and give a one-word cue to the hue.

The clue you give cannot be a primary or ordinary colour word (yellow, blue, red, orange), but it can be a shade (violet, fuchsia, magnolia). It also cannot be an object present in the room you are playing. A rule of thumb is to think it needs to be something that can be misinterpreted or, at least interpreted, differently by the group.

Once the cue is given, players take turns to guess the correct hues with their markers. Once all players have a guessed, another two-word hint is given and players get another opportunity to pinpoint the specific shade. For this second clue, we banned the use of words like light, dark and pale after someone followed the clue ‘poo’ with ‘darker poo’.

Points are scored by guessers for their closeness to the shade and by the clue giver for the number of cones that fall within the scoring square. This latter rule keeps the role of cue-giver honest and removes the temptation for ultra-competitive players to get strategic with bad faith clues. After everyone has had one or two opportunities to give a clue, the game ends and the player with the highest score wins.

Hues and Cues board

Hue, Cue, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb

Hues and Cues is a solid party game: casual enough to allow for conversation above and around it. It’s simple enough for children to be included (we let them pick another card if they couldn’t think of a clue for the four colours on the one they drew). It’s attractive enough to get people interested in the first place. Another bonus is it can accommodate up to 10 people with no down time. I find it best with 4-6 players, Pringles, drinks and Haribos (other brands of snack are available). Thanks to the grid references, it is possible to play socially-distanced with one person managing the board.

There are a couple of drawbacks. The most glaring being that it is obviously not inclusive of people with colour-blindness and other visual impairments. I also mentioned the visual perception effect of the black margins on the cards. This can be remedied with a quick glance at the board, but you must be careful not to give too much away as you look for it.

Hues and Cues: Final Thoughts

Hues and Cues is a solid party game: casual enough to allow for conversation above and around it. Simple enough for children to be included (we let them pick another card if they couldn’t think of a clue for the four colours on the one they drew). Attractive enough to get people interested in the first place. Another bonus is it can accommodate up to 10 people with no down time. I find it best with 4-6 players, Pringles, drinks and Haribos (other brands of snack are available). If that wasn’t enough, thanks to the grid references it is possible to play socially distanced with one person managing the board.

Originally, I thought this game would not work for people with colour-blindness. However, I am reliably informed this is an ignorant assumption on my part as the game is based on colour perception not matching.  Visual perception does present the problem described earlier however, where colours can appear different on the cards with their thick black borders to how they appear on the board. This can be remedied with a quick glance, but you must be careful not to give too much away as you look for it.

I would heartily recommend Hues and Cues. Coming up with clues is hard and it works better when people lean into vague, creative and crazy descriptions and stop worrying about being precise. Only by embracing the wacky and absurd will you finally get the answers to such questions as: What is the colour of a dirty grapefruit? If tiger rage were a colour, which colour would it be? And what exact tinge of green are newborn peas?

As someone who has a lot of friends who are non-gamers, trying to find a game that is light on rules but high on enjoyment is important. Essentially this is the purpose of party games – where the game ticks along at a gathering without consuming it. Hues and Cues sounded right up my street. It’s a game which uses a colour spectrum and players take it in turns to give one and then two-word clues to a certain hue on the board. The closer that players are, the more points they score, which in turn also gives the clue giver points. I won’t go too much into the rules, as you can read Gavin’s original review for that. The bigger question is whether I agree with him or not.

The general feeling I took from the original review is that the game is simple enough for non-gamers to play, easy enough to just tweak the rules slightly for families to enjoy, and it rattles along at a nice pace for the game to not outstay its welcome. I agree with all these points, and also think the component quality is very good. The scoring mechanism does a really good job of keeping the clue giver honest, and scoring is easily worked out with the robust frame.

One of the biggest laughs to come from the games I played was how easy it seems people can misinterpret the clues. For example, when playing a game over Christmas, I gave the clue “Barbie” hoping that everyone would be drawn the pink part of the board. The first placement was my dad, who went around the yellow part, and when asked afterwards, stated he did so because “Barbie is blonde.”

That said, I also think that the criticisms of the original review still stand, with one in particular being a recurring discussion with every play. If I had a penny for every time someone said “it looks different on the card than it does on the board,” I’d probably not have to work again… that may be a slight exaggeration, but the point is necessary. Whilst Gavin said that this could be addressed by a sly glance at the board, this could also give away the location of the square, which feels like the biggest problem.

I’d also argue that a further issue with the game is that everyone has to take two turns at being clue giver. Whilst this might not seem to be an issue for most, some people aren’t so keen on being put on the spot. This reluctance is why some people don’t like playing games – they don’t want to be the person that gives the rubbish clue or says something that’s outside of everyone’s frame of reference.

Final Thoughts

Maybe these things wouldn’t have been so noticeable when I played Hues and Cues with my family, but we’d played Herd Mentality and That’s Not a Hat either side of it. Both absolute laugh riots and honestly, out of the three, I think Hues and Cues would be the least likely to be brought back to the table in the future.

So whilst I think my opinion of Hues and Cues is less glowing than Gavin’s, I don’t think it’s a bad game. I just think that there are much better party games out there.

Zatu Score

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You might like

  • Easy and fun
  • Accommodates a large player count
  • Looks impressive on the table
  • Children can easily join in

Might not like

  • Need at least 4 for it to be effective
  • It's a party game, nothing more, nothing less