USAopoly | Hues and Cues | Guessing Board Game | Ages 8+ | 3-10 Players | 30 Minutes Playing Time

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So yes it’s a keeper. It’s just going to be a game that I keep on the game shelves at my office rather than at home. (Yes, I have game shelves at the office…) 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’. What hue do you think of when we say “apple”? Hues and Cues is a vibrant game of colorful communication where players are challenged to make connections to colors with words. Using only one and two-word cues, players try to get others to guess a specific hue from the 480 colors on the game board. The closer the guesses are to the target, the more points you earn. Since everyone imagines colors differently, connecting colors and clues has never been this much fun! In fact, when playing with that group we don’t stop with just being the cue-giver twice. We just keep going until our lunch break is over. When we first opened the game, read the rules, and sat down to play, we thought it sounded super simple.

Hues and Cues - Firestorm Games Hues and Cues - Firestorm Games

Hues and Cues does what it sets out to do, really well. It’s a lightweight, original, fun game for a group. It has universal appeal and pretty much anyone can enjoy it. I’m not sure how well it works for colour-blind people though, having said that. It’s a good game to add to a shelf of party-type games, like Wavelength, Codenames, The Resistance, Telestrations, and Balderdash. Social experiences. Use examples from everyday life, from nature to pop culture, or materials and moods. Everyone around the table gets a turn to give cues and guess. The better your hints or guesses, the more points you earn. Play off others' experiences to narrow down what they have in mind! Our “let’s play again” game meter gets mixed results with Hues and Cues. Mom has been more on the side of “this is way to hard to come up with cues” whereas those at work are in the camp of “wish we could play it every day”. Holidays, as I understand it, are coming. As I write this, Christmas is barrelling down on us like a festive red-and-white juggernaut, and it’s the time of year when families reach for games. If your experience of games at gatherings can be summed-up with Charades and Pictionary, you might be pleased to know that there are loads more to choose from. I’ve been playing Hues and Cues, from The Op, another game looking to help you make merry when the hordes descend on your house for a gathering. Panettone or Pantone? But then I drew my first card, chose a color I thought would work well, and then looked at the board and my mind went haywire.

How does Hues and Cues score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

We have yet to play with players who are colorblind, so we don’t know what they’ll think of the game. But we could only imagine it would be tough.

Philips Hue UK Smart lighting | Philips Hue UK

The other players score points depending on where their cones are in relation to the scoring frame. Guessing the exact square is worth 3 points. Each cone within the frame but not in the exact center scores 2 points. And each cone adjacent to the frame on the outside scores 1 point.

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… 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! Hopefully our experience with the game, and this review, will help you judge if Hues and Cues might be a game your family and friends would enjoy playing.

Hues and Cues – Hampton Hobbies and Games

We really like that the scoring frame has numbers printed on the edges so you can easily remember how many points you get for being inside vs adjacent outside the walls. True, there are bunches of colours on the board which are almost indistinguishable from one another, but nuance is the secret sauce that makes Hues and Cues so tasty. It’s the difference between Dairy Milk and aubergine. It’s grass versus lime versus aircraft primer. On a player’s turn, they draw a color card and choose 1 of the 4 colors to be their target color. The location/coordinates of the color on the board is also listed below it on the card. Let’s go with the green. Now I have to come up with a cue. Most of our game plays have been with 4 or 5 players. But the game has enough color cones for 10 players to join in. And once we get past this COVID era, we’ll give it a shot with 10. Plenty of color cards.Because then I had a chance to give another cue — up to two words to help zero them in on the right space. It could be as simple as saying “cut open”, “pre-cut”, “guacamole”, or changing it up and going a different route like “Douglas fir”. Oh, so close! The hilarity that ensues from some peoples’ clue-giving is contagious, and enough to draw anyone to the table. You don’t really know your friends and family until you know what colour they think ‘mint’ is. I played a game with a group, and the first clue given was ‘sandy’. Five plastic cones took centre stage, occupying the beige-y colours near the middle of the board. He looked horrified, thought hard, and said ‘mossy sand’ as his second clue. Maybe it was because we’d had a couple of drinks by this point, but a couple of people were crying laughing as he tried to explain why sandy had a greenish hue in his mind. 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.