Hue

Fiddlesticks' Hue is a beautiful puzzle-platformer that questions reality and perception. While often a little too easy, it's still a clever and rewarding trip.

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"Hue" is a single-player platformer game with a unique color-matching mechanic, where you change the world's background color to reveal obstacles and solve puzzles. The game features a compelling story about love, loss, and existence, with lively characters, stark silhouetted art, and over 30 original music tracks. With full colorblind support and LED device integration, "Hue" offers a vibrant and atmospheric experience for players.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

Reviews

86%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,375 reviews

story220 positive mentions

grinding30 negative mentions

The color-changing mechanic is innovative and adds depth to the puzzle-solving experience.
The visuals are stunning, with a beautiful art style that enhances the gameplay.
The soundtrack is calming and complements the game's atmosphere, making it a relaxing experience.

The game can feel repetitive, especially with backtracking required to collect hidden items.
Some puzzles can become frustratingly difficult, particularly towards the end of the game.
The story is underdeveloped and doesn't add much to the overall experience.

story
521 mentions
42 % positive mentions
53 % neutral mentions
5 % negative mentions
The story of "Hue" revolves around a boy searching for his mother, exploring themes of abandonment and the significance of color. While some players found the narrative charming and thought-provoking, others criticized it as simplistic or disjointed, often feeling secondary to the gameplay. Overall, the voice acting and artistic presentation received praise, but many felt the story lacked depth and coherence, making it less engaging than the puzzle mechanics.
- “Hue is a great puzzle-solving game where you use the perspective of color to gain an advantage in the surrounding world as you untwist the complex story of your mother and her experiments.”
- “The story of 'Hue' is beautifully crafted, unfolding in a way that's both compelling and emotionally resonant.”
- “This game is not just a play; it's an experience, a fusion of stunning storytelling and auditory delight.”
- “I am beyond disappointed with the infuriating story ending; it makes zero sense and shatters all the bond with the main characters.”
- “You can't play this game for the story because there really isn't anything there.”
- “Honestly, my one complaint is that during the voice-over story bits, instead of leaving you idle or doing them over actual puzzles, you traverse through a long maze of ladders, stairs, or jumps with no point except to keep you busy and to listen to the story.”
gameplay
438 mentions
42 % positive mentions
57 % neutral mentions
1 % negative mentions
The gameplay in "Hue" is centered around a unique color-changing mechanic that allows players to manipulate the environment by making objects of specific colors disappear, creating engaging and often challenging puzzles. While many players appreciate the intuitive controls and beautiful visuals, some find the gameplay can become repetitive and lacks depth as it progresses, with a few noting that the difficulty curve could be better balanced. Overall, the game is praised for its creative mechanics and charming aesthetic, making it a satisfying experience for puzzle enthusiasts.
- “The gameplay is excellent, centered around dynamic color-changing mechanics to solve puzzles in each level.”
- “All of the puzzle mechanics are intuitive and interesting, and the puzzles themselves are great fun to figure out.”
- “The color manipulation mechanic is highly original and clever in its own right, but it's elevated by great level design, skillful storytelling, and visual design that all serve to amplify the mechanic.”
- “Due to the mechanics, colors can change a bit too freely, without any confirmation from the user's side.”
- “Passable mechanics, but repetitive puzzles leave much to be desired.”
- “Very interesting concept with nice graphic style and gameplay, but it's boring; the story is plain, the music is monotonous, and pacing is too slow.”
music
395 mentions
68 % positive mentions
31 % neutral mentions
1 % negative mentions
The music in "Hue" is widely praised for its calming and beautiful piano compositions, which enhance the game's atmosphere and emotional depth. While many players find the soundtrack to be a standout feature, some note that it can become repetitive over time. Overall, the music is considered a significant complement to the game's visuals and narrative, contributing to a relaxing and immersive experience.
- “The soundtrack is a masterful blend of melodies that perfectly complements the game's aesthetic.”
- “The music is beautiful and adds a lot of atmosphere.”
- “An absolutely delightful game with great music, intriguing puzzles, and a beautiful visual dynamic between the monochromatic world and colorful objects you can directly interact with and control with your color wheel.”
- “The music wasn't special most of the time, but the first half of the fourth area of the game had banger music; however, that's a small part of the game, so I don't think that matters much.”
- “Very interesting concept with nice graphic style and gameplay, but it's boring; the story is plain, the music is monotonous, and pacing is too slow.”
- “I get there's supposed to be some tone set with this, but do I really need to solve challenging puzzles to somber piano music or just small drum beats?”
graphics
238 mentions
62 % positive mentions
37 % neutral mentions
1 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their stunning visuals, charming art style, and innovative use of color, which enhance the overall gameplay experience. Reviewers highlight the minimalist yet beautiful design, smooth animations, and a captivating soundtrack that complements the aesthetic. While some mention the simplicity of the graphics, they agree that the artistic execution and attention to detail create an engaging and visually appealing environment.
- “The visuals are stunning, with perfect collisions and interesting details in every room.”
- “The colour aspect is really innovative and the artwork is great!”
- “I really enjoyed it, the graphics look stunning, the puzzles are moderately mind-boggling which is exactly what puzzle games should be like, and the game controls well.”
- “From a graphical standpoint, the game relies too much on minimalism to hide the lack of thought and effort that went into the game.”
- “I don't understand why the developers would limit themselves to puzzles that remain the worst aspect of other puzzle games such as Professor Layton, but without any ounce of charm, endearment, be it through visuals or music.”
- “Normally, I'm not too hard on art style choice or graphics, but when the gameplay is irritating and dull, it makes me wish I was playing a Professor Layton game instead.”
emotional
46 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the game is highlighted by its touching narrative centered around a boy searching for his lost mother, complemented by beautiful visuals and a compelling soundtrack that enhances the overall atmosphere. While many players found the story heartwarming and impactful, some criticized it for being overly simplistic or pretentious at times. Overall, the game successfully evokes a range of emotions, from heartbreak to warmth, making it a memorable experience for those who connect with its themes.
- “The story of 'hue' is beautifully crafted, unfolding in a way that's both compelling and emotionally resonant.”
- “This game also accomplished something that most games couldn't: it genuinely made me cry at the end.”
- “Everything about it is perfect: the visuals, the soundtrack, the challenging (but not too hard) puzzles, and even the touching background story.”
atmosphere
34 mentions
71 % positive mentions
21 % neutral mentions
9 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its calming and beautiful soundtrack, which enhances the emotional depth of the story and gameplay. Players appreciate the gorgeous visuals and tranquil ambiance, creating an immersive experience that complements the creative puzzles. Overall, the combination of artistic design, atmospheric music, and engaging storytelling contributes to a captivating and mysterious environment that draws players in.
- “The colors are gorgeous and the music was calming and beautiful and really fit the atmosphere of the game.”
- “Although the puzzles are not that hard to solve, doing so always felt very rewarding as the game is very well executed: great visuals, good atmospheric music and a very responsive avatar.”
- “It's atmosphere just sucks you in and has really fun and creative puzzles.”
- “It's very artistic with a really mysterious atmosphere.”
- “While being a puzzle game, that at times can be, well, puzzling, it has very calming music, and a tranquil atmosphere.”
grinding
32 mentions
0 % positive mentions
6 % neutral mentions
94 % negative mentions
The grinding aspect of the game is widely criticized for being excessively tedious, with many players expressing frustration over the need to backtrack for collectibles and redo puzzles. While some puzzles are initially enjoyable, the repetitive nature and long stretches of walking detract from the overall experience, making the game feel arduous and undermining its potential fun. Players recommend following guides to minimize the grind, especially for achievement hunters.
- “I don't like how pointless the collectibles felt, and how some of them were obvious but needed you to backtrack tediously later for no good reason.”
- “The only real problem for me is the collectibles: many of them were really fun and satisfying to figure out on the first go around, but it's extremely tedious to redo entire sections, puzzles you've already done, and long stretches of nothing but walking, just to go back for the ones you missed.”
- “However, I don't think I've ever played a game that so undermined its own concept to the point where the puzzles are both tedious and mind-numbingly easy.”
replayability
6 mentions
0 % positive mentions
50 % neutral mentions
50 % negative mentions
The game offers limited replayability, primarily tied to its story and the same puzzles, with players noting that the gameplay lasts around six hours. While the puzzles are challenging, the need to replay sections of the map to access new content feels forced and detracts from the overall experience.
- “Pretty challenging puzzles, but only roughly 6 hours worth of gameplay with zero replayability.”
- “I'm not sure; I didn't invest the time because you need to replay entire sections of the map after you've unlocked a new color to get some of them in a crappy attempt at adding replayability.”
- “Replay value only for the story and the same puzzles.”
optimization
4 mentions
50 % positive mentions
-25 % neutral mentions
75 % negative mentions
Overall, users report that while there may be initial startup issues, the game's performance stabilizes afterward, running smoothly on mid-range hardware configurations.
- “Once it finally started, there weren't really any other issues performance-wise.”
- “[h1] Graphics/Performance: (with a 970, 4790k, 16GB of RAM, SSD) [/h1]”
- “The optimization is lacking, as I experienced significant frame drops even with a high-end setup.”
- “The game struggles to maintain a stable frame rate, making it difficult to enjoy the experience.”
- “Despite having a powerful rig, the performance issues are frustrating and detract from the overall gameplay.”
humor
4 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is characterized by a lighthearted, British comedic style, with players finding early puzzles amusingly simplistic and reminiscent of typical platformer mechanics. This blend of humor and trivial challenges adds a playful tone to the gameplay experience.
- “Early puzzles, when you don't have many colors, are often hilariously trivial and play like the same switch-based platform puzzles you see in any platformer.”
character development
1 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
Character development is highlighted through unique gameplay mechanics that enhance player engagement, alongside challenging yet rewarding puzzles that contribute to character growth. The aesthetic appeal, from character design to level design, further enriches the overall experience, making the characters feel more immersive and well-crafted.