But that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun game to play. The real question is will your family and friends enjoy playing it? 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.

Hues and Cues Board Game Review - The Board Game Family Hues and Cues Board Game Review - The Board Game Family

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. 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. 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… 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! 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…)

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

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. 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. They started placing their first cones and the questions immediately arose — the green of an avocado on the outside or on the inside once you cut it open?

Hues and Cues | Board Games | Zatu Games UK Hues and Cues | Board Games | Zatu Games UK

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”. 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’. I thought I had a great word cue to give for the green color I chose. But when I found it on the board and saw the huge variety of hues around it, my mind started scrambling for how my cue would be interpreted. Would it be descriptive enough? 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.

Can the whole family enjoy Hues and Cues?

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. 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! 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.