After some time, one comes to understand the makeup of 2d puzzle platformers. First, you need a gimmick. Then add blocks to push, hazards like lasers and spikes, and a few level mechanics that work with the gimmick. Finally, finish things off with a minimal art style and a vague, slightly pretentious, and possibly heartwarming story to link the abstract together.
Hue does not break any ground here.
The gimmick is color switching. By switching the background color to purple, any purple objects on the screen disappear and stop affecting the world. It’s a good gimmick, and leads to some tricky puzzles near the end of the game.
As the game progresses, more colors unlock. Yet after about four colors, the unlocks cease to add any complexity to the puzzles. There are only so many colors the player can interact with at once. So the game starts adding other mechanics to spice things up, and for the most part, keeps things fresh. I will say I feel like the game was a little longer than it needed to be.
There are several puzzles in the game that force the player to switch colors midair or during a tense platforming moment. These moments are neat, but they do pollute the puzzle-solving experience. There were puzzles I almost solved by putting myself in a tense situation and changing colors mid-leap… when those puzzles had an ordinary solution that didn’t require near-impossible moves. I had been conditioned to expect both types of movement, though.
There is not much else to say. I was surprised by how much mileage Hue’s gimmick provided. Near the end of the game, the difficulty just about overcame me (and there were also some puzzles with frustrating soft-locks). If a 2d puzzle platformer sounds like any kind of good time, and the tense platforming is not a dealbreaker, Hue is probably for you.
Verdict: Beat the game, but only found 4 of the extra doodad collectibles.
Kyle Adams 