Close Hue
Read a colour's name, then dial in the colour you think it is.
Every day: Five colour names a day, the same for every player worldwide; you pick each colour on a slider and score up to 100 per round, 500 in all. New puzzle: Midnight Eastern Time (US East Coast, following daylight saving).
Close Hue is a daily colour guessing game. You get five colour names, from Goldenrod to Coquelicot, and set hue, saturation and brightness sliders to the colour you think each one means. Every guess scores 0 to 100 by how close it looks to the real colour.
About Close Hue
Close Hue asks a simple question: what does mauve actually look like? Each day it shows you five colour names, the same five for every player in the world, and you guess each colour with a picker. Some names are familiar, like Goldenrod or Chartreuse; others are obscure, like Coquelicot, Falu Red or Xanadu. The pool holds more than 6,000 names, gathered from a hand-made list, Wikipedia's list of colours, an open colour-name collection and the xkcd colour survey.
The picker uses three sliders, hue, saturation and brightness, rather than red, green and blue, which suits the way colour names describe things: a hue family, how vivid, how dark. There is no timer; only your final guess counts. When you submit, the real colour appears beside yours and you get a score. The site measures the gap with CIEDE2000, a standard formula for how different two colours look to the eye, and turns it into 0 to 100, so a near miss in a colour family still earns most of the points.
Five rounds make a daily total out of 500, and a whole game takes about three minutes. You can share a grid of coloured bands that does not give the colours away. Beyond the daily game there is an unlimited mode with random colours and a multiplayer mode where friends join a room with a six-letter code. Stats and streaks are kept on your device, and no account is needed.
How to play Close Hue
- Open Close Hue and read the first colour name.
- Use the hue, saturation and brightness sliders to set the colour you think it is.
- Submit your guess to see the real colour beside yours and your score out of 100.
- Play all five rounds for a daily total out of 500.
- Share the emoji grid of your score bands, which keeps the colours secret.
Tips
- Set the hue first, then decide how vivid and how dark the name sounds.
- Words like muted, pale, dark and neon map straight onto the saturation and brightness sliders.
- Take your time: there is no penalty for adjusting before you submit.
- Use unlimited mode to learn unfamiliar names, since the daily pool includes obscure ones.
Questions
When does the daily Close Hue reset?
At midnight Eastern Time, following US daylight saving. Everyone gets the same five colours for the same Eastern date.
How is a guess scored?
By the CIEDE2000 colour difference between your guess and the target, turned into a score from 0 to 100. A perfect match scores 100.
Do I need an account?
No. The game runs in your browser and keeps your stats and streaks on your device.
Can I play with friends?
Yes. Multiplayer mode gives you a six-character room code; everyone in the room gets the same five colours.
Is there more than one game a day?
The daily game is five colours, but unlimited mode lets you keep playing random colours without affecting your streak.
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