'Limbo'-like 'Hue' takes puzzle platformers into colorful new environments

The puzzle platformer has certainly seen a resurgence in the last decade, with games like Limbo and last month’s Inside providing atmospheric, immersive experiences in worlds with little to no physical depth. But many of these games, particularly those telling more somber tales, use a dark, almost nihilistic visual design. If you’re looking for something with a bit more pizzazz, Fiddlesticks’ Hue has you covered.

Hue, which began development in 2014, features a narrative similar to Playdead’s Limbo. As a young boy named Hue, you must explore a deadly and dark world while searching for your lost mother. It has all the hallmarks of a Playdead game — crates to move, levers to pull, doors to unlock, and deadly traps to avoid, but Hue adds in another wrinkle that drastically alters its gameplay: color. By swapping out colors for certain blocks and items in the game’s world, you can solve puzzles and traverse obstacles that would otherwise stop you in your tracks.

“On your adventure, the colored fragments you find will appear on a mysterious wheel,” says creative director Henry Hoffman on the PlayStation Blog. “Then, when obstacles match the background, they disappear.”

This ability can move blocks out of Hue’s way, allowing him to drop to the ledge below, or avoid a grisly death by way of the game’s many hazards. “Colored slime” can cause the world to change around you before you have a chance to stop it; a red stream of slime, for instance, appears to turn deadly when it touches anything but a red block.

Fiddlesticks has also taken an effort, like Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 4, to make the game more accessible for disabled players. With its major focus on colors, it would appear that colorblind players would be out of luck, but a symbol-based system, with a unique design corresponding to each color, looks like it will address this issue.

Hue does not yet have a release date, but it will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, and PC. Check out the game’s latest trailer above.