Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Daily Hue?

The Daily Hue is a free daily browser game about art and color. Each day features a real artwork from a museum or public collection. You guess one hidden color using hue, saturation, and lightness sliders, in up to five tries. When you finish, you unlock a gallery of other artworks that share that same color.

How do you play?

Move the three sliders to match the hidden color in the featured artwork. After each guess, arrows show which way to go: warmer or cooler for hue, more vivid or muted for saturation, lighter or darker for lightness. Match the color to unlock today's color gallery, or use all five guesses to see the answer and explore related art.

What is the goal of each daily puzzle?

Each day we pick one real artwork and hide one color from it. Match that color with the three sliders: hue (what color it is), saturation (how vivid or gray it looks), and lightness (how light or dark it is).

You get five guesses. Hit it exactly and you're done. Use all five and we show you the answer. Either way, you unlock today's color gallery.

How do the three color sliders work?

Hue is the color itself: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and everything in between. Saturation is how washed-out vs punchy it looks. Lightness is how close it is to white or black.

Move the sliders, submit a guess, and compare your swatch to the artwork.

How do I read the arrows after a wrong guess?

After a miss, arrows show up on the sliders. They tell you which way to go: warmer or cooler, more or less saturated, lighter or darker.

Don't lock one slider and only move the others. A better second guess usually moves all three a bit. If the hue looks close but the color still looks gray, try saturation before taking a huge hue jump.

How should I look at the artwork while guessing?

The hidden color is always in the artwork, not the page background. Start with a big area: a sky, a dress, a wall. Some days it's a tiny detail instead.

Tap or click the artwork to zoom. Credit for the museum or collection is on every piece.

What happens when I finish today's puzzle?

When you match the color (or use all five guesses), you get a gallery of other artworks in a similar color. You can share your result grid without spoiling the exact color.

Make a free account if you want streaks, leaderboard scores, and favorites saved. You can still play every day without signing in.

Why does The Daily Hue use HSL?

Hue, saturation, and lightness are the three things you're already asking when you look at a color: what color is it, how strong is it, and how light or dark is it?

Guessing a hex code would be miserable. The sliders match the questions you can actually ask while looking at the painting.

What is hue?

Hue is where you are on the color wheel: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. If your guess looks too warm or too cool compared to the art, move hue first, then fine-tune the other two.

What is saturation?

Saturation is how gray vs how vivid the color is. Low saturation looks dusty or faded. High saturation looks bright and punchy.

If the hue feels right but the match still fails, saturation is usually the problem.

What is lightness?

Lightness is how close the color is to white or black. Two colors can be the same hue and still look totally different if one is a highlight and one is a shadow.

If your guess is the right color but too dark or too bright, move lightness.

What's a good way to use your five guesses?

First guess: go for the biggest obvious color in the picture. Second guess: follow all three arrows, not just one slider.

Then zoom in and ask if you're off on hue, how vivid it is, or how light/dark it is. Last two guesses: smaller moves.

Using all five guesses is fine. You still see the answer and unlock the gallery. Streaks count as long as you finish the daily, not only if you nail it on guess one.

Is The Daily Hue free?

Yes. The Daily Hue is free to play in your browser on phones, tablets, and desktops. You can play as a guest or create a free account to save streaks, favorites, leaderboard scores, and collection progress.

Do I need an account to play?

No. You can play today's puzzle without signing in. An account lets you save streaks, favorites, leaderboard scores, and collection features. Past-day archive play requires sign-in so scores stay tied to your profile.

How is this different from Wordle?

Wordle is a word puzzle built around five-letter guesses. The Daily Hue is a color-and-art puzzle: you match a hue from a real artwork using sliders, not letters. Each day highlights a painting, sculpture, ceramic, or other medium from a museum collection, and finishing the puzzle unlocks a gallery of related artworks in that color.

What museums and artworks does The Daily Hue use?

Puzzles feature real artworks from museum and open collections, including sources such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Art, Rijksmuseum, and Smithsonian, along with artist-submitted works. Attribution and museum credit appear with each piece.

What is the color gallery after I finish?

When you match the hidden color or use all five guesses, The Daily Hue unlocks a gallery of other artworks that share a similar hue to today's answer. Browse pieces, open details, and save favorites if you are signed in.

What are Collections?

Collections are themed sets of artworks on The Daily Hue. Curated collections group pieces by theme, for example a movement, medium, mood, or artist. Monthly collections let you replay every daily puzzle from a calendar month.

Open Collections from the main menu to browse. Open a collection to read about the set and play each artwork as its own color-matching challenge, similar to the daily puzzle.

Playing today's daily puzzle is always free. Replaying past days or playing through a collection uses keys when you are signed in.

How do silver keys and gold keys work?

Signed-in players use keys to unlock past daily puzzles and artworks in Collections.

Silver keys are your normal pool. Accounts created before August 12, 2026 can store up to 20 silver keys; newer accounts can store up to 10. +1 recharges every 48 hours while silver storage is not full.

Gold keys (from ads, shop purchases, gifts, and promotions) have no storage cap once claimed. Claim them from News when they arrive. Gold keys are spent first.

Gifted keys (site gifts, promotions, leaderboard rewards in News) expire after 14 days if you do not claim them, so check News at least every two weeks. Shop purchase keys never expire.

Daily leaderboard rewards grant silver keys (normal pool), not gold.

When your silver storage is full, silver recharge pauses until you play some off.

Playing today's daily puzzle does not reduce this balance.

Want unlimited access? Become a Curator.

We also give out gold keys for:

• Shop print purchases and promotions
• Site-wide milestones (e.g. 100,000 total games played)
• Helping us identify bugs or suggesting new features via the Feedback tab (when you choose not to be anonymous)
• Watching short ads on the Collections page (when available)

What happens when I run out of keys?

Today's daily puzzle is always free. It never uses your key balance.

Silver keys recharge +1 every 48 hours until your silver storage is full (20 for older accounts, 10 for accounts created on or after August 12, 2026). Gold keys are spent first whenever you play a collection challenge or archive day.

You can also earn gold keys from shop purchases, gifts, and (when available) by watching ads on the Collections page.

Curator members have unlimited play.

Can I watch ads for gold keys?

Signed-in players may see an option on the Collections page to watch a short ad in exchange for one gold key, up to 3 times per day. Ad rewards add gold keys to your wallet and are spent before silver keys.

Advertising may use cookies and requires your consent where required. You can manage ad preferences from the site footer.

Curator members do not need ad rewards for play.

Do I need an account to use Collections?

You can browse Collections without signing in. To play past daily puzzles or collection artworks, and to save your progress, scores, and completion counts, you need a free account.

Guests can always play today's daily puzzle without signing in.

How do streaks and the leaderboard work?

If you create an account, The Daily Hue tracks your daily play streak when you finish today's puzzle. The daily leaderboard ranks signed-in players by best score, then fewest guesses, then fastest completion time, then who finished first if times tie. Guests may see a preview of where they would rank but are not shown publicly. The all-time board also requires sign-in (and opt-in). You do not need an account to play.

Is there an app?

The Daily Hue is a website optimized for phones and desktops. No app store download required. Add thedailyhue.com to your home screen on iOS or Android for quick access and play in your browser.

Who made The Daily Hue?

The Daily Hue is built by a small team focused on human-made art and everyday play. Read more on the About page or contact cade@thedailyhue.com.

What are badges?

Badges are rewards you earn through gameplay. They celebrate specific achievements, like a fast win, a sharp first guess, or playing your hundredth game, and let you show a little personality on the leaderboard.

Who can earn badges?

Anyone with a free Daily Hue account can earn and collect badges. You do not need Curator membership to unlock most badges. Sign in so your progress is saved across phones, tablets, and computers.

How do I earn badges?

Badges unlock automatically from your play history. Examples: Sharp Eye (win five games on your first guess), Play 100 games (complete 100 daily puzzles), Be a Curator (join Curator membership). Tap any badge in Settings to see how to earn it. Coming-soon badges appear in a separate row below the ones you can earn today.

Where do I view my badges?

Open Settings & Preferences (from the menu when you are signed in). Your badge collection appears near the top of the page. Locked badges stay visible so you can see what to work toward; unlocked badges are full color.

How do I choose which badges show on the leaderboard?

In Settings, drag unlocked badges into the Left, Center, or Right slots, or tap a badge to add or remove it. You can display up to three badges next to your name on the daily and all-time leaderboards. Only badges you have earned can be shown.

Why haven't I unlocked a badge yet?

Each badge has a specific requirement. Hover or tap a locked badge in Settings to read the unlock hint. Stats count completed daily games tied to your account. If you played as a guest before signing up, those rounds may not count. Some badges that are not released yet cannot be earned until they launch.

Do badges apply to past games I already played?

Yes, for most badges. When we check your account, we look at your saved game history, so a long-time player may unlock 100 Games or Sharp Eye as soon as badges appear, without replaying old puzzles. Future badges may only count activity after they are introduced; we will say so when that applies.

Can I earn the same badge more than once?

No. Each badge is a one-time achievement on your profile. You can still repeat the feat in gameplay (for example, many first-guess wins), but the badge itself unlocks once.

Will I lose my badges if I switch devices?

No, as long as you stay signed in to the same account. Badges and your chosen leaderboard display slots are stored with your profile, not on a single device.