How to Play Huedle

Huedle is a daily color puzzle with two modes. This guide covers the rules of both games, exactly how scores are calculated, and practical tips to improve your color perception.

Huedle Gradient rules

Each day a smooth color gradient is generated and cut into a 4×4 grid of 16 tiles, which are then shuffled.
Your job is to restore the gradient: click two tiles to swap them, or drag one tile onto another.
There is no move limit and no time pressure — the timer only records how long you took.
When the blend looks smooth, submit. You get one scored submission per day; the next gradient arrives at midnight UTC.
Practice mode lets you pick a 3×3, 4×4 or 5×5 grid and replay unlimited random gradients without affecting your streak.

Play Huedle Gradient →

Huedle Hex rules

Each day shows one mystery color. You are never shown its hex code or any numbers.
Build guesses with three sliders: hue (the color family, 0–360°), saturation (gray to vivid) and lightness (dark to bright).
After each of up to six guesses you get proximity feedback — green, yellow, orange or white — plus directional hints like “go lighter”.
The game ends when you run out of guesses or hit a near-perfect match. Your score is locked in from your best attempt.
A fresh mystery color is generated at midnight UTC, identical for every player.

Play Huedle Hex →

How Huedle scoring works

Both modes measure color difference with the CIEDE2000 formula — the industry standard for how humans perceive color distance.
Gradient: every tile is compared with its ideal position and the average difference is turned into a 0–100 score. A perfect gradient scores 100.
Hex: each guess is compared with the target color; your final score comes from your closest of six guesses.
A score of 95+ means your eyes beat most people's; 80–95 is strong; anything above 60 is a solid day.
Streaks count consecutive days with a submitted daily puzzle in either mode. Miss a day and the streak resets.

Tips to get better at Huedle

Gradient: find the extremes first. The darkest and lightest tiles almost always sit at opposite corners of the grid.
Gradient: work corner to corner. Fix the four corners using lightness logic, then fill the edges between them.
Gradient: squint. Blurring your vision makes smoothness obvious and misplaced tiles pop out.
Hex: identify the hue family first — is it red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple or magenta? Set hue before touching anything else.
Hex: adjust one slider at a time. Changing saturation and lightness together makes feedback hard to read.
Hex: trust the direction hints. “Go lighter” means raise lightness noticeably, not by one unit — most misses are bigger than they feel.
Train daily. Color perception measurably improves within a week or two of regular play.

Huedle FAQ

Is Huedle the same puzzle for everyone?+

Yes. Puzzles are generated from the UTC date with a deterministic seed, so every player worldwide gets the same Gradient and the same Hex color each day.

Can I play old Huedle puzzles?+

Yes — the archive page lists every past date. Open one to replay that day's puzzle, or use practice mode for unlimited random puzzles.

Does Huedle work on phones?+

Yes. Both games are built for one-handed play on a phone: the grid never overflows, sliders are thumb-sized, and tap-to-swap works everywhere.

Do I need an account to keep my streak?+

No. Your streak, best scores and play counts live in your browser's local storage. Clearing site data resets them, and nothing is ever uploaded.

What are CIEDE2000 and Delta E?+

Delta E (ΔE) quantifies how different two colors look to humans, and CIEDE2000 is the most perceptually accurate formula. Huedle converts your average ΔE into the 0–100 score.

Is Huedle related to Wordle?+

Only in spirit: one puzzle a day, six tries in Hex mode, and a shareable result. There is no wordplay — Huedle is purely about color perception.

Play Huedle Gradient · Play Huedle Hex · Hint · Archive

Huedle Gradient rules

Each day a smooth color gradient is generated and cut into a 4×4 grid of 16 tiles, which are then shuffled.

Your job is to restore the gradient: click two tiles to swap them, or drag one tile onto another.

There is no move limit and no time pressure — the timer only records how long you took.

When the blend looks smooth, submit. You get one scored submission per day; the next gradient arrives at midnight UTC.

Practice mode lets you pick a 3×3, 4×4 or 5×5 grid and replay unlimited random gradients without affecting your streak.

Huedle Hex rules

Each day shows one mystery color. You are never shown its hex code or any numbers.

Build guesses with three sliders: hue (the color family, 0–360°), saturation (gray to vivid) and lightness (dark to bright).

After each of up to six guesses you get proximity feedback — green, yellow, orange or white — plus directional hints like “go lighter”.

The game ends when you run out of guesses or hit a near-perfect match. Your score is locked in from your best attempt.

A fresh mystery color is generated at midnight UTC, identical for every player.

How Huedle scoring works

Both modes measure color difference with the CIEDE2000 formula — the industry standard for how humans perceive color distance.

Gradient: every tile is compared with its ideal position and the average difference is turned into a 0–100 score. A perfect gradient scores 100.

Hex: each guess is compared with the target color; your final score comes from your closest of six guesses.

A score of 95+ means your eyes beat most people's; 80–95 is strong; anything above 60 is a solid day.

Streaks count consecutive days with a submitted daily puzzle in either mode. Miss a day and the streak resets.

Tips to get better at Huedle

Gradient: find the extremes first. The darkest and lightest tiles almost always sit at opposite corners of the grid.

Gradient: work corner to corner. Fix the four corners using lightness logic, then fill the edges between them.

Gradient: squint. Blurring your vision makes smoothness obvious and misplaced tiles pop out.

Hex: identify the hue family first — is it red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple or magenta? Set hue before touching anything else.

Hex: adjust one slider at a time. Changing saturation and lightness together makes feedback hard to read.

Hex: trust the direction hints. “Go lighter” means raise lightness noticeably, not by one unit — most misses are bigger than they feel.

Train daily. Color perception measurably improves within a week or two of regular play.