Hue (video game)

Hue is a 2016 puzzle-platform game designed by Henry Hoffman and Dan Da Rocha, developed by Fiddlesticks, and published by Curve Digital. The plot revolves around the protagonist, Hue, searching for his mother who turned into an 'impossible colour' due to the fracturing of the Annular Spectrum, a ring that she developed to allow perception and alteration of colour. During this journey, the player searches through a black-and-white world, collecting shards of the Annular Spectrum, which will allow the player to make obstacles disappear by switching to the corresponding colour on the colour wheel. This in turn reveals new pathways and puzzles.

Dialogue

Hue's Mother

• Dearest Hue, Oh, I've had the most dreadful luck. I feel terrible that you've been left alone all this time. The traitorous Dr. Grey tried to steal the Annular Spectrum – a ring I developed to allow perception and alteration of colour. Some call them impossible colours. Hah! Impossible for Dr. Grey, maybe. Anyway, something went wrong. I turned a strange shade and became invisible. The ring... it fractured, scattering coloured shards far and wide. I stayed at home for many weeks, watching, waiting. Existing on this coloured plane, I couldn't speak to you, nor interact with anything in the mono-world. So I left. I left for the University where I hid away the coloured tools I created. I pray you have found what is left of the ring.

• Since the beginning, we have pointed to the sky and declared it blue. It is this shared vision, this unquestioned understanding which connects us. But are you really seeing blue the same way I see it? Perhaps blue is nothing more than a shade of grey to you. Perhaps everyone in this world sees nothing but shades of grey. Don't you see, Hue? This... this is why we're here.

• When you enter a cave expecting a waterfall, the chances are your expectations will be met. But if you discard those expectations, don't you think instead, the cave will be full of surprises? I ask for you, Hue, to abandon your expectations. To pull me back from the brink of unreality... I need you to see the world not for what it is... but for what it can be.

• Did you know, Hue, that purple is at the very end of the visible spectrum? It's the hardest colour for our eyes to distinguish. Now... imagine a shade one step further than purple... A colour beyond what we can actually perceive. We call these impossible colours... and I fear that this... this is where I currently reside. If reality is rooted in our perception and you cannot perceive me, do I even exist to you? I'm sure that I do, I mean, you're reading this letter, or at least... I hope you are. I'm sorry, but... existing in this strange state of impermanence does funny things to you, Hue. It makes you question... what is real?

• The University gardens were bathed in an earthy, orange light when I first met Dr. Grey. Summer had come and gone, and a cold autumnal crispness had caught me off guard. I sat on the grass, surrounded by my books and papers, when a cool breeze threatened to blow my notes across the lawn. A page escaped my reach and took flight. A man not much older than myself chased after it, catching it on his third or fourth attempt. I remember his gentle smile when he returned it. He started talking and I was surprised that he had read my work in the University journal. He said he was a professor, and that... he hoped we could work together someday. It's funny, Hue... how something so small... can change so much.

• Dr. Grey soon became my assigned mentor and... I can't help but feel he somehow had a hand in it. Our fires burnt brightest when we worked together. It felt like we could achieve anything. We discovered more about colour than I could ever have imagined. We split light, mapped spectrums, we painted, we laughed... we worked long hours, and soon our goal became all-consuming. We were vessels. The work became more important than us, and we knew it.

• It's funny, I don't remember that much after that day on the grass. I do know that Dr. Grey and I spent many a time together. I would compliment him on his work, and his cheeks would flush with a pinkness, hah! He'd notice and change the subject, embarrassed. This work we were doing together, it... it didn't feel much like work any more.

• Did you know, Hue, that every language first has a word for black and for white, for dark and for light? The first colour described afterwards is always... red. The colour of blood and wine. The colour of anger. The anger I felt... when I was told my experiments had gone too far. When Dr. Grey sided with the University, stopping my research altogether. For all our languages, for all our ways to communicate, it's funny how sometimes we simply cannot. It leads people to do things they regret. To steal, to break, to forget what is important.

• Once a seed has taken root, it doesn't take long for it to grow, to nurture and blossom into something beautiful. The seed of knowledge was planted in my mind, and I wasn't prepared to let it wilt and die. The University claimed my experiments were unethical. That altering the fabric of our reality was dangerous. They were unflinching. My research was confiscated and my contract terminated. Following my expulsion, I was left with no choice but to uproot, and move us both far away. I knew of a small fishing village, a boat ride from the University, where I hoped my reputation wouldn't precede me. You and I moved into a humble home, which is now where you've spent most of your childhood.

• Do you recall those dusty old tomes that used to sit on my desk? The ancient scriptures, of civilisations lost? I spent hours poring over them, searching for clues to support my research. Aside from their wonders, one thing stood out above all else... blue. Or more specifically, the absence of it. Other colours were detailed at length; but not blue, it was never mentioned at all. The word simply didn't exist. Could they not distinguish blue? Without a word to describe it, how can we be sure they could see it at all?

• Spring was around the corner. Yellow daffodils poked through the dirt in our backyard. As time moved, my resentment slowly slipped away. I continued my research from home. Without Dr. Grey, work was slow, but I still made progress. One day, Hue, when you were sleeping... I watched over you. I was on the cusp of a breakthrough, and you were last person left to see it. I was so excited... for the both of us.

• My research led me to tales of a long lost civilisation. They built great machines... pioneering electricity many years before we discovered it. Strangely though, this civilisation is said to have felt no pain. They knew of pain, and observed it, yet could not experience it themselves. Explaining to them the sensation of pain, is like me explaining colour... to someone that can only see in black and white. I wonder, Hue, if we will be able to share in our experiences of colour.

• The first time I wore the ring... I could see a coloured image of the sun. Aqua, purple, orange, pink, red, blue, yellow and green. Great fireworks played out across the backdrop to my reality. Was I dreaming? Was I alive? My senses, dulled from a lifetime of monotone, struggled with the revelation. Time eased. Colours danced in slow motion... like, like Pollock painting a ballet on the moon. I removed the ring and time slipped back to normal. Colour dissolved into grey. It was overwhelming, but what followed affected me the most. After seeing in colour for the first time, when everything returned to normal, I could remember in colour. I had never before had a coloured memory.

• The more I experienced, the more I realised how little I was experiencing. Seeing the world in true colour, was not true at all. The goalposts had just been moved little further down an infinite playing field. These shades... they are a paradigm away from what I could ever imagine, and yet, how much more there must be! Is there ever such a thing as true reality, Hue? Does truth exist in our minds, the same way that colour does? Maybe next I'll stumble upon a third-dimension. Hah! Could you imagine?!

• If a tree stands in these woods, and nobody is there to see it, does that tree exist? Does it have colour or form? Does it matter? This journey has been difficult, Hue, and whilst I have trodden a lost, winding path...I feel no closer to the truth I was after. No matter how long you chase the moon... If truth does exist in our minds, then I feel there may be one that I have neglected. All this time, you've been alone, and now uprooted, on a journey for my cause. For what? So I could see the world a little clearer? I do hope in the end, it was worth it. For both of us.

• Being back at the University has surfaced many memories, Hue. I remember taking you to lectures... you would crawl to the front of the hall when I wasn't paying attention. Dr. Grey would look down from his lectern, and all his seriousness and authority would wash away. He would pick you up, walk over and return you to my arms with a smile. Love cannot be measured, Hue. Like colour, it exists inside of us. I buried it. I buried the love that I had, for my own ends. I hope, after all this, you will see my mistakes for what they are. Yours lovingly, Mum.

• [final letter] P.S. You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can choose how you see it. Now you can see true colour, you must decide if it is for better or worse. I hope, after all this, it is for the better.

Dr. Grey

• [first and only letter] Dearest Hue, it has been too long. You have grown so much. Your mother... I tried to warn her. I thought that exiling her from the University would protect her... would protect you... She did not understand that some people choose not to see. I never stole the ring from her, Hue. I tried to destroy it... before it destroyed her. I now know she had it under control. She knew what she was doing. My intervention shattered the ring, altering your mother's very fabric. My only reprieve, is that you were able to follow in her footsteps... to experience her work first-hand. We do not see things as they are, Hue... instead, we see them as we are. Your mother... she has been waiting for you. I expect she will be thrilled to see how far you've come.