In most guessing games, a wrong guess leaves you exactly where you started. Not in Cluvo. Every guess you make, even an incorrect one, hands you concrete clues about the day's hidden answer. That's the heart of the game: it's not about luck, it's about reading the information the board gives you and deducing.

The colored tiles

When you submit a guess, Cluvo compares each attribute of your answer against the hidden answer's and colors each tile by the result. The color code is intuitive and consistent across every category:

• Green: that attribute matches the answer.
• Yellow: applies to numeric attributes (like a year) when your value is close to the correct one, though not exact.
• Gray: that attribute doesn't match.

Each category has its own set of attributes to compare, a movie isn't described the same way as a footballer, but the color logic is always the same. So you learn to read the board once and can play any category.

Multi-value attributes: partial matches

Some attributes aren't a single value but a list: a movie's genres, the clubs a footballer played for, the production companies. Here Cluvo doesn't give the whole tile a plain green or gray: it highlights in green the specific values that match and leaves the rest gray.

For example, if the answer is an action-and-adventure movie and your guess is an action-and-comedy one, inside that tile you'll see "action" highlighted and "comedy" dimmed. The whole tile only counts as a match when every value lines up.

That detail is gold: seeing exactly which value landed tells you where to keep looking without handing you the answer. Learning to read those partial matches is what separates random guessing from methodical deduction.

Numeric attributes and closeness

Other attributes are numbers, a year, for instance. That's where yellow comes in: if your number is close to the correct one, the tile turns yellow to tell you "you're close." And since it also shows whether you went over or under, you can close the range guess after guess, like the classic "hot or cold."

The written hints and why they cost

Beyond the tiles, every Cluvo carries three written hints that unlock progressively as you spend attempts. They're ordered hardest to easiest: the first barely nudges, the last gets you quite close.

Using hints costs you points, so the decision is yours: they're a safety net, not a free shortcut. Solving a Cluvo without opening a single hint feels like a real achievement; opening all three and still landing it counts too, just for less. You decide how much help you want in exchange for how many points.

Why ten attempts

Ten attempts is enough for an observant player to deduce the answer from the tiles, but tight enough that every guess matters. With fewer, the game would be frustrating; with many more, it would stop being a challenge. The number is tuned so the "I've almost got it" feeling shows up often, which is exactly where the fun lives.

Next time you miss a guess, don't see it as a mistake: read it as a clue you just generated yourself. That shift in mindset is, deep down, the whole game.