Paint the Roses Hints & Tips

In Paint the Roses, it's important to use your head or risk losing it. To finish the Royal Gardens, you'll need to work as a team to solve a constantly changing logic puzzle.

In any deduction game, information will be missed, and mistakes will be made, but we've put together five hints and tips to help you outsmart the Queen of Hearts in no time.

Looking for more in-depth strategy tips? Check out our Paint the Roses Strategy Guide.

While each turn gives opportunities to learn more about all player's Whim cards, only the active player chooses the Shrub tile to place on the Garden board. A reasonable starting assumption is that the active player will use their turn trying to communicate the Whim card they hold, which allows you to consider the clues they reveal on a deeper level.

After a player has placed a Shrub tile into the garden and the Clue tokens step is complete, review all the available colors and shapes their Whim card could show.

Players will usually look to share their Whim card in the clearest way possible, so consider eliminating options if they would have been better shown elsewhere.

Continually sharing information in Paint the Roses is key to finishing the garden. Starting a turn holding a Whim card that the other players are confident on the solution to makes it more challenging to reveal new information.

As a player's turn is the best time to share new information about the Whim card they hold, consider prioritizing guessing the next active player's Whim card, which, if correct, will give them a brand new Whim to share information when their turn begins.

Note: It is rarely a good idea to guess two Whim cards in a turn. Your main goal is completing the Royal Gardens by staying ahead of the Queen, so try to save knowledge for upcoming turns, ensuring you are less likely to make incorrect guesses.

In Paint the Roses, four unique colors and four unique shapes can be used to describe a Whim. The Greenhouse gives you four random Shrub tiles to choose from made up of these, but rarely will every color and shape option be available.

Try to keep the Greenhouse as diverse as possible by only selecting the last tile of a particular color or shape if you need it to best show your Whim card. This will give the next player more choices when it's their turn to place a Shrub tile.

This is a more advanced Paint the Roses tip, but along with giving information about your Whim card, when you place a Shrub tile, you can also try to create spaces in the garden that can be used to uniquely identify a shape or color match.

Note: It is easier to give clues when all combinations are available on the Garden board, so avoid blocking access to the last of any symbol or color for as long as possible.

In Paint the Roses, every turn reveals information, whether Clue tokens are placed or not!

Assuming the active player would look to place Clue tokens if possible, carefully look at the colors and shapes available in the Greenhouse and eliminate those options from your thinking whenever no Clue tokens are added.

Taking good care of the Greenhouse and Garden board by keeping color and shape symbols accessible can make it easier to work out the correct answer.

Note: If players have been holding a Whim card for several turns, remember to look back over several turns to eliminate the possible options further.