In HYLE 7 the two players take on different roles. One person wants to create as colorful a “chaos” as possible with the stones on the playing field. The other is interested in "patterns", that is, symmetrical arrangements of the game pieces within each row and column of fields. Only this player receives points at the end of the game, and that is why every game of HYLE 7 consists of two games, so that everyone is once a "pattern maker" and once a "chaos maker".

In HYLE 7, a "pattern" consists of a horizontal or vertical row of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 adjacent game pieces that, when read forwards and backwards, are in the same color order. At the start of the game, the “chaos maker” fills all the game pieces into the cloth bag and then pulls one out again and places it on an empty space on the game board. The “pattern maker” can now move any token. The game continues in this rhythm until all the pieces have been placed and the playing field is full. Now the resulting patterns are scored and the total points are noted for the “pattern maker”.

A second game is then played with the roles reversed. Whichever player was able to achieve the higher number of points wins the game.

HYLE (pronounced hüle) is actually the Greek word for wood or forest. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC), who founded the famous School of Athens and was also the teacher of Alexander the Great, used the term more generally as cloth or matter. That may sound a bit "remote" (and in fact this definition comes from a philosophical dictionary), but it describes quite well what the game HYLE is about. Here, 49 colored wooden game pieces form the “original material” from which the players “form” ordered structures, regular color patterns, on the game board.

This edition of HYLE with the wooden game board is the expanded edition of the original HYLE to 7x7 fields. This makes the game a little more tactical. There is also the original 5x5 version on the back of the game board. This is played with 25 pieces in 5 colors. The game is much faster and is recommended for beginners or for a quick game in between.