Azul, produced by Plan B Games and Next Move Games, is an abstract tile drafting game that is easy to learn, yet challenging to master! Azul was designed by the award-winning game designer Michael Kiesling and captures the beautiful aesthetics of Moorish art in a contemporary board game
Azul can be played with 2 – 4 players (artisans) ages 8+ and lasts 30 – 40 minutes.
Game Background and Lore
Players compete as artisans decorating the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora in Portugal. Introduced by the Moors, “azulejos” (originally white and blue ceramic tiles) were incorporated by the Portuguese, when their King Manuel I, on a visit to the Alhambra palace in Southern Spain, was awestruck by the Moorish decorative tiles. The king immediately decided that his own palace in Portugal should be designed in a similar fashion.
Awards and Honors
2018 As d’Or – Jeu de l’Année Winner
2017 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Winner
2017 Cardboard Republic Architect Laurel Winner
2017 Golden Geek Most Innovative Board Game Nominee
2017 Golden Geek Board Game of the Year Nominee
2017 Golden Geek Best Strategy Board Game Nominee
2017 Golden Geek Best Board Game Artwork & Presentation Nominee
Components
- 100 Resin Tiles (20 of each color)
- 4 Player boards (double sided)
- 9 Factory displays
- 4 Scoring markers
- 1 Starting player marker
- 1 Linen bag
- 1 Rulebook
I found the components to be of great quality. The only cardboard pieces are the player boards and factory displays. The linen bag is fantastic and decorative. The tiles are of a good weight and after quite a few games have survived multiple drops onto the ground! The player board is double sided, which we will discuss later on. The player scoring markers are small plastic cubes that could get lost if you’re not careful.
Gameplay
Players take turns drafting the five different colored tiles from factories to their player board. Points are scored based on how they’ve placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets, but be careful; excess tiles harm your overall score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Setup
Each player receives a player board and a score marker cube. In a two-player game, 5 factory displays are placed in a circle in the middle of the table (7 for 3 players and all 9 for 4 players). 4 tiles are drawn at random and placed on each factory. The first player tile with the “1” on it is put into the center.
Factory Offer (Drafting Phase)
Players take turns drafting a single color from a single factory or from the center supply. If a player chooses a single factory, they select one of the five colors to draft and take all of that color. They then place the drafted tiles onto the left side of their player board (Pattern Lines) that are tiered to hold 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 tiles in each row. Once a particular color has been placed on one the Pattern Lines, only that color can be placed until it is full and scored (more on that later). The same color can be used on multiple Pattern Lines at the same time. Once you select your colored tiles, the remaining tiles from the factory are moved into the center with the 1st player tile. Once there are tiles in the center, players are allowed to draft tiles of 1 color form the center. This becomes beneficial as the number of tiles increases so you can fill up the row requiring 4 and 5 tiles quickly. The first person to draft from the center will acquire the 1st player token, signifying they will draft first the next round, but will also loose 1 point because they will be forced to place that tile at the bottom of their board on the Floor Line. Each slot of the Floor Line shows a negative score (two -1, three -2 and two -3). If you were to draft tiles and not be able to place them on the pattern lines of your player board (no room for that color to be placed), you will be forced to put them on the Floor Line and receive negative points. You cannot split up the tiles that you draft each turn. They must all be placed on a single Pattern Line.
Wall-Tiling (Scoring Phase)
If you have a completed Pattern Line, you will move the right most tile in that line to your Tile Wall (colored 5×5 grid to the right). The tile must go on the corresponding color on the Tile Wall (unless you are playing the blank variant on the other side of the player board). Placement of tiles from completed Pattern Lines starts at the top and moves down. Once a tile is moved to the Tile Wall, all other tiles in the Pattern Line are discarded off the board. Incomplete Pattern Lines remain on the board to be completed in subsequent rounds.
Scoring happens immediately when you place a tile onto the Tile Wall. You receive one point for the tile you placed and additional points for every tile that is connected to it both vertically and horizontally. You also score additional points for completing rows (2), columns (7) and for having one of the same color in every row (10). These are tabulated at the end of the game. Lastly, don’t forget to count your negative points from the Floor Tiles. Floor Tiles are discarded after each round.
Preparing the Next Round
The game concludes when a player has completed a row on their Tile Wall. If no one has met this condition, the player with the 1st Player tile draws from the tile bag and refills the Factories. If there are not enough tiles in the bag to do this, refill the bag with the discarded tiles from previous rounds.
What we Didn’t Like
Due to the randomness of the game, sometimes it’s possible that a single player can run away with the game. It would have been a huge step up in components, but it would have been nice if the player board was slotted so that the tiles fit and didn’t slide around, similar to Sagrada. The game can slow down quite a bit with 4 players, but I never became bored or disinterested.
What we Liked
Component quality of the tiles is fantastic. It is overall visually stunning. It is very easy to learn how to play, but there are layers in the strategy that keep a competitive player, like myself, engaged until the very end. It is probably best as a two or three player game, which works out perfect in our house. It’s common for my wife and I to play 3 games in one evening as a two player game lasts maybe 20 minutes once you get the hang of it. It almost never lasts past 5 rounds. Lastly, I’ll mention the player board has a variant way to play where the Tile Wall is blank, meaning that you aren’t forced to place each color on a certain spot when you complete the Pattern Lines. This allows you to almost guarantee you will get at least 1 column complete, but becomes tricky because if you’re not careful, you will score a lot less points because you aren’t connecting tiles horizontally and vertically.
Overall Impressions
If you play a lot of two player games, this is a must get. I’ve taught it to 3 other couples and they all love it as well. It’s not that often that you can find a game that is extremely simple in its concept yet has multiple layers of strategy and gameplay. I’ve played it with 2, 3 and 4 players and I think it works well for all of them. It can get quite heated the more players you add. Since there is no hidden information in the game, everything is there for players to decode. It’s really easy to hate draft things that may not help you all that much, but really hurt another player. It’s also a lot of fun to try to “math out” what will happen depending on what tile color you select from which zones. The more you play, the more if the “game within the game” you start to decipher, which is a really exciting plus in my book. IF you can still find it in the wild, I highly suggest picking it up and letting us know if you enjoyed it as much as we did!
