Azul Review

Did you ever dream of making your own tiles for the bathroom or kitchen? Now is your chance; in the brightly colored board game Azul.

 

Game overview

You are the one responsible in the tiles factory in Portugal and taking only the best tiles to make your design; every piece as to fit perfect for you to be satisfied. The worst that can happen is you dropping precious tiles on the floor – this will end up costing you a fortune if you are not careful.

Depending on the number of players there are 5-9 factory tiles with each 4 random tiles to pick from; but you can’t just pick anything you want; if you commit yourself to a color, you have to take everything of the color – the rest goes into the middle for a quickly growing pool of tiles. You can pick tiles from the middle with the same principals, but the first to do so gets a penalty but also becomes the first player for the next round.

You will draft tiles based on both what fits you best, even if you in some cases will end up dropping a few tiles on the floor; drafting to give someone else a bunch of negative points, or just taking it from them. It all depends on your gaming style.

Then it‘s the next players turn and you continue in this fashion until all the tiles are gone, even those in the middle. Then it’s time for the round scoring and checking if someone ended the game.

For scoring you look at the rows that are completely filled in the left side of the board and slide the rightmost tile over to the pattern (matching the color if playing on the starter side) and score for this tile. It’s important that you start with the top row and downwards. Rows not completely filled stay for the next round. Points depends on how many tiles the sliding tiles connects both horizontally and vertically; if it’s the only tile it scores just 1 point – making chain reactions is the key to this game.

The game ends when someone fills at least 1 row in the pattern and then the extra end of game scoring is done.

Only when you run out of tiles do you place the leftover tiles in the bag to reseed the factory tiles – this also gives another strategic thinking, as you can’t expect every color to appear in every round.

 

 

How is it?

(5 / 5)

This is a great game, and fairly easy to teach, most find it easier to understand when seeing the game in action as they get a bit confused about the tile placement and sliding and scoring only one tile. This game works great for non gamers as well, but the strategy part about which tiles to take and maybe ruin it for others might take some time for some of them to get into. But that is not saying they will not still enjoy it, it just means if they get too many tiles on the floor every time they might give up.

The game plays quickly, but there might be some thought pauses in there (analysis paralysis). It’s a beautiful games with nice chunky components, and everyone likes to just fiddle with some in their hands. It’s clear to see why this became the Spiel Des Jahres, as everyone should be able to enjoy this game, if you like playing games.

 

Strategy & complexity

(5 / 5)

You can play the game in different ways – zen like with just matching colors and the pattern to the completely strategist of planning every move and other’s moves. Somewhere in the middle is the best games for me. The game is easy to grasp for most after playing a round or 2.

 

Replayability

(5 / 5)

The replay values is very high, because of the randomness of the tiles and the player interaction. Some times you just get this perfect factory tiles with 4 of the same color and you are the first player – win!

If you need a bit more variability you can use the blank side, which makes you think a bit more about which tiles you take as everything is open. This also means that usually people score a lot on the first round, because you tend to place the tiles next to each other, scoring chains than you can do in the base game.

 

Expansion 1: Joker tiles

When using these tiles you, depending on player count, remove 1 or 2 of each colors and replace them with these joker tiles. The joker tiles gives you the option to draft all these and an extra color from that factory tile (or middle). When placing the joker tiles maybe together with other colors, the rightmost tile must be a joker and therefore slide over. There are special rules if your row consists of only jokers or a combination. And at the end of the game the joker tiles DO NOT count as any color and will not help you in the end of game scoring.

I have not had the opportunity to test this yet, but this seems to add some more strategic thinking to the game.

 

Expansion 2: Special Factories Promo 

Consists of to modules which can be combined as fit. The first are the 2 special factory tiles; where the tiles left from selecting a color are not moved to the middle but for the 1 factory tile they remain and for the other they are moved to the left and/or right of the players choosing, but no color can be split.

The other module is some double scoring markers, where players can once per game choose to get double points when moving tiles to the wall from the pattern, but only if that double scoring marker for that particular color is still there.

I have not had the opportunity to test this yet, but this seems to add some more strategic thinking to the game, especially that less tiles are going into the middle.

 

There is also the new Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra; which I have played, but not review yet – I will link here, once I have.

 

Scalability

(5 / 5)

I have played it at all player counts multiple times and I enjoy it with all players, but I think I do prefer it with 3 or 4, just because of the extra player interactions; but it also makes it harder to calculate in the beginning who will end up getting too many tiles. With 2 players it’s a bit more intense back and forth and you can’t make small silent alliances like with more players. It also doesn’t seem so crucial to go first in a 2 player game as in a 4 player – a lot of tiles are removed before it’s just turn with 4 players.

I would play it again in a heart beat with any player count 🙂

 

Rules & accessibility

(5 / 5)

Very clear rules with nice examples; there shouldn’t be anything to be in doubt of, maybe only the variant as it can be interpreted a bit different; but you can also house rule it and play the way you want with this option. The only thing that might confuse people is the scoring for each tile, where the tile sliding over will be counted twice if both in a column and a row, but you will soon get the hang of it.

 

Solo variant

(1 / 5)

There is no solo variant in the box, which is always sad, when you really like the game and want to play it even more. There are some unofficial variants online, using a die to determine which factory tile the AI will take tiles from. It doesn’t really excite me, and you might as well just play two-handed with playing the best you can for both players.

 

Remote playability

(5 / 5)

Azul works really well with playing via Skype or Google hangouts. The colors are clear and distinct and there are no hidden information. The only thing you need are markers, either colors or number beside each factory tiles for the players to tell you which factory tile they want tiles from. Your only limit of players is your camera and space on the table.

 

Portability

(4 / 5)

Azul is quite portable, mostly it’s tiles and a few boards. If you are traveling lightly the weight of the tiles might be an issues and the player boards takes up the most space as they don’t bend.

 

Appearance & component quality

(4.5 / 5)

This is an Eye Pleaser with great colors and inviting components. The tiles are nice and chunky and feels good in the hands, only downside is it looks as candy 🙂

The cardboard is nice and thick for the player board and the factory tiles. The first player token in my first print was just a thin little cardboard piece, but they have changed it to a small tile, which I later got, so no complains there anymore.

Only complain is mostly the functionality. You have a little score marker cube which just sits on top of the board. It is really easy to bump against or accidentally moving it. The same goes for the tiles, although they are heavier you can also accidentally move them.

It would have been great with an indented board, and this is why there is now a market with unofficial overlays for the player boards; which I myself have not gotten yet.

 

 

 

Helge’s review

(and Birger)

The box is perfect. It has the right size and it’s a complete square. The quality is nice and it doesn’t hurt it compliments my eyes. I always prefer if I can have all my limbs tight together but still having room to breathe. I love the sound of the tiles banging against each other in the bag or box lid (when I’m not sitting in it of course) and playing with them is fun too. There enough tiles that my human might not easily see that I pushed some away. The quality of the tiles are excellent, and can withstand me playing with them.

 

Box Fitting:	(5 / 5)
Component Noise:	(5 / 5)
Component Count & Diversity:	(5 / 5)
Component Quality:	(5 / 5)
Human Annoyance Level (HAL):	(5 / 5)
Average:	(5 / 5)

 

Game info

BoardGameGeek (BGG)

 

Rules explanation

Meeple University