Azure’s name Azuleihos, brightly colored geometric tiles that adorn beautiful buildings in North Africa and Portugal. The Portuguese learned to make them from the Moors.The board game has become a famous design in its own right and is so popular that it has launched several products. sequel It uses the same core mechanics and the same beautiful printed plastic tiles. Revisiting the original, I’m trying to find out what makes this game of decorating the walls of a palace so appealing.
what’s in the box
Like many abstracts, Azul falls a little short in terms of components, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. Beneath the rule sheet are four colorful, clear, sturdy playing boards, one for each player, his. There are also some cardboard discs and classic wooden cubes.
The most striking eye-pleasure is the stack of plastic tiles and the large cloth drawstring bag that holds them. They are absolute delights. Smooth, thick, bright and colorful, some are embossed with intricate geometric patterns. They’re on display in full effect in the game, and I’m really happy to handle them and hunt them down when I take them out of my bag.
rules and how to play
Again, like many abstracts, Azul is a fairly simple game, but its slight quirkiness can be a bit of a stumbling block. Each player receives a playing board and a number of cards his circle (called a factory). Each circle begins by randomly drawing his four tiles from the bag. On his turn, he of the factory chooses one, from which he takes all tiles of one matching color and places the rest in the center of the table. After the first turn, this central product is treated like another factory from which players can select tiles.
Selected tiles are placed in one of the five columns of the playboard. You can place them in any row that holds between 1 and 5 tiles, as long as the row doesn’t contain more than one color at a time. If you end up with a tile that is not found on the playing board, the tile will “fall” down and break, giving you penalty points.
This continues until all tiles have been taken. You can then take a tile from a filled row and transfer it to the same row on the wall, a grid of color-coded squares, and spaces of matching colors. That row can no longer hold tiles of that color. You then score points according to the number of tiles adjacent to the tile you have placed. After one player completes an entire row of tiles, it’s time for final scoring where completing a row, column or diagonal of the same color gives him a fat he bonus.
From this description, you might imagine Azul to be a somewhat mundane affair, something of a mundane abstraction that entertains you for a few sessions before being forgotten. It’s got a lot more than a face. If the tiles are he three, it makes sense to fit them in he three length spaces. However, since the scoring of each placement is based on adjacency, it quickly loses out.
Instead, it tries to pick colors that fill the rows and columns. Of course you’re in a dilemma because you need to fill rows efficiently. If you don’t take her 3 tiles, someone else may. So start glancing at other players’ boards and see who pips you on the pick post you want, and if you leave a particularly sweet group for them, how many players you’re following. Benefits and when you get to this point the game gets really interesting.
Think about it: Unless you’re picking from the middle, each discard radically changes the tiles offered to other players. This could inadvertently create a highly valuable group for someone else. It could also spoil the choice of another player who wanted a certain amount of money on the board, but now there are too many. Best of all, the limitations caused by what the player has already placed can force the player to take an entire pile of tiles that can’t fit, and simply merrily slam into the floor next to the tiles, so in practice You may have placed traps in Entertain the fun of your opponent.
You have to think about all of this every turn, but you’re not quite there to complete rows, columns, and colors for bonus points. There are so many elements to Azul, and what I particularly enjoy is the way a player’s choices affect their fellow players, often very strong, making one player stronger makes another weaker. The game is well-balanced and deep, and unless you can calculate all the probabilities for dozens of moves, waiting to see what other players will leave behind, It can often be very exciting.
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On the other hand, there is a certain amount of repetition to consider. From a thematic point of view, this is essentially a game about tiled walls, not the most thrilling and dramatic subject of Clash of Minds. Azul doesn’t have many moving parts, which makes the relative depth of strategy even more impressive, but it doesn’t provide the variety that many players want to keep interested over the long term. However, those who can stay focused on one game can reap a lot of rewards.
where to buy
Azul is on our list of the best family board games. For more roundups, check out the best roll and write games and the best deckbuilding games.
