presentation

Azul

Patterns of MooriSH tiles

The Royal palace is decorated with ceramic tiles. 5, 7 or 9 factory tiles for 2, 3 or 4 players are laid out in a circle; 100 tiles in five colors are put in the bag and you randomly draw four tiles for each factory; each player has a board and a scoring marker.

In the Factory Offer phase, players take turns. In your turn, you take either all tiles of a color from a factory - the rest is moved off the factory to the middle of the circle  - or take all tiles of one color from the middle of the circle; in this case, you take the starting player marker and immediately assign all taken tiles to one of the five pattern rows on your board, from right to left and only tiles of one color in a row.  When a row is full, and you have surplus tiles, they go to the Floor line of your board. When all factories and the middle of the table are empty, the Wall-tiling phase begins;: All players - simultaneously - shift the rightmost tile in a completed row on their board to the Wall side of the board, the rest of the tiles in that row is set aside, and you score points for this tile and newly formed groups with it; then you deduct penalty points for tiles in your Floor line. A tile on the Wall side blocks that row for tiles of that color for future Factory Offer phases. If someone has a complete row on their wall, you score completed rows, columns and color groups on the wall board.

Azul is one of those games in which all aspects are perfect - the topic suits the components and the mechanism, the rules are simple, chance is balanced nicely by tactic and the result is a fun game, suitable for casual gamers as well as for experienced players.

Players: 2-4

Age: 8+

Time: 45+

Designer: Michael Kiesling

Artist: Chris Quilliams

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Next Move / Plan B Games 2018

Web: www.pegasus.de

Genre: Abstract set collecting

Users: For families

Version: de

Rules: de en fr and 16 more

In-game text: no

Comments:

First edition 2017, Plan B Games

Multiple award winner

Sensational design

Lots of in-game depth with few rules

Compares to:

Azuleo for topic, set collecting games

Other editions:

Asmodee (es)Broadway Toys (cn), Ghenos (it), Galapagos Jogos (pt), Gem Klub (hu), Hobby Japan (jp), Korean Boardgames (kr), Lacerta (pl), Zwezda (ru), Next Move (dk en fi fr nl no ro se), all with Next Move

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0