Description

NB: Winner of the 2019 Game of the Year Award (“Spiel des Jahres”). Game is sealed with flimsy plastic stickers that may come off easily instead of shrink wrap.

Azul was designed by the world famous, award winning game author Michael Kiesling. Azul captures the beautiful aesthetics of Moorish art in a contemporary board game. Players compete as artisans decorating the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora. By carefully drafting the correct quantity and style of tiles, the most clever of artisans plan ahead to maximize the beauty of their work (not to mention their scores!) while ensuring they wasted no supplies in the process.

Introduced by the Moors, “azulejos” (originally white and blue ceramic tiles) were fully embraced by the Portuguese, when their King Manuel I, on a visit to the Alhambra palace in Southern Spain, was mesmerized by the stunning beauty of the Moorish decorative tiles. The king, awestruck by the interior beauty of the Alhambra, immediately ordered that his own palace in Portugal be decorated with similar wall tiles.

Contents:

100 Resin Tiles

4 Player boards

9 Factory displays

4 Scoring markers

1 Starting player marker

1 Linen bag

1 Rulebook

2-4 players

Ages 8+

40 minutes play time

Card Sizes

N/A

Observations

– Counterfeit copies come with poorly made bakelite tiles and extra black “Joker” tiles (authentic Joker tiles are multicoloured)

– One of the best introductory abstract-style games, with simple rules and wide decision making choices

– Gameplay changes from relaxing selection at the start of each round to manic calculation of negative points at the end

– More calculative at 2 players with more luck at 4

Alternatives

– Azul Summer Pavilion, a less vicious version of Azul with more rules and opportunities for making point-scoring combinations

– Sagrada, which plays like Azul with more complexity as players choose multicoloured dice

– Kingdomino, a 15 minute light tile drafting more suitable for children