Board games in India for most of us have been limited to Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, Scrabble and Life. However, there exists a huge selection of games across the world, a lot of which we’ve never heard of! Today, we’re going to review one of these for you- ‘Azul’

Michael Kiesling, a German board game designer created Azul. This game besides being easy and fun to play is also aesthetically very pleasing and very well designed. Besides many other accolades, 2018’s Best Family Game is the most prestigious one.

Azul can be played by 2-4 players. The components of the game include 100 tiles , 4 game boards, 9 factory displays, 4 scoring markers, 1 starting player mark and a linen drawstring bag. It is a tile placing game, where you work on your craft on the left side of the board and on completion of the round, move the qualifying tiles to the right. There are 5 different varieties of tiles to be filled into 5 rows. An average 4 player game can be finished in 30 – 45 minutes.  

The image below has 4 tiles placed on each factory outlet. The number of factory displays per game depend on the number of players playing the game. For 2 players 5 displays are used, for 3 players 7 and for 4 players 9. The starting player can pick the tile of his choice from any available displays, and put the remaining tiles in the center. The next player can either pick up a tile from another factory display or the center where remaining tiles are placed. However it is mandatory for each player to pick up all tiles of the same design from the center/factory display that they are picking from. 

Looking at the next important component , the picture below illustrates a player’s board. Each player has his/her own board. As you can see, the board is divided into 4 parts; the top part with numbers is for score keeping, the bottom left side (working space) and the currently filled right side and the space below it is for extra tiles which results in negative scoring. The black component currently placed on the scoring part is the marker. 

In order to move a tile from the left side to the right side you need to fill the gaps required in every row.

At a time, only one design tile can be placed in a single row. For example, if I want to place the red tile in the 3rd row I need to place 3 red tiles from the factory display in one round to be able to move the red tile on the right side. The game ends when a player completes any of the row on the right side.

Boargames Hub Ratings:

Game: 8/10

Difficulty level*: 4/10

(* With 1 being the easiest.)

Note : In case you are interested in purchasing this game or have more queries around it, please feel free to contact us on our instagram page – Boardgames Hub. or contact us on whatsapp directly.