Azul Review

Intro

Designer Michael Kiesling struck gold in 2017 with Azul, a gorgeously tactile game about decorating Portuguese palace walls with colorful ceramic tiles. This 2-4 player abstract strategy game takes about 45 minutes and swept the board game world off its feet, nabbing the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award along with dozens of other honors. With its stellar 7.73/10 rating and straightforward rules that anyone eight and up can grasp, Azul sits in that sweet spot where simple mechanics create surprisingly deep decisions.

The premise couldn't be more elegant: you're an artisan competing to create the most beautiful tile patterns on your personal palace wall. Players draft colorful tiles from shared factory displays, then carefully place them on their boards to score points. It's pattern building and tile placement at its finest, wrapped in a package so visually appealing you'll want to frame your finished board.

How It Plays

Each round starts with factory displays loaded with four random tiles pulled from a cloth bag. The number of factories depends on your player count, creating just the right amount of tension over tile availability. On your turn, you pick one color from any factory and take all tiles of that color, dumping the rest into the center of the table. Alternatively, you can grab all tiles of one color from this growing center pile.

Here's where things get interesting. Your player board shows five horizontal rows, each requiring a different number of identical tiles to complete. Row one needs just one tile, row two needs two of the same color, and so on up to five tiles for the bottom row. You must place all the tiles you draft into one of these pattern lines, but here's the catch: you can only work on a row if you haven't already placed that color tile in your wall on the right side of your board.

Once everyone has drafted all available tiles, you move to the tiling phase. Any pattern line you've completed gets its rightmost tile moved to your wall, while the excess tiles go back in the bag for future rounds. You score points immediately based on how many tiles your newly placed tile touches, both horizontally and vertically. Any tiles you couldn't place in your pattern lines become penalty points, sliding down to your floor line like ceramic shards of regret.

The game ends when someone completes a horizontal row of five tiles. Then you add bonus points for completed rows, columns, and sets of the same color across your wall.

Highlights

The drafting mechanism is absolutely brilliant. Taking all tiles of one color from a factory feels generous until you realize you're also feeding unwanted tiles to your opponents through the center pile. Every choice ripples outward, creating this beautiful tension where you're simultaneously trying to grab what you need while denying others what they want.

Those chunky Bakelite tiles deserve their own paragraph. They're satisfying to handle, make a delightful sound when you place them, and come in five gorgeous colors that pop against the neutral game boards. The tactile experience elevates what could have been a dry abstract game into something genuinely pleasurable to play. Plus, the tiles store perfectly in the included cloth bag, which adds to that premium feel.

The spatial puzzle on your personal board creates genuine decision paralysis in the best way. You're constantly weighing immediate points against future opportunities, trying to set up efficient combos while avoiding the dreaded penalty tiles. Do you complete that easy top row for quick points, or hold out for a better position that might set up a massive scoring turn later?

What really sets Azul apart is how it scales beautifully across player counts. With two players, you get this intense chess-like battle where you can really read your opponent's intentions. Add more players and it becomes a chaotic free-for-all where tiles disappear faster than you can plan for them. Both experiences feel completely different yet equally engaging.

Criticisms

The luck factor can occasionally sting. Sometimes the tile draws just don't cooperate with your plans, leaving you stuck taking penalty points or settling for suboptimal placements. While skilled players can usually find decent options, there are definitely moments where the bag decides your fate more than your strategy does. This randomness keeps games from feeling too clinical, but it can frustrate players who prefer pure skill-based competition.

Despite its elegant mechanics, Azul can lead to some serious analysis paralysis, especially with players prone to overthinking. Each drafting decision affects not just your board but potentially every other player's options, creating a web of consequences that some players feel compelled to work through entirely. This can slow games to a crawl with the wrong group, though the 45-minute play time usually keeps things moving.

The scoring system, while not overly complex, does require some mental math and spatial awareness that might overwhelm newer board gamers. Counting tile connections for immediate points, then adding end-game bonuses, occasionally leads to scoring errors or disputes about tile adjacency. It's not rocket science, but it's not quite as intuitive as the drafting phase suggests.

Conclusion

Azul deserves every award it won. This is a game that welcomes families with its gorgeous components and clear rules, then rewards experienced players with surprising strategic depth. If you enjoy pattern building games, abstract strategy, or just love beautiful components, Azul belongs on your shelf. It's particularly perfect for couples looking for a meaty two-player experience or families wanting something more sophisticated than typical gateway games.

The game shines brightest with players who appreciate tactical thinking and don't mind a touch of randomness in their strategy games. If you're the type who gets genuinely excited about creating efficient patterns and making every decision count, you'll find yourself coming back to Azul again and again. Just be prepared to explain why you're fondling the tiles between turns – they really are that satisfying to touch.