Review: Azul

You might have spotted this as soon as you opened our home page – and if you thought “That game looks great!” you couldn’t be more right! There, that’s it.

Fine, here are some more details. In Azul you and up to 3 friends are creating some really extra flooring for a palace somewhere, you draft tiles from ‘factories’ to place on your board. The points you get depend on which tiles you place and in what order. The process of drafting these tiles will also inadvertently (or very intentionally) ruin the plans of other players in the tiles they were after.

That’s it! Pretty simple, but it is not simple and lacking depth. Hidden with the very simple rules and options you have is a strategy game where you can puzzle over each detail.

Who is after the 6 red tiles on the factories? If I pick up one from this factory, I can start stockpiling the actual tiles I want in the middle for a big pick up later. But, what if someone else wants that tile? Azul is a lot like introducing a friend to an old arcade fighting game; they have fun button-mashing and yelling at the screen as they rack up damage, you have fun knowing what the buttons do. But the point is that you both have fun, and it takes very little to eventually get what the buttons do.

What do we like?

Its simplicity is so elegant that after each round you can’t help but think “what if I had picked up that…” each time you play you can’t wait to go again to learn from your past mistakes. This may not sound like a big deal but finding a game that you understand to that extent so quickly is a rarity. And if you’re so eager to play again? That’s the holy grail of board games right there.

If you haven’t played a number of board games this point may seem a bit odd, but the tiles are actually so satisfying to place. They did not cut corners on the game pieces of their artwork, and it really shows. Azul is an outright beautiful game, and if you don’t think laying tile pieces can be satisfying then find yourself a friend with this game quick and invite yourself over (unless it is us, then ask nicely). But be warned, after playing Azul you’ll find yourself resenting monopoly money’s paper quality.

TLDR: The game is easy to pick up, hard to master, fun to play.