Azul
At the table · 30–45 min
Score the most points by tiling a palace wall.
Take all tiles of one color from a factory or the center, then place them in one pattern line.
Score completed lines each round. A horizontal row completes the game; add end bonuses.
The tile workshop
100 tiles · 20 in each of five colors
Fill your wall
Azul is a tile drafting game for 2–4 players. Each round starts with four tiles on every factory: five factories with two players, seven with three, or nine with four. There are 20 tiles in each of five colors. On your turn, take every tile of one color from a single factory and move the other colors to the center. Or take one color from the center. The first player to take from the center also takes the first-player marker, gets a floor penalty, and starts the next round.
Pattern lines and the floor
Place all the tiles you took into one of your five pattern lines, which hold one through five tiles. A line can contain only one color, and you cannot add a color already present in that wall row. Extra tiles, or all tiles if you choose not to use a line, go on the floor. The seven floor spaces cost 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3 and 3 points. Extra fallen tiles are discarded. The first-player marker takes a floor space and counts for its penalty.
Score each round
When factories and center empty, move one tile from each complete pattern line onto its matching wall space, top line first. Discard the other tiles in those lines; incomplete lines stay for later rounds. A tile scores 1 point by itself. With adjacent tiles, count its entire horizontal connected line and its entire vertical connected line, adding both when both exist. Then subtract floor penalties, never going below zero.
End bonuses
The game ends after a round in which any player completes a horizontal wall row. Add 2 points per complete row, 7 per complete column and 10 for each color placed in all five wall rows. Highest score wins; tied players compare their number of complete rows, then share the win if still tied.
Azul by Michael Kiesling, published by Next Move Games. Official publisher rulebook (PDF). Original component artwork credits are recorded with the game assets.