OBJECTIVE OF AZUL: Score the most points by drafting colored tiles and arranging them into patterns on your wall.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 4 players
MATERIALS: 100 tiles (20 each of five colors), 4 player boards, factory displays, a cloth bag, a first player marker, a scoring track
TYPE OF GAME: Tile-drafting / pattern-building board game
AUDIENCE: 8+
OVERVIEW OF AZUL
Michael Kiesling designed this one for Plan B Games in 2017, and it went on to win the Spiel des Jahres the following year, board gaming’s equivalent of a Best Picture Oscar. That’s a big deal for a game with no dice, no cards, and nothing more complicated than colored tiles and a bag.
The theme comes from a real piece of history. King Manuel I of Portugal supposedly saw the tiled walls of the Alhambra palace in Spain and got so obsessed that he ordered his own palace covered in the same style. You’re playing one of the artisans tasked with actually doing it, drafting tiles round after round and fitting them into a wall that scores more the smarter you place them.
These Azul Rules cover the full drafting phase, the wall-tiling scoring, and every point value you need to settle a final score.
SETUP
Give each player a board with five pattern lines and a 5×5 wall printed with a fixed color pattern. Toss all 100 tiles into the cloth bag and set out the factory displays, round platters that hold four tiles each:
- 2 players: 5 factory displays
- 3 players: 7 factory displays
- 4 players: 9 factory displays
Draw four random tiles from the bag for each factory display. Decide who goes first however your group likes, then hand that player the first player marker and let them set it in the middle of the table alongside the empty center space.
HOW TO PLAY AZUL
This Azul Board Game Rules breakdown splits into two distinct phases each round, drafting tiles, then scoring what you’ve drafted.
DRAFTING TILES
On your turn, do one of two things. Either take every tile of a single color from one factory display, sending the rest of that display’s tiles to the center of the table, or take every tile of a single color already sitting in the center. If you’re the first player to draw from the center that round, you also have to take the first player marker and drop it onto your floor line, which costs you points later but guarantees you go first next round.
Whatever tiles you took, place them into exactly one of your five pattern lines. Each line holds a different number of tiles, and every tile in a line has to match. Anything that doesn’t fit spills into your floor line instead. Starting in round two, there’s a catch: you can’t add a color to a pattern line if that same color already sits in the matching row of your wall.
Keep going around the table until every factory and the center are empty.
WALL-TILING
Once drafting ends, everyone scores at the same time. For each pattern line you completed, slide the rightmost tile onto your wall in the one spot that color is allowed to sit in that row, and toss the rest of that line’s tiles into the box lid. Lines you didn’t finish just sit there, carrying over into next round untouched.
Every tile you move onto the wall scores immediately. A tile with no neighbors is worth 1 point. A tile that connects to others counts the full unbroken row it’s part of plus the full unbroken column it’s part of. Land a tile that completes a row of 3 and a column of 2 and that’s 5 points in one placement.
FLOOR LINE PENALTIES
Whatever’s sitting on your floor line costs you now. The seven spaces are worth -1, -1, -2, -2, -2, -3, and -3 in order, so a completely full floor line drags your score down by 14 points. Your total can’t drop below zero no matter how bad the round gets. Clear the floor line into the box lid once penalties are applied, though the first player marker goes back to the center of the table so someone can claim it again next round.
Refill every factory display with four fresh tiles from the bag before the next round starts. If the bag runs dry, dump everything from the box lid back into the bag and keep going.
END OF GAME AND SCORING
The game ends the moment any player finishes a full horizontal line of 5 tiles across their wall. Finish that round’s wall-tiling and floor line penalties as usual first, then hand out the bonuses:
- +2 points for every complete horizontal row
- +7 points for every complete vertical column
- +10 points for every color you’ve placed all 5 tiles of, anywhere on the wall
Add it all up and whoever has the most points wins. If two players tie, whoever completed more horizontal rows takes it.
FAQ
No, not really. Every turn boils down to one simple choice: take a color, put it on a line. The wall’s placement puzzle takes a round or two to click, but a first-time player is usually making sound decisions by round two with no rules refresher needed.
You simply can’t take it. Wait for a future turn, or take a different color and adjust your plan, even if that means eating a floor line penalty this round to stay flexible later.
Only if you’re the first person that round to draw from the center. After that, later players taking from the center just take tiles, no marker attached.
Constantly, and that’s most of the game’s tension. Denying opponents good options on purpose is a core part of playing well.
Often, yes. Taking a color you don’t need just to deny it to an opponent, or to force extra tiles into the center where they’re harder for others to use cleanly, is a legitimate and common tactic.
Yes. The core actions are simple enough for an eight year old to grasp in one explanation, though the wall placement puzzle gives older players and adults plenty to chew on too.
Not much beyond the tiles themselves. Mahjong is built around matching sets and reading what opponents are likely holding, while Azul is a drafting and spatial-placement game with open information and no hidden hands. If the comparison came from the word “tiles” alone, that’s really the only thing the two share.
For the price of a mid-weight board game, yes. It plays in under 45 minutes, scales cleanly from two players to four, and the puzzle of the wall stays interesting well past the first dozen plays, which is more than a lot of games at this price point can claim.
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