How to play Azul

The basics

Setup

1. Boards. Give everyone a board with the colored-wall side up (the gray side is a later variant), and make sure all boards match. Park your score marker on 0.
2. Factories. Arrange the right number of factory displays in a circle, leaving space in the middle for the center pile.
3. Bag. Put all 100 tiles in the bag.
4. First player. Choose who starts. That player holds the first player marker and blind-draws 4 tiles into each factory.

Your turn: take tiles

At the start of each round, the first player puts the first player marker in the center of the table. Then turns go clockwise. On your turn, choose one:

• From a factory: take every tile of one color on it. Push the rest of that factory's tiles into the center.
• From the center: take every tile of one color there. If you're the first to take from the center this round, you also take the first player marker and put it on your floor line.

Now place the tiles you took into one of your five pattern lines. The top line holds 1 tile, the bottom line holds 5. Fill lines from right to left. The rules for placing:

• A pattern line can only hold one color at a time.
• You can't put a color in a line if that row of your wall already has that color.
• Anything that doesn't fit, or that you choose not to place, goes on your floor line.

The round's drafting ends when the factories and the center are empty.

You are never allowed to pass. If every tile left is a color you can't use, you still have to take some, and they go straight to your floor. This is why the center pile matters: late in a round, it can grow into a heap of one color that someone is forced to swallow. Watching what your opponents can still place, and leaving them nothing useful, is the real game.

Wall tiling and scoring

Everyone does this at the same time. Work from your top pattern line down.

1. Move one tile. For each full pattern line, slide its rightmost tile to the matching color space in the same row of your wall. Score it right away.
2. Clear the rest. Put the other tiles from that full line in the box lid. Lines that weren't full keep their tiles for next round.
3. Pay the floor. Lose points for your floor line (table below), then clear it.

How a new wall tile scores:

• No tiles next to it, up, down, left or right: 1 point.
• Tiles linked in a horizontal line: count that line, including the new tile.
• Tiles linked in a vertical line: count that line too, including the new tile, and add it.

Example: you place a tile that completes a row of 3 tiles side by side, and it also sits below 1 tile in its column. That's 3 points for the row plus 2 for the column, so 5 in all. Diagonals never count.

Floor line penalties

The floor line has seven spaces. Tiles fill it from the left, and each space costs the points printed above it. The first player marker counts as a tile here.

Once all seven spaces are full, any more fallen tiles go to the box lid with no extra penalty. Your score can't go below 0.

After scoring, the first player marker goes in front of you, not in the lid. You start the next round.

Taking the marker costs you only 1 point if your floor is otherwise empty. Going first next round is often worth that.

End of game and bonuses

If no one has finished a horizontal row on their wall, the player with the first player marker refills the factories and a new round begins. When the bag runs dry, pour in the tiles from the lid and keep filling.

The game ends after the wall tiling in which at least one player completes a horizontal row of 5. Then add bonuses:

Most points wins. On a tie, the player with more complete horizontal rows wins. If that's tied too, you share the win.

The low row bonus is worth noticing. Rows end the game but score little. Columns and colors are where the big end-game points are.

Azul with 2 players

The rules don't change at two. You just use 5 factories. With fewer tiles out and only one opponent, you can often see exactly what your rival needs and take it first, or leave them only colors they can't place. It's a sharper, more direct game as a pair. If two is your usual count, see our best 2-player board games too.

The gray side of the board is a variant for later. You choose where each color goes on your wall, as long as no color repeats in any row or column.

Common mistakes

• Splitting a grab across lines. All the tiles you take go in one pattern line. Only the overflow goes to the floor.
• Moving the whole line to the wall. Only one tile moves. The rest of a full line goes to the lid.
• Clearing lines that aren't full. Partial lines stay where they are for next round.
• Forgetting the marker penalty. The first player marker takes a floor space and costs points like a tile.
• Ending the game too early. Completing a row ends the game for everyone. Only do it when you're ahead.
• Leaving yourself no options late in a round. If you only have one line open, the center pile can force a big floor penalty on you. Keep a line free.

Azul is one of the best-value games on our best board games under $50 list.