If you are a fan of board games you have surely heard of Blue, game of Michael kiesling, published by Ghenos Games, and winner of the Spiel of Jahres 2018: this board game depopulated the last Modena Play and achieved a well-deserved success. If, on the other hand, you have never heard of him, the reasons why he made so much talk about himself are soon said: few rules, fast games, easy to explain, very deep. Given the premises, I could not refrain from trying it and despite the many games that followed one after the other, I would gladly play a thousand others. If you are curious to know more, read further and you will understand why.
The game
Azul is an abstract board game that sees 2 to 4 players compete to become the best tiler, ie to score more points than the opponents. Each has a personal board where you will have to keep track of the points obtained in each round and where, in addition, the beautiful tiles will be placed. At the center of the table will be placed a number of cardboard disks, the so-called exhibitors, variable according to the number of players; 4 tiles randomly chosen from a bag will be placed on top of each display in each game round.
The dynamics
The game mechanics are really very simple. At each turn, each player, starting from the first, will be able to:
- Take all the tiles of one color from one of the exhibitors and throw the others out or, where possible, take all the tiles of a color present outside the exhibitors (those thrown by the others in short);
- Place the tiles taken in one of the two ways shown above on only one of the free lines on your dashboard, next to the square to be tiled; all excess tiles will go to the “floor”, and will constitute negative points at the end of the round.
Once the tiles are finished, each player will check how many rows he has managed to complete on his board (each row requires a different number of tiles to be completed) and for each of these he will place one of the tiles on the corresponding color of the square to be tiled. In this way, then, he will mark the points obtained for each row of the square, from top to bottom, based on the number of tiles adjacent to the one just placed and then subtracting the points determined by the tiles on the floor.
The game continues in this way until at least one player manages to tile at least one row of the square and the bonus points awarded for completed rows, columns and colors will also be added to the final score.
Materials and graphics
Both the materials and the graphics are impeccable: the planks and displays are made of thick cardboard and the tiles are not only beautiful to look at, but also resistant and pleasant to touch. The quality of the materials is reflected in the price, which in this case is absolutely justified.
Game considerations
There is no room for luck in Blue: You pay dearly for every wrong move and you have to constantly keep an eye on your opponents' game to try to predict which colors they will aim for and what should be taken or left. It is an extremely deep board game and this is an enormous quality for a game that, for duration, we could easily define filler.
The rules are very few and are quickly explained to anyone, even newbies, a factor that pays off Azul a great introductory. Longevity is also excellent, one game leads to another (and yet another ...) but since the tiles on the table are always different it is difficult for two games to be identical. Furthermore, for those wishing to try their hand at something different, it is possible to turn the board and play on the non-colored side, with some variations to the rules. Excellent scalability, even if in four it is much more difficult to predict the opponent's moves.
In short, in my opinion the fame of Blue it is more than deserved: it is not easy to find a simple, fast, deep and long-lived game, which can be played even with the less experienced. Those looking for these features in a board game will surely be satisfied with trying it.
