NEXT MOVE Azul - The Queen's Garden

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They can be used as a wild when paying for any placement you see fit. You can get more of these tiles by surrounding certain features in your garden, similar in Summer Pavillion and again, they must be placed in your storage. Damn you storage! Points Make Prizes At the end of the fourth round, players score as usual and then a final scoring takes place. During the final scoring, each group of at least 3 patterns or colours scores 3 points. The same tile could be scored multiple times if part of multiple groups. Player action, place a tile or a garden expansion – As an alternative to acquiring tiles, players could either place a tile or an expansion. In both cases, you could only place one or the other in your garden and you should pay the corresponding price. Is that part of the game? Sure. But it can also feel quite mean and we suggest not playing that way if you want to keep things friendly.

The hexagonal scoring marker on the left of the scoring board is used to trace the progress of the final scoring and it is recommended that each player scores each of them one at a time. We always score each step for all players before moving to the next one as it is quite fun to see the race to the final victory.Queen’s Garden is also quite a bit heavier than the previous four games due to all of the drafting and placement restrictions. This leads to a much longer play time and Queen’s Garden outstaying its welcome. (All our games lasted 70+ minutes.) Identical tiles could not be placed next to each other. If a player fully surrounds a garden feature (pavilion, bench, statue, or fountain) by placing a tile, the player immediately receives as many jokers as depicted on the bottom left side of the player board. If the player could not store all the jokers, those in excess are lost. Players Actions Once all players have passed it is time to score the round. Each player will score 1 point for each pavilion visible on their board and many points for each of the visible patterns/colours matching those identified by the scoring wheel.

Queen’s Garden is the heaviest challenge of the four Azul games. There are strict rules for both drafting and placement. Players who enjoy the chance to create big scoring combinations will enjoy how Queen’s Garden has both round scoring where specific tiles score at the conclusion of each round and end of game scoring where all tiles score again based on their groupings of color and symbol. This creates for the largest puzzle feel among the Azul series. Throughout each round you’ll think and rethink where you can maximize each tile’s scoring potential to the fullest.

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One thing to note here is that if a garden expansion tile is ever empty, then it is immediately flipped – which will reveal one “filled” hexagon among the empty spaces on it. Garden expansions can then be taken in the same way as hexagon tiles – by the player declaring that they will take the matching colour or pattern (at which point they will take all tiles of that colour or pattern including garden expansions.) Now, you might ask, what do I do with these tiles and expansions once I draft them? Do I place them in my garden? Actually no – you place them on your storage board (which as mentioned earlier can hold a total of 12 hexagon tiles including any jokers, and two garden expansions.) Tokens and Garden expansions. The first setup requires the players to unpunch all the garden expansions and the tokens first. So before you can even start to think about getting pieces onto your garden, you have to plan ahead and ensure you can actually place the tiles you need. But wait: before you can even do that you have to ensure there’s room for them in your storage! Choosing which pieces to draft on your turn can thus become a snake pit where you might want a particular item from those on offer, but end up passing because you don’t want other matching colours or symbols clogging up your store.

Player and evaluation wooden markers could be stored in the small slot with “AZUL” printed onto it and all other tokens including the first player marker have a nice space behind the fountain boards. Tiles And Tile TowerPlayers are tasked with arranging a magnificent garden for the King's lovely wife by arranging beautiful plants, trees, and ornamental features.

The original is perfectly simple. With straightforward and easily understood rules, this is the least overwhelming in the series. It doesn’t try to get too cute with mechanics and that’s the beauty of it. This juggling of both strategic and tactical aspects, alongside spatial play and pattern-building, is rich and engaging. There’s a lot to consider at every stage of the turn yet, as the game progresses, you won’t feel boxed in by your earlier decisions. Even the draft has interesting repercussions as garden tiles aren’t flipped face up until they’re clear of drafted hexes. So taking a hex you want might inadvertently create an opportunity for the following player. For the few people reading who have never played any of the Azul games, they are abstract, tile drafting, puzzle games. Each one has its differences, but the basic premise is to draft a set of tiles from a shared pool and place them on your player board to score points.Player action, Pass – Passing is final and once passed the players could not do any further actions. The first players that pass will receive the first player tile and once all players have passed, the round is over. On the other side of the display are you could position the tile tower. You will need first to pour all the tiles out from the tower and into the drafting bag as the tower could be used to store all tiles consumed during each game round. You could also choose to not use the tower and store the tiles where you prefer although the tower is a nice cosmetic addition to the table. Players Setup As well as drafting tiles you are now drafting Garden Expansions to put your tiles onto as well, a massive change from what I have played before in these games. More Freedom The jokers will need to be placed in any of the 12 spaces on the storage board. Player markers are placed on the square “15” on the scoring board and the single hexagonal marker (evaluation marker) is positioned on his icon on the left of the scoring board. First Player Actions Players compete to complete their stained glass windows. The window panels making up the player boards are double sided and modular. Players determine where they can place drafted tiles by moving their “glazier” (player marker) left to right down their window, using a turn to reset when necessary. What Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra does best: