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Azul
A classic abstract strategy game in which you decorate the wall of a Portuguese palace with beautiful tiles, known for its easy rules and excellent looks.
Rules
Take every tile of one color from a factory display, fill a pattern line on your board, and move only completed lines onto your wall to score. You can never discard the tiles you took, so leftovers become penalties — the real difficulty is counting how many you will take.
Components and your player board
| Component | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tiles | 100 | 5 colors × 20 — blue, yellow, red, black, and turquoise |
| Player boards | 4 | The front shows a wall printed with colors, the back a gray wall (variant rules) |
| Factory displays | 9 | You use only 5, 7, or 9 of them depending on the player count |
| Score markers | 4 | They start on space 0 of the score track |
| Starting player marker | 1 | Whoever takes it puts it on their floor line |
| Bag | 1 | Holds the 100 tiles |
Your board has four parts
The pattern lines on the left (a stair of 1 to 5 spaces), the wall on the right (5×5), the floor line below (penalties), and the score track around the edge of the board. Tiles only ever move from a pattern line to the wall.
Setup
- 1Each player takes one player board and places it color side up. Everyone must use the same side.
- 2Put your score marker on space 0 of your score track.
- 3Place the factory displays in a circle around the middle of the table. Use 5 for 2 players, 7 for 3 players, and 9 for 4 players.
- 4Put all 100 tiles into the bag.
- 5The player who visited Portugal most recently takes the starting player marker and fills each factory display with exactly 4 tiles drawn from the bag.
Return any unused player boards, score markers, and factory displays to the box.
① Factory offer — take every tile of one color
The starting player puts the starting player marker in the middle of the table and takes the first turn. Play then continues clockwise.
You must do one of two things
(a) Take all tiles of one color from any one factory display, then move the remaining tiles of that display to the center of the table. (b) Take all tiles of one color from the center of the table.
The first player to take from the center also takes a penalty
The player who takes tiles from the center first in a round also takes the starting player marker and puts it on the leftmost empty space of their floor line. You pay one penalty point now in exchange for going first next round.
This phase continues until the center and every factory display are empty. Then you move on to wall-tiling.
Placing tiles on a pattern line
- Put the tiles you took on one of the five pattern lines. The first line holds 1 tile, the fifth holds 5.
- Fill the line one tile at a time from right to left.
- If the line already holds tiles, you may only add tiles of the same color.
- From the second round on: if the matching row of your wall already holds that color, you may not put that color on that line.
- Any tile you cannot or do not want to place goes on your floor line, filled from the left.
- If the floor line is full as well, return the remaining tiles to the box lid.
This is where the real math of the game sits. If you aim at a line of 5 and only get 4 tiles, that line scores nothing this round, and anything over the limit becomes a floor line penalty. Count the tiles before you take them.
② Wall-tiling and scoring
- 1Go through your pattern lines from top to bottom. Everyone may do this at the same time.
- 2Only for completed lines, move the rightmost tile of the line to the matching color space in the same row of your wall.
- 3Score the tile as soon as you move it.
- 4Discard the rest of that line to the box lid. Lines that are not complete stay as they are for the next round.
Scoring means counting connected tiles
If the tile you just placed has no tile next to it horizontally or vertically, it scores 1 point. If it does, count the tiles connected in its row (including the new tile) and score that many, then count the tiles connected in its column separately and add that too.
Then come the floor line penalties
After wall-tiling, look at your floor line. You lose the number printed above each covered space (−1 −1 −2 −2 −2 −3 −3). Your score never drops below 0. After scoring, discard the floor line tiles to the box lid.
One exception for the starting player marker
It costs points like a normal tile, but after scoring you keep it in front of you instead of putting it in the box lid. You are the starting player next round.
When there is no space to move to
If you want to move the rightmost tile of a completed line but no valid space is left on your wall, the whole line goes to your floor line. This mostly happens with the gray-side variant.
③ Preparing the next round
- If nobody completed a horizontal line of 5 on their wall, prepare the next round.
- The player with the starting player marker refills each factory display with 4 tiles from the bag.
- If the bag runs empty, put every tile collected in the box lid back into the bag and keep filling.
- If the lid is empty too and you cannot fill every display, start the round with them partly filled.
End of the game and bonuses
The game ends at the end of the wall-tiling phase in which a player completes a full horizontal line of 5 on their wall. That round is played out to the end.
| Bonus | Points |
|---|---|
| Each completed horizontal line of 5 | +2 points |
| Each completed vertical line of 5 | +7 points |
| Each color of which all 5 tiles are on your wall | +10 points |
- The player with the highest score on the score track wins.
- On a tie, the player with more completed horizontal lines wins.
- If that is also tied, the players share the win.
Gray-side variant (official)
- Flip the player boards to the gray side. The wall has no printed colors.
- When you move a tile from a pattern line to the wall, you may place it in any space of that row.
- However, no color may appear twice in any of the five columns, and no color may appear twice in a row either.
- Everything else works as in the base game. You get more freedom, but it is much easier to block yourself.
Commonly confused rules
Q. Can I take only some of the tiles of one color from a factory display?
No. You must take every tile of the color you chose from that display. That is why counting them first matters.
Q. Can I split the tiles I took across several lines?
No. They all go on one line. Anything that does not fit on that line goes to your floor line.
Q. What happens to a pattern line I did not complete?
It stays on your board and carries over to the next round. You do not discard it.
Q. Does the whole completed line move onto the wall?
No. Only the single rightmost tile goes to the wall. The rest are discarded to the box lid.
Q. If I count the row and the column, am I not counting the new tile twice?
Yes, and that is exactly what the rulebook says. Count the connected tiles in the row and in the column separately and add them, with the new tile included in both.
Q. Can penalties push my score below zero?
No. It stops at 0.
Q. Does the starting player marker cost points?
Yes. On your floor line it costs points just like a normal tile. After scoring, though, you keep it in front of you instead of discarding it, and you start the next round.
Q. Does the game stop the moment someone completes a horizontal line of 5?
You finish the wall-tiling phase of that round. Other players can still score in the same round.
History and editions
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Designer | Michael Kiesling |
| Illustration | Chris Quilliams |
| Publisher | Plan B Games, 2017 |
| Award | Spiel des Jahres 2018 |
| Theme | The azulejo tile decoration of the Royal Palace of Evora, Portugal |
| Sequel | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra | 2018 | Stacks glass panes in layers, so the rules differ a lot |
| Azul: Queen's Garden | 2021 | A heavier sequel |
| Azul: Pavilion of Iberia | 2022 | Part of the «Summer Pavilion» family |
| Azul Mini | 2023 | A compact travel version |
The sequels that carry the «Azul» name play quite differently from one another. This guide covers the 2017 base game. «Summer Pavilion» in the catalog needs its own guide.
Sources
Official Plan B Games rulebook (Azul, English)Wiki cross-check — Wikipedia: AzulWiki cross-check — Namuwiki: AzulRule summaries are reference content written by us, not quotations from the official rulebook. Always check the official rulebook for exact rules. Diagrams are original schematics, not rulebook illustrations.
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Last updated 2026-09-08
💡 Master tip
Rather than scoring right now, cutting off the color your opponent wants and forcing penalties on them matters, and you have to manage the last pattern line (the one-space line) carefully to avoid losing points.
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