Page 13 - spielbox_0717_EN

The game is purely abstract strategy, but the ease of learning the game, the tactile beauty of the tiles and the range of options make this game extremely interesting. “Obvious” moves seem to be to score a tile to add to your top row. But the endgame scoring, where your cumulative score is added to completed rows (5 points), completed columns (7 points) and complete tiles of one design (10 points) mean that your tiles are com- peting for locations. So obvious moves that you make on your first game are no longer obvious by game three.
The game changes on player count. Two player games mean what you leave as options are for your opponent; in three and four player games, you leave some- thing for your left hand opponent only. In two player games you can often play
out the game perhaps to
avoid taking a large number of tiles that would score negative points, or to make your oppo- nent do so. My experience of this is that it is easy to miss something and the bad result affects you. The two player game is more intense as you can examine your own and opponents options more easily, whereas games with three and particu- larly four players mean there is more loss of control and you tend to focus on what
you can do to enhance your score.
I Accessible to many people and fun
The tactics of the game to maximize
your score are not easy to see. Sometimes mats will have three or four tiles of the same design and you can take them, or are not allowed to as the rows they would best fit have already been tiled in that design. Alternatively you could take them, score negative points for the excess and complete a smaller sized row
in order to complete a row, column or
design set. The current position of the game and to a degree the number of
players will influence your thoughts.
The presentation of the game is excel- lent though the first player marker could be a resin one rather than a cardboard marker. Even so the plastic game insert has a space for it to reduce the chance of it being lost. There is a reverse side of the player board that has no pre-defined pattern to place tiles when tiling, though the same design cannot be played in the same column. It is very similar to the other side, but is a useful variant and I was pleased that the reverse side of the board was used to
good effect.
Overall the gameplay is very smooth,
accessible to many people and fun. The game builds further on the quality of games from Plan B and makes me look forward to their future releases.
Alan How
Title: Publisher: Designer: Artist: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Azul
Plan B Games Michael Kiesling Chris Quilliams
2 – 4 (for two: ➙) about 8+ years 30–45 minutes about 38 €
Reviewer Playing appeal
Alan How. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Udo Bartsch1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christwart Conrad2. . . . . . . . . . .
L. U. Dikus3. . . . .
Stefan Ducksch .
Oliver Grimm4 . .
Matthias Hardel
Wieland Herold5
Christian Klein .
KMW6 . . . . . . . . .
Edwin Ruschitzka . . . . . . . . . . . . Harald Schrapers7 . . . . . . . . . . . .
10 . 8
............ . . ............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ ............ . ............ . ............ .
.
. 6
.
. 9
. 7
10 . 9 . 8 10 10 . 8
1 Beautiful game and nice feel of play.
2 Extraordinarily broad target group that goes far beyond fans of abstract games. 3 After his Wikinger exactly ten years ago, another game that hits the mark.
4 Unfortunately a bit too much reduced to the core mechanism.
5 Visually, a dream; haptically, a pleasure.
6 With pleasure, time and time again.
7 The not-too-exciting tile-laying theme unfortunately doesn’t contribute to an intuitive understanding of the course of the game.
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