How to Play Azul: Setup, Turns, Scoring
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Azul at a glance
- Players
- 2–4
- Play time
- 30–45 min
- Age
- 8+
- Complexity
- Light
- Mode
- Competitive
- Publisher · Year
- Next Move Games / Plan B Games · 2017
- Works for
- 2 players, Family (mixed ages)
- Less suited to
- Groups (5+)
Azul is a tile-drafting game for 2 to 4 players, ages 8 and up. A game takes 30 to 45 minutes. Each round you take colored tiles from shared factory displays, fill the lines on your board, then move tiles to your wall for points. The game ends after the round in which someone finishes a full horizontal row.
You can teach it in 10 minutes. The scoring is where new players get lost, so this guide counts several placements tile by tile. It follows the current rulebook from Next Move Games and Plan B Games.
What's in the box and how do you set up?
The box holds 100 tiles, 20 in each of 5 colors, plus a cloth bag, 9 factory displays, 4 player boards, 4 scoring markers and 1 first player marker.
- Each player takes a board and puts a scoring marker on the 0 space of its score track.
- Put the tiles in the bag and mix them.
- Set out factory displays in a circle. The number depends on the player count (table below).
- Fill each factory with exactly 4 tiles drawn from the bag.
- The first player marker goes in the center of the table.
| Players | Factory displays | Tiles drawn each round |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 5 | 20 |
| 3 | 7 | 28 |
| 4 | 9 | 36 |
The center of the table starts empty except for the first player marker. Leftover factories go back in the box.
How does a round work?
Each round has 3 phases: Factory Offer, Wall-tiling and Preparing the next round.
Phase 1: taking tiles
On your turn, do one of these:
- Pick from a factory. Take every tile of 1 color from 1 factory. Push the other tiles on that factory to the center.
- Pick from the center. Take every tile of 1 color from the center. If you are the first to take from the center this round, also take the first player marker and put it on your floor line.
Then place all the tiles you took in one of your 5 pattern lines. Line 1 holds 1 tile and line 5 holds 5. A line can only hold 1 color. You also can't place a color in a line whose wall row already has that color. Tiles that don't fit drop to your floor line.
The phase ends when the factories and the center are empty.
Phase 2: moving tiles to the wall
Go through your pattern lines from top to bottom. For each full line, move 1 tile to the matching space on your wall and score it right away. Put the rest of that line in the box lid. Lines that aren't full stay where they are for the next round.
Phase 3: getting ready again
Refill the factories from the bag. If the bag runs out, refill it from the box lid. The player with the first player marker goes first next round.
How do you score tiles on the wall?
Each new tile on the wall scores the moment it arrives:
- No neighbors in its row or column: 1 point.
- Neighbors in its row only: 1 point per tile in that unbroken row group, including the new one.
- Neighbors in its column too: add the same count for the column.
Three examples, tile by tile:
| New tile | Linked in row | Linked in column | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alone in its row and column | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 tiles to its left, nothing above or below | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2 tiles to its left, 1 tile above | 3 | 2 | 5 |
In the last case the new tile counts twice, once in the row group of 3 and once in the column group of 2. That's the rule, not a slip.
What does the floor line cost?
The floor line has 7 spaces. Each tile or marker there loses points at the end of the round:
| Floor space | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | −1 | −1 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −3 | −3 |
So 3 tiles on the floor cost 4 points, and a full floor costs 14. The first player marker counts as a floor tile. Your score never drops below 0.
When does Azul end?
The game ends after the Wall-tiling phase of the round in which at least 1 player completes a horizontal row of 5 tiles. Then everyone adds end-game bonuses:
| Bonus | Points |
|---|---|
| Each complete horizontal row | 2 |
| Each complete vertical column | 7 |
| All 5 tiles of one color on your wall | 10 |
A player with 2 full rows, 1 full column and 1 complete color adds 2 + 2 + 7 + 10 = 21 points. Most points wins. If players tie, the one with more complete horizontal rows wins. Still tied? You share the win.
Does Azul change with 2 players?
Only the number of factories changes. With 2 players you use 5 factories and 20 tiles each round, so there is less to pick from and fewer tiles fall to the center. The turn, the scoring and the end are the same at every count.
The back of each board shows a gray wall. In this official variant you choose which space each tile goes to. Each color can still appear only once in each row and each column.
How does Azul compare?
| Game | Players | Play time | Age | Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azul | 2–4 | 30–45 min | 8+ | Light |
| Carcassonne | 2–5 | 30–45 min | 7+ | Light |
| Ticket to Ride | 2–5 | 30–60 min | 8+ | Light |
| Wingspan | 1–5 | 40–70 min | 10+ | Medium |
Azul and Carcassonne share a play time and a calm table. Azul has more hate-drafting, since taking a color can leave a rival stuck with floor tiles.
Is there an Azul expansion?
Crystal Mosaic adds new player boards with fresh wall patterns and extra pieces that change how you plan your wall. It works with 2 to 4 players, like the base box. It needs the Azul base game.
If you like Azul, try these
For a calm tile game on a shared map, read our Carcassonne guide. For a bigger engine with birds, try Wingspan. For a short pick-and-pass card game, try Sushi Go. Everything else is in our board games section.
Sources
- Next Move Games / Plan B Games, Azul rulebook (current printing)
- Plan B Games, Azul game page (players, age, play time and box contents)
- Hans im Glück and Z-Man Games, Carcassonne rulebook (current edition)
- Days of Wonder, Ticket to Ride rules (2025 edition)
How we check rules and build the intro card: our methodology.