I decided to review the board game Azul by Michael\nKiesling. This game is for 2-4 players with around a 30-45 minute play time. There\nare two different versions you can play, and you simply flip your board for the\nother one. Side A, you have specified places for the color tiles to go while Side\nB, you have more freedom with where you place the tiles as long as you follow\nthe same pattern of no repeats in columns and no repeats in rows. The game involves players collecting all of\none color of tile from a plate or from the center and placing them into one of five\nrows on their boards. If the player has too many of one color to the row, the tile\n\u201cfalls\u201d to the bottom of the board where it will have negative points. Once the\ntiles for the round are gone, all the players see which rows they filled up\ncompletely with the colors and move one of the tiles over to their main board\nin that same row. They add up their points for that round and then continue to\nplay until someone fills up an entire main row or the tile bag becomes empty.\nThen the players add end of game goal points to their scores which could be\nfilling an entire column or row, or they collected all 5 of one color. The one\nwith the most points wins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I were to rate this game, it would be 5\/5 for visuals\nand 4\/5 for game mechanics. To a new eye, this game seems to be very difficult and\nthey may be turned away by it. That is what almost happened when I showed this\nto a couple of my friends. But once you play through a few rounds and they get\nthe idea of how to add up their points, it becomes easy to understand. The gameplay\nrequires you to have a plan, but then also 5 back up plans after that if\nsomeone takes the color from the plate you were eyeing. You also need to keep\ntrack of the center of the plates because if no one is choosing a certain\ncolor, it may become overpopulated and the poor soul who has the last turn of a\nround ends up with so many lost points. These may seem like a negative, but I\nlike how much you need to strategize and think ahead. You don\u2019t have to wait\naround on your turn already knowing what you will do because you tend to\nconstantly have to change your plan of attack. You have the ability to look\naround at other people\u2019s boards and determine which plate they may be after and\nyou could wreck their plan. It\u2019s not my play style, but I like that the players\ncan choose that strategy if they wish. There are so many different ways to fill\nthe same board and it gives you options. It\u2019s clever and fun. You don\u2019t really\nknow who is going to win until the very end. Even if someone was ahead the\nentire game, the end of game points could create an upset. You are always on a\nconstant equal playing field with people fighting over tiles and creating\nbargains with each other. Besides the cool game mechanics, I just love the art\nfor this game. Each tile has a different pattern and the board it just so\npleasing to the eye. Everything is very cohesive; nothing looks out of place. For\nsuch a simple concept, it is very ornate with many different looking textures\nin the art on the board. Even the bag for the tiles is decorated. The only\nthing not decorated in this game is the small black cube used to keep track of your\npoints. I think that is just amazing and deserves credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pertaining to our class, Tabletop Games and Leadership. I\nthink this game takes a lot of strategic thinking and planning but being able\nto be flexible. Your plan could disappear within a single second as soon as someone\nchooses the exact play you were going to make on your next turn. Then you must\nadapt and find a new plan. I think this could really help teach leadership. Sometimes\nthings don\u2019t go the way you wanted or planned. As a leader, you must reflect on\nthe past and change things to be better in the future based on what you\nlearned. You can have as many plans as you want, but even then, none of them\ncould work. If this happens, you must go in a completely different direction\nyou never thought of before. This changing and adapting can teach so many lessons\nand open the world to more possibilities. This may be just a game about building\nup tiles, but on a deeper level, it\u2019s a game about flexible planning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I decided to review the board game Azul by Michael Kiesling. This game is for 2-4 players with around a 30-45 minute play time. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2910,"featured_media":897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,11],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assignments","category-game-commentary","category-games","tag-azul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}