Mission: Review - Azul: Queen's Garden

The original Azul is one of the most popular and well received games in recent years. It is often considered an essential game to a lot of gamers. Now with four entries in the Azul series of games, Azul: Queen’s Garden has big shoes to fill in terms of matching its predecessor's success and elegance. Does Azul: Queen’s Garden live up to the Azul name or does it fall short of what people expect from Azul?

In Azul: Queen’s Garden, players are trying to create the most beautiful garden for the Queen of Portugal. You will be drafting plastic tiles and cardboard tiles (garden expansions) to eventually place into your garden. Each round you will take actions until every player has passed; then you will have an intermittent scoring. On your turn you will either (1) take tiles, (2) place a tile, or (3) pass. If you are the first to pass, you lose one point but will go first on the next turn.

However, and this is where things get tricky, if you take tiles, you must take all tiles (including garden expansions) of the same pattern but all different colors. Or you must take all tiles (including garden expansions) of the same color but all different patterns. You may not take any identical tiles though. Eventually, new tiles will come out and garden expansions will be revealed. If you place a tile, though, you must pay for the tile by discarding tiles from your storage. To pay for a tile, you will follow the same rules as taking a tile but must discard a number of tiles equal to the value of the tile you are placing; it gets a little confusing, I know.

After four rounds, the game will end and final scoring occurs. First, you lose points for any tiles still in your storage. Then you will go through each pattern and color and score points for groups of 3 or more in your garden. For patterns, you will score points equal to the tiles value for each tile in each group. The player with the most points wins!

Hopefully, I didn’t lose you in that explanation. My biggest complaint about the game is trying to teach the rules. It can be quite difficult to wrap your head around the rules for picking tiles, placing tiles, and scoring. However, after a couple plays it does start to click more easily. My favorite thing about the original Azul is that you can sit down, teach the game, and play it all in about 30 minutes, and anyone can easily understand the rules. With Queen’s Garden, you are looking at about 60-75 minutes, including teaching the game, and it can feel like a long 60 minutes trying to figure out your best move.

Now, having said that the game is a little too complicated, I will admit that I do enjoy this thinky experience. I think the puzzle of this game is really quite fun to piece together. Trying to decide which tiles you should take and how you are going to pay to place the tiles you just took is just a great little puzzle. Once you get to the place where you can look around at what other players want, the game truly starts to shine. I think if this hadn’t been the next installment in the Azul series, my expectations would be different and I may have enjoyed the experience more overall though.

The components, as with other Azul games, are top notch though. The plastic tiles are beautiful and so fun to hold and place. Your garden board starts out pretty bare, but by the end of the game it is filled with beautiful colors and lovely pieces of plastic. My favorite thing about this game is just watching your garden expand and become more lively as the game progresses. This is really a beautiful game by the end.

I have played the original Azul many times. It is a classic for a reason. It is simple, fast, fun, and easy to teach. I had not played any of the other Azul games until Azul: Queen’s Garden was released. However, Queen’s Garden can’t really be described as simple, fast, and easy to teach, sure it is fun, but that fun comes at a slight cost. This game is ultimately a little too complicated and thinky for what I want out of an Azul game. If you want to play Azul and have really tough, interesting choices to make, then this might be the game for you! This is a game that is definitely worth playing, but whether or not you will enjoy the experience depends on what you want out of an Azul game.

Likes

+ Lovely components

+ Rulebook is easy to understand

+ Interesting strategies

Dislikes

- Overly complicated for an Azul game

About the author: Will Purdy is an avid board game enthusiast and barista at Urban Prairie Coffee in Mission, KS. Follow him on instagram @boardgamebarista or on Board Game Geek: fidgetyrain