Azul: Master Chocolatier Rulebook

Table of Contents

Game Setup
Object of the game
Gameplay
Scoring
- C. Preparing the next round
End of the game
Variant play
Special Factories variant
Credits

Game Setup

Give each player a player board (A). Flip your board to the side with the colored chocolate box. (See Variant play to play with the brown side of the player board). Each player must use the same side.
Take 1 scoring marker (B) and place it on space "0" of your score track.
Place the Factory displays, blue side visible, (C) in a circle around the center of the table:
- In a 2-player game, place 5 Factory displays.
- In a 3-player game, place 7 Factory displays.
- In a 4-player game, place 9 Factory displays.
Fill the bag (D) with the 100 tiles (20 of each color) (E).
The player who most recently ate chocolate takes the starting player marker (F) and then fills each Factory display with exactly 4 tiles randomly drawn from the bag.

Return any unused player boards, scoring markers and Factory displays to the game box.

Each player board has a score track, 5 pattern lines, a chocolate box, and a foundry line.

Object of the game

To be the player with the most points at the end of the game.

The game ends after the round in which at least one player has completed a horizontal line of 5 consecutive tiles in their chocolate box.

Gameplay

The game is played over multiple rounds, each of which is composed of three phases:

A. Factory offer
B. Box confection
C. Preparing the next round

A. Factory offer

The starting player places the starting player marker in the center of the table and then takes the first turn. Play continues clockwise.

On your turn, you must pick tiles in one of the following ways:

EITHER

a) Pick all tiles of the same color from any one Factory display and then move the remaining tiles from this Factory display to the center of the table.

b) Pick all tiles of the same color from the center of the table.

If you are the first player in this round to pick tiles from the center of the table, also take the starting player marker and place it onto the leftmost free space of your foundry line.

Then, add the tiles you picked to one of the 5 pattern lines on your player board (the first line has 1 space to hold 1 tile, the fifth line has 5).

Place the tiles, one by one, from right to left in your chosen pattern line.
If the pattern line already holds tiles, you may only add tiles of the same color to it.
Once all spaces of a pattern line are filled, that line is considered complete. If you have picked up more tiles than you can place in your chosen pattern line, you must place the excess tiles in the foundry line (see Foundry line).

Your goal in this phase is to complete as many of your pattern lines as you can, because during the following Box confection phase, you will only be able to move tiles from complete pattern lines to their corresponding lines in your chocolate box to score points.

In all later rounds, you must also comply with the following rule: You are not allowed to place tiles of a certain color in a pattern line whose corresponding line of your chocolate box already holds a tile of that color.

First turns example

On his turn, Paul picks the 2 black tiles from a Factory display and places the remaining tiles in the center of the table.
Max picks the brown tile from a Factory display and places the remaining 3 white tiles in the center of the table.
Then, Julia picks these 3 white tiles from the center of the table. As she is the first one to pick from the center, she also takes the starting player marker and places it on the leftmost space of her foundry line.

Example (pattern line placement): Julia picks 2 brown tiles from a Factory display. She is not allowed to place them in her second or third pattern line, as their corresponding chocolate box lines each have a brown tile. She may not place them in the fourth pattern line either, as there is already 1 teal tile and she may not add tiles of a different color to it. She may, however, place 1 of them in the first pattern line and the excess tile in the foundry line (A). Or she may place both tiles in the fifth pattern line (B). She may even choose to place both tiles in the foundry line (C).

Foundry line

Any tiles you have picked that you cannot or do not want to place according to the rules, you must place in your foundry line, filling its spaces from left to right. These tiles are considered as having fallen on the floor and give minus points in the Box confection phase.

If all spaces of your foundry line are occupied, return any further fallen tiles to the lid of the game box to store them for now.

This phase ends when the center of the table AND all Factory displays contain no more tiles.

Then, continue with the Box confection phase.

B. Box confection

This phase can be carried out by all players simultaneously, as they move tiles from their complete pattern lines over to their chocolate box.

A) Go through your pattern lines from top to bottom. Move the rightmost tile of each complete line to the space of the same color in the corresponding line of your chocolate box.

Each time you move a tile, score points immediately (see Scoring).

B) Then, remove all tiles from any pattern lines that now have no tile in the rightmost space. Place them into the lid of the game box to store them for now.

Once that is done, any remaining tiles on the pattern lines stay on your player board for the next round.

Example: A) Paul's second pattern line is complete with 2 white tiles. So he moves the rightmost tile of this pattern line over to the white space in the chocolate box (and immediately scores 1 point, see Scoring). As the third pattern line is not complete, he ignores it. From his complete fourth pattern line, he moves the rightmost teal tile over to the teal space in the chocolate box (and scores 1 point immediately). He ignores the fifth pattern line, as it is not complete. B) Afterwards, he removes the remaining tiles from the second and fourth pattern lines and places them in the lid of the game box. The tiles in his third and fifth pattern lines stay on his board.

Scoring

Each tile you move over to your chocolate box is always placed on the space matching its color and immediately scores as follows:

If there are no tiles directly adjacent (vertically or horizontally) to the newly placed tile, gain 1 point on the score track.
If there are any tiles adjacent, however, do the following:

First check if there are 1 or more tiles horizontally linked to the newly placed tile. If so, count all these linked tiles (including the newly placed one) and gain that many points.

In this example, placing the brown tile gives you 3 points for the 3 horizontally linked tiles (including the newly placed brown tile).

Then check if there are 1 or more tiles vertically linked to the newly placed tile. If so, count all these linked tiles (including the newly placed tile) and gain that many points.

In this example, placing the teal tile gives you 3 points for the vertically linked tiles.

In this example, placing the brown tile gives you not only 4 points for the horizontally linked tiles but also 3 points for the vertical ones.

Finally, at the end of the Box confection phase, check if you have any tiles in your foundry line. For each tile in your foundry line, you lose the number of points indicated directly above it. Adjust your scoring marker on your score track accordingly (however, you can never drop below 0 points).

The 7 spaces of the foundry line show, from left to right: minus 1, minus 1, minus 2, minus 2, minus 2, minus 3, minus 3.

Afterwards, remove all tiles in your foundry line and place them into the lid of the game box. Note: If you have the starting player marker in your foundry line, it counts as a normal tile there. But instead of placing it in the lid, place it in front of you.

Paul loses a total of 8 points as he has 4 tiles and the starting player marker in his foundry line.

C. Preparing the next round

If nobody has completed a horizontal line of 5 consecutive tiles in their chocolate box yet (see End of the game), prepare the next round. The player with the starting player marker refills each of the Factory displays with 4 tiles from the bag as in the setup. If the bag is empty, refill it with all the tiles that you have placed in the lid of the game box and then continue filling the remaining Factory displays. Then, start the new round.

In the rare case that you run out of tiles again while there are none left in the lid, start the new round as usual even though not all Factory displays are properly filled.

End of the game

The game ends right after the Box confection phase in which at least one player has completed at least one horizontal line of 5 consecutive tiles in their chocolate box.

Once the game has ended, score additional points if you have achieved the following goals:

Gain 2 points for each complete horizontal line of 5 consecutive tiles in your chocolate box.
Gain 7 points for each complete vertical line of 5 consecutive tiles in your chocolate box.
Gain 10 points for each color of which you have placed all 5 tiles in your chocolate box.

The player with the most points on their score track wins the game. In the case of a tie, the tied player with more complete horizontal lines wins the game. If that does not break the tie, the victory is shared.

Variant play

For a slightly different game, use the brown side of the player boards. Rules are exactly the same as in the normal game, except that when you move a tile from a pattern line to the chocolate box, you may place it on any space of its corresponding chocolate line. However, as the game progresses, in each of the 5 vertical lines of your chocolate box, no color may appear more than once. Also keep in mind that in each horizontal line, no color may appear more than once either.

Special case: In the Box confection phase, it may happen that you are not able to move the rightmost tile of a certain pattern line over to the chocolate box because there is no valid space left for it. In this case, you must immediately place all tiles of that pattern line in your foundry line (see Foundry line).

Special Factories variant

At the beginning of the game and at the beginning of phase C, shuffle all 9 Factory displays, blue side visible. Then, place a certain number of these according to the setup rules. Finally, randomly flip a number of Factory displays equal to the number of players, revealing the gold side of the Special Factory (SF). Unused Factory displays are set aside.

The game is played as usual. However, there are 5 different types of Special Factory displays. Some can affect the setup done by the starting player, while others affect the current round as follows:

SF 1. (plus 1 symbol) After setting up the round, add 1 tile from the bag on this Special Factory display.

SF 2. (stacked tiles symbol) After setting up the round, take 1 tile of the illustrated pattern from both adjacent Factory displays to the immediate left and right (if possible), and place them on this Special factory display.

SF 3. (arrows pointing inward symbol) When a player picks tiles from this Special Factory display, the remaining tiles are not moved to the center of the table but remain on it.

SF 4. (left-right arrows symbol) When a player picks tiles from this Special Factory display, the remaining tiles are not moved to the center of the table. Instead, that player moves them to the Factory display (blue or gold) to its immediate left and/or right, dividing the tiles between those 2 displays. The only restriction is that tiles of one color may not be split up.

SF 5. (zero symbol) When a player picks tiles from this Special Factory display, the remaining tiles are moved to the center of the table. Then, that player places this Special Factory as an extra space next to their Foundry line until the end of the round. The next tile that must be placed in their foundry line is placed on this Special factory instead, skipping the penalty.

Credits

Game Design: Michael Kiesling

Producer: Sophie Gravel

Illustrations: Chris Quilliams, Nina Allen

Graphic Design: Nina Allen

Editing: Pierre-Olivier Gravel

2-4 players, 30-45 minutes, ages 8+.