How to Teach Azul

Azul is a gift game. It gets unwrapped, admired, and set up on the table while someone reads the rulebook aloud. Then the teach drifts into scoring examples before anyone has touched a tile, and the room goes quiet in the wrong way.

The fix is to teach the pick, play the pick, and save scoring for the moment the first tiles move to the wall. Here is a host script in the order you would say it. Print the Azul teach sheet and set it where everyone can read it.

Before anyone sits down

Set up first, so the teach starts with the game ready. Boards colored wall side up, score markers on 0. The right number of factory displays in a circle: 5 for two players, 7 for three, 9 for four. Tiles in the bag, displays filled with 4 tiles each.

One setup step is a gift to the host. The rulebook gives the starting player marker to whoever most recently visited Portugal. Ask it out loud. It gets people talking before the teach, and it settles who goes first.

Minute 1: the goal

Say: “We are tile artists decorating a palace wall. You take tiles from the middle, line them up on the left side of your board, and finished lines move a tile onto your wall. Tiles that touch other tiles score more. Most points wins.”

Point at the floor line. “Tiles you take but cannot use fall here and cost you points. That is the whole tension of the game.”

Minutes 2 to 4: one pick, out loud

Do a real turn while you narrate.

1. “I pick a color from one display and take every tile of that color there. All of them, not some.”
2. “The rest of the display slides into the center.”
3. “My tiles go into one line on my board. Each line holds one color. The top line holds 1 tile, the bottom holds 5.”
4. “If I took more than fit, the extras fall to my floor.”

Then the center: “You can also take from the center, same rule, all of one color. The first person to take from the center this round also takes this marker.” Hold it up. “It sits on your floor and costs at least a point, but you go first next round.”

Stop. Ask: “Questions on the pick?”

Minutes 5 to 7: what happens when the table is empty

Point at the teach sheet.

• “When every display and the center are empty, we all score at once.”
• “Any line that is full moves one tile across to the matching color on your wall. The rest of that line goes in the box lid.”
• “Lines that are not full just wait. They keep their tiles for next round.”
• “A tile on its own scores 1. If it touches tiles, it scores for the line it makes across and the line it makes up and down. You will see it in a minute.”

Then the one restriction new players miss: “Each row of your wall takes each color once. If your second row already has its blue tile, your second line can never take blue again.”

Minute 8: the floor

Run your finger along the floor line. “Each tile here costs the number printed above it. The first two cost 1 each, the next three cost 2, and the last two cost 3. You cannot go below zero.”

Minute 9: the end

“When someone finishes a full row across their wall, we finish that round, and the game is over. Then bonuses: 2 for each full row, 7 for each full column, and 10 if you have all five of one color.”

Pause on the 7. “Columns are worth more than rows. Remember that.”

Minute 10: play, then score round one together

Say: “That is it. Whoever has the marker, put it in the center and go.”

When the first round ends, slow down. Have each player move their tiles one line at a time, top to bottom, and count the score out loud while the table watches. This is where adjacency clicks. Nobody needs a scoring example before they have a wall of their own to score.

The rest you teach when it happens:

• The center piles up. Late in a round, someone may have to take a big pile they cannot use. Explain it then.
• The marker lands further along the floor. If a player already has floor tiles, the marker goes in the next free space and costs more.
• The bag runs out. Refill it from the box lid and carry on.

What to leave out

• The gray side of the board. It is a variant for later.
• Tiebreakers. Mention them only if the final scores are close.
• Strategy. Let people find their own first. They will discover denial on their own, usually by accident.

Coaching during the first game

Help with legality, not choices. “That line already has yellow, so blue can’t go there” is helpful. “Take the red” is playing for them.

Watch for one pattern: a player about to take five tiles for a line that holds two. A gentle question works better than a lecture: “Where will the extras go?”

If Azul is your first modern game together, our list of gateway board games shows where it sits and what groups tend to try next.