It’s the mini 16th century! The beginning of a golden age of interior tiny decorating in Western Europe. Recently returned from a tour of Alhambra’s finely decorated palaces, King Manuel I of Portugal has some exciting ideas for revitalising his palace. Using (tiny) colourful Azulejos – the distinctive Spanish/Portuguese tiles well known for their bright and patterned look, the King desires a bathroom that will be the envy of his court, and the world! Did you notice how the font size is tiny? And this review is about a small version of a game I have reviewed before? Yes! That’s the joke. It’s a mini review.
2-4 Players | 30-45 Minutes | Designed by Michael Kiesling
Azul Mini is the “travel sized” solution to everyone’s favourite tiling themed game Azul. In the past 8 or so years since it’s release Azul has proved to be a very popular ‘evergreen’ title, winning awards, selling best, spawning numerous sequels (you can see reviews of those here, here, here, and here) and now coming back in miniature form much like the compact versions of consoles we see released several years after.
How does it work?
It’s mini! I’m not going to go through how the game works here – you can read my original review if you want to know about that, but I’m going to talk about the physical changes that have been made to the game to make it more compact and portable.
First up, obviously the tiles have been made a bit smaller. They are roughly 70% the size of the original. Each tile has a divot in the back that helps hold the tile in place on the player boards.
The player boards have graduated from flat cardboard into a moulded clear plastic board. Slotted in behind is a reversible card that contains the patterns and other player board information. The board itself has recessed slots where tiles go that feature a bump in the middle to hold the tile. They are not quite Lego level studs but they help hold the tiles in place, up to quite extreme angles, however tipping the board too far or upside down the tiles will fall off. In my testing I was able to tip the board to around 80° (nearly vertical) before the tiles fell off.
The score board has been converted to two very sturdy sliding pegs (1s and 10s) so there’s no worries about losing your score even if the board is inverted.
Finally the whole game and tiles can be stored in the drawbag. A vacuum formed tray is included to act as the factory board, though it doesn’t include any of the tile holding features the player boards have.
What do I think?
Does Azul Mini succeed in providing a compact Azul experience? Well.. yes, it is smaller than regular Azul. But I would argue that the expectation of this product is that it provides a travel (portable) version of the game and I would say ultimately it fails to do this on a few counts.
The Good Stuff
- Azul Mini is the complete game of Azul – there are no rules cut to make the game smaller.
- The overall vibe if the game is intact – the nice drawbag, the clacky tiles, same artwork etc.
- I think the design of how the tiles are ‘held’ onto the player boards is actually quite good. Magnets wouldn’t make sense (the tiles would all stick together in the bag). A more ‘secure’ Lego style stud behind each tile would become annoying quickly. The tiles are quite firmly held at fairly extreme angles by the ‘bump’ system, only a very serious knock would dislodge them.
- The scoring pins are an improvement over the regular game’s ‘cube on giant personal track’ system.
- All the components fit within the tile draw bag which is great (in theory) for portability…
The Bad Stuff
- What’s up with the bag? Held closed with a single stud?? So all my loose Azul tiles can just fall out while I’m on the go? I’ve seen solutions of adding velcro etc to the bag mouth but really… for a travel game this should be a zip up bag.
- Where do I put used tiles? Azul sequels all provide a discard box. Nothing here, and especially for a ‘travel’ game where am I supposed to keep tile discards when playing on a flight? In my pocket? I would suggest the draw bag could have had a second smaller pocket sewn to the side for discards.
- Why is the factory tray a vacu-formed tray? It’s very flimsy, if I pack this game within it’s bag into my travel backback full of other stuff after a couple of days the tray is going to be deformed or broken. I would have hoped the factory tray was made of the same plastic as the player boards and also included the same slots to hold tiles as the player boards to make it resistant to bumps. This really looks to me like a financial decision.
So, overall – Azul Mini is Azul. If you already love Azul and want a smaller version for portability reasons it kinda is a valid thing for that. If you don’t have Azul and you would like a cheaper/compact version it’s pretty good for that too. But ultimately I think it fails to offer a ‘travel’ solution. Maybe it’s not actually marketed as a travel version (I haven’t actually checked) but my assumption is why would you make a mini version otherwise? I hope you enjoyed this Mini review and didn’t strain your eyes too much to read the mini text.
The copy of Azul Mini used in this article was provided to The Boardgame Detective by Asmodee ANZ
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