Azul

About

As of 2026, it's 9 years old.

Azul tiled its way to acclaim in 2017, a gorgeous abstract game about decorating a Portuguese palace wall, where players draft sets of vividly colored, satisfyingly chunky resin tiles and arrange them for points — while trying not to over-grab and waste tiles, which costs you. It won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres and became a modern staple.

Half the appeal is purely tactile: the tiles look and feel like glossy candy, and the game is so visually pleasing it lures in non-gamers who just want to handle the pretty pieces. Beneath the beauty is a sharp, tense little puzzle of drafting and timing.

Beautiful, tactile, and sharply strategic, Azul is the modern classic that wrapped a clever drafting puzzle in tiles so pretty people play just to hold them.