Azul Adds a Chocolate Twist

The popular board game Azul will receive a new version with a strange, chocolatey twist. Azul: Master Chocolatier is a new version of the tile placement tabletop game with pieces designed to look like wrapped chocolates instead of their usual porcelain tiles. The game will come with two board variants. One will be the normal Azul board while the other is meant to represent a chocolate factory, with special rules that modify play in an unspecified way. Players assumably will collect various chocolate nougats and place them inside a chocolate box in an aesthetically pleasing and yummy way. Plan B Games, maker of Azul, was also quick to note that while the game includes pieces that look like chocolate, they are just as inedible as the original game pieces.

Azul is a strategy game that involves drafting ornately decorated tiles and using them to file a 5x5 square. Players score points for filling rows and columns, and for having all the tiles in a completed row being of the same color. Players lose points when they waste supplies by not using tiles to fill their board. This marks the fourth variant of Azul, following Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, Azul: Summer Pavilion, and Azul: Queen's Garden. 

The original Azul won numerous board game awards, including the Spiel des Jahres, and is widely praised as one of the best "gateway" board games for bridging the gap between pure mainstream and lightweight board games and more complex strategy games. To date, over two million copies of Azul and its sequels have been sold. Copies of Azul can be found both in hobby stores and mainstream stores like Target, Amazon, and Walmart.

Azul: Master Chocolatier will be released this October. No retail price has been announced for the new game.