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For anyone familiar with Azul, winner of the 2017 Spiel des Jahres award, the tile-drafting mechanic of Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra is instantly recognisable. What you do with your tiles, however, is a different story. Stained Glass of Sintra - The Game
With the introduction of the glazier pawn, the columns into which you can place tiles are limited unless you skip a turn to reset the pawn. You’ll also need to plan ahead carefully to ensure you are getting the most points out of every column you complete, timing it to complete on the right turn for bonus points and also trying to make the most of gaining extra points for columns already completed. To add even more variability, each column is double sided and flips over once complete, so the game setup with be very different every time.
ABOUT THE GAMES
Updated to include Azul: Queen’s Garden* Azul is one of the most popular modern board games of the last 5 years. Azul, once a title for a single game, has since become the name of a series. With four stand alone games that each sound and look similar, you might be wondering which game is right for you. What will Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra teach my kids? There is a lot of strategy in this game. Kids will learn to plan and adapt their strategies as the game develops. There is also an element of ensuring patterns will work within the constraints of the rules. Finally, there are plenty of opportunities to learn basic maths as they tally their scores each round and apply bonuses at the end of the game. The additional elements add some new considerations to Stained Glass of Sintra. You must now consider the positioning of your glazier and more importantly when to give this poor soul a rest. This is the part that some of us found most frustrating in our first game. My youngest daughter felt this extra constraint was too much and got put off. Now that we understand it a little better it’s less of a hindrance and more an interesting decision point. If I move too far to the right early, that restricts my options in future turns, but equally the panes to the far right are the ones that will be more rewarding in the long term. Deciding which pattern strips to complete first is a key decision. Completed pattern strips will earn additional points for each pattern strip already completed to the right of them.
To summarise the drafting of glass, there are nine glass factories (in a four-player game). Each offers four pieces of coloured glass, drawn randomly from a bag. In your turn, you can select ALL glass of ONE colour from ONE factory. Any remaining glass pieces in that factory are moved to a central pool. Once the game ends players will add any bonus points to their total score to determine the winner. The side of the palace board you play with determines what bonus points are on offer for that game. The components in Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra retain the high standard set by the original Azul. The stained-glass pane pieces are a nice transparent chunky plastic, but as I said they look a little more like lollies than stained glass panes. If you are looking for a crunchy abstract game with a large lean toward the puzzle category, Azul: Queen’s Garden could be a good fit for you.
VERDICT
Brandon (6 plays): Gameplay wise, Sintra does feel to have a bit more depth than Azul, but sometimes I do wonder if that depth is an illusion? Maybe I’m just conflating depth with just having a couple more choices. There is something to say about a game that makes you forget just how simple the game really is, and it’s another thing for a game to constantly remind you of things you have to think about. Sintra is less subtle than its predecessor in this way. The changes are in the forefront and they are noticeable and they make you think about them as you play. I do really enjoy Sintra though, and will save a space for it on my shelves right next to its predecessor. I think those who like the more variable side of the board in Azul will like the variable setup here in Sintra, and I think that folks who like to have a bit more control or choice will like Sintra as well. If a section of the design is completed, it is scored and then turned over to reveal a different combination of colours. If completed a second time, it is scored again and then discarded into the box. Sounds simple enough but, of course, there are constraints on both the drafting and the placement of tiles, and there are also bonuses to aim for when scoring panels and at the end of the game. And, of course, you’ll need to keep an eye on what your opponents are trying to do.
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