Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, is the follow up to the hugely successful game, Azul, from Next Move/Plan B Games. When Plan B first formed after Z-Man Games were acquired by Asmodee, I doubt anyone imagined their first game would be such a hit and go on to win the Spiel des Jahres Award as well as belonging on the shelves of hundreds of thousands of gamers.
Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra has a similar beautiful look and high quality as its predecessor and is themed on building stained glass windows, rather than tile floors.
The Gameplay
We don’t know a lot about the gameplay, but photos of the components will look quite familiar to those who have played Azul, and both games are from the same designer, Michael Kiesling. The drafting of tiles from the central market looks exactly the same as in Azul, but the player boards are where the differences are apparent.
The player's panel boards are double-sided and modular for an extra amount of variety between games. Additional mechanisms in the game will focus on not wasting resources, such as water and triggering in game bonus scoring.
The gameplay looks distinct enough to set it apart from Azul, but it’s still a game that fans of Azul should enjoy.
Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra - Coming Soon
Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra is scheduled to be released at Essen Spiel in 2018. It will definitely be a hot new release and I imagine it could be hard to get hold of for a while afterwards, but it’s certainly a game we’ll be wanting to add to our collection.
If it’s a good as the original, then Stained Glass of Sintra could become another favourite in our collection. My hope would be that it adds a little extra complexity and can become a step-up for introducing my family to more complicated games.