Lightning Review - Azul: Crystal Mosaic
Designer: Michael Kiesling
Artist: Chris Quilliams
Publisher: Next Move Games
Year Published: 2020
No. of Players: 2-4
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Crystal Mosaic is a small expansion for the original Azul game. This expansion consists of four double-sided game boards and four clear plastic game board overlays. The game boards provide two different layouts to use when playing the base game, which add both variety and a different challenge to try to master. The game overlays though are what made this expansion a must-buy for me. I love Azul, but one thing that always bothered me was that bumping my board would easily mess up the work that I had done. With a game like Azul, you are always reaching to the middle of the table to grab tiles and for someone as uncoordinated as me, board bumping is pretty common. These overlays hold the tiles in place pretty well so that minor nudges and bumps don't send all of your pieces sliding into new locations. I have seen some complaints about the area for the scoring marker, but I haven't experienced any problems in using it myself. With the price listed right around $15, I felt that this was a perfect addition to one of my favorite games.
Find more info on BoardGameGeek.com
Stefan Yates
Stefan Yates is a professional in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Kansas State University. Finding ways to work gaming into work, he serves on the university’s Alternate Reality Game Committee and is a co-Faculty Advisor for the Board Game Club. He is also a PhD student whose field of research is Gamification in Student Programming. He enjoys playing (and mostly losing) almost any type of game and likes to work in multiple game sessions per week whenever possible. An avid solo gamer with an additional interest in tabletop miniatures games, the stay-at-home orders of the pandemic were not particularly concerning as there was always painting to do and terrain to build. Stefan is also a book and movie collector and a huge football fan (go CHIEFS!)