River Valley Glassworks Review - A Less Mean Azul

[@jameskirk4692]

Thanks for the review!

[@TheGameBoyGeeks]

You’re welcome James

[@tonycork2pa469]

Is drawing "shapes" an issue, as one can "feel" what they want? Would a house rule of playing "in reverse" be better - draw and place colors on the river; draft "same shape" to columns on one's own board?

[@TheGameBoyGeeks]

The only time you’re drawing from the bag is when feeling the end of the river if someone takes that action. So also the person drawing probably isn’t even the player taking from the river next so it’s never been an issue

[@tonycork2pa469]

​@@TheGameBoyGeeks Thanks for your response, but after reading it multiple times, I concluded I don't understand the English language :)

[@TheGameBoyGeeks]

@@tonycork2pa469 I edited out the auto correct, try now :)

[@tonycork2pa469]

Thanks - I guess the point you're making is that as the river moves, the drawer has little (to no) control over what shape he/she needs when their turn comes around. Still I think, being able to 'feel' the shapes, one can more easily choose shapes not needed by opponents (hate draft) or the ones needed themselves.

[@jacobjslee]

Azul is mean? Maybe I'm playing it wrong.

[@KevinPatrickKenny]

In 2 player you can "math out" who gets dumped with a bunch of tiles they dont want/need.

[@TheGameBoyGeeks]

A viable strategy in the game is to purposefully take tiles you don’t even really want just to insure someone else takes the boat load of tiles at the end that they can’t store and a ton of negative points for. And sometimes you do this even if you could use even most of the boat load of tiles. It happens multiple times a game usually.

[@TheGameBoyGeeks]

And Not just in 2 player either

[@Nayr090]

Depends on the crowd, but Azul can be prone to hate-drafting for sure.

[@ArthurRTK]

Me too

[@kerim8666]

Designers are extremely lazy with this game, they copied their old game Subastral add some anthropomorphic animals and called it a day. I hope this does not become the norm

[@TheGameBoyGeeks]

It definitely felt different from Subastral even though bgg says it’s a reimplimentation of it. Since they were cards and You could take any other column of cards (not just one next to it) and whether you added them to your hand or placed them to your tableau was based on of what you took was to the left or right of the column you placed made it feel like a different game entirely even though the scoring was similar.