Furnace Board Game Review: Industrial Revolution at Its Finest

Furnace is a fantastic engine-building game. Players take on the role of late-19th-century industrialists who buy companies with the gleeful abandon of someone seemingly unbothered by money, which reminded me of my approach to game purchases at board game festivals these days. The goal is churning out as much coal, iron, and oil as you possibly can for pure monetary gain, turning you into the inner profit-hungry capitalist you never knew you were. 

However, this isn’t your classic eurogame, but rather a great-looking brain burner with some novel ideas. Check out my Furnace board game review below to find out why it can be a perfect game for your collection.

Rating:	9
Playing time:	30 to 60 minutes
Number of players:	2 to 4 (1 to 5 with the expansion)
Age:	12+
Complexity:	Medium
Genre:	Industrial engine builder
Release date:	2020
Expansion release date:	2022
Publisher:	Arcane Wonders, Hobby World

Pros: 

• Fast-paced for a deep game
• Fantastic artwork and design
• One of those engine builders you just can’t let go

Cons:

• Could easily fit in a smaller box
• Expansion pack needed for solo play

Furnace Board Game Overview

Furnace is primarily a card game where, over four rounds, you’ll try to create the most profitable engine for making as much money as you can. You’ll compete with other players in auctions where you’ll bid for new companies and incorporate them into your production line. Each new round will present you with a new puzzle of “How can I convert resources into more money” and each time the answer will be different depending on your hand and what resources you have. 

While the game may seem a bit dry and cutthroat, it will also challenge you and pull you in to find a way of playing the perfect hand. The game is also an absolute delight visually. Each card has stylish and colorful art that represents your mines, factories, companies, processing plants, and oil rigs. 

Furnace has limited player interaction, but other players can and will mess up your plan if they win a bid on a certain card that you desperately need, right under your nose. Otherwise, you’re free to play cards, upgrade your companies, and produce resources however you like. 

This simple gameplay loop is deceptively engaging, and off the bat when you teach other players how to play Furnace, you’ll see a gleam of satisfaction when they click with the game. Beware, you’re quickly going to create capital-hungry monsters, that want to play Furnace as a “filler game” five times in a row in a single night or at least once every time you get together from now on.

Furnace and Auction Phase You Want to Lose

The most unique aspect of Furnace is the auction phase. This is the only phase where you’ll have direct interaction with other players, and it’s generally free of “gotcha” moments. Even if someone bids higher on the factory you really wanted as part of your engine, you can easily adapt.

Now the most interesting part of the auction phase is that you actually want to lose some of the auctions as there are compensation rewards for auction losers, too. How do you get compensated? Let’s first examine what the most important components of the game (cards) do, as the answer lies there. 

As you can see, all cards are easy to read and show the following information: 

• The top row is how much you get compensated if you bid on a card, multiplied by the value of the coin you are bidding with. 
• The second row beneath lovely factory artwork shows what the basic card will get you in the production phase.
• The third row is what you get when you upgrade your card, which you can do by spending resources. 

Most auction games don’t reward you if you lose an auction. With Furnace, it’s sometimes more desirable to get more resources than cards in the auction phase, as it will give you more options when you get to production.

What makes bidding challenging are two simple rules:

• You can’t place another coin on a card you are already bidding on. 
• You can’t place a coin of the same value that someone already bid on.

These rules prevent any confusion and make every decision during the auction as important as it gets. More often than not you’ll want to lose an auction and get as high compensation as you can get, meaning you’ll start the production phase with more resources than your gaming buddy who bought all the company cards and has no clue how to make them churn out money efficiently. 

Furnace’s Production Phase and the Occasional Paralyzing Indecisions 

The real gem of the game for me is the production phase. As someone who fanatically loves engine building in games such as It’s a Wonderful World, this checks all the boxes for me. 

Most often, you’ll start your production with your start-up card, a special card that earns some resources, converts some of them into money, and has the ability to upgrade other cards. Then the real fun begins when you’re turning your coal to power your iron and oil production, which you are aiming to sell with the highest margin possible, while also upgrading your companies. This is just a rough example, there are plenty of cards, that allow for a variety of combos. 

I loved the attention to detail that Ivan Lashin and the art team incorporated into the game. When you upgrade a card, besides clearly seeing another active production that the card has, card artwork will also reflect that the card is producing more. The factory will have more chimneys churning out smoke, more wagons loaded with resources, and plenty of other fun details you’ll discover while playing. 

Furnace’s Asymmetric Play

What keeps the game engaging is the initial asymmetry that you get by picking or drawing a random capitalist card and start-up card. 

Capitalist cards have different abilities that will influence your gameplay. These abilities are not game-breaking, but they add another component that you have to take into account in efficient engine building or a different approach to auctions.

Start-up cards can and will determine how you’ll earn points in the first two rounds, but as you develop your hand, you’ll find more efficient ways of making money in the game. 

What’s Not So Great About This Engine Building Game?

As you can see from my enthusiasm about the game, I love the puzzle aspect of it and find it hugely enjoyable to play despite the outward simplicity of its mechanics.

The one downside I see with Furnace is that it really shines only when you play with three or more players. When you play with two, you need to include a dummy player, that will bid on auctions depending on the role of the die. Thankfully, players don’t need to take a turn for him and play his production phase, as cards that the dummy player earns are discarded and resources ignored. This is an aspect that most games not designed specifically as two-player games don’t manage all that successfully. 

However, Furnace has a fantastic expansion that makes an already good game into a must-have title for every shelf, so let’s take a look at what it does, shall we? 

Furnace Interbellum – A Must-Have Expansion

Interbellum expansion adds a lot to an already fantastic game. Here are just some of the standout features:

• Can be played with 1 to 5 players (expanded from 2 to 4) – this is already enough for some expansions on the market, however, Furnace Interbellum offers much more. Two-player, and solo play, are made more interesting by introducing “Agents”, essentially NPC capitalists that are enforcing their own monopolies on certain types of resources. They can even win in this expansion since they have a method of earning money, unlike the dummy player in the base game. The expansion also adds support for a fifth player, which is great as it can be difficult to find good games suitable for five players. 
• New types of cards – the game adds more new capitalist and start-up cards while introducing new companies with new mechanics and abilities. Some of them are passive, some of them occur instantly, while some are a variation on an already familiar theme.
• Managers – besides bidding on cards, you’ll also get to bid on managers which will add additional effects to your company cards. 
• Variable capital disc (coin) – If just having four discs to bid with isn’t enough for you, now you’ll have one that will vary in value depending on how much coal you spend on it to boost it. 

For some games, expansions similar to Furnace Interbellum are there to patch up a decent game and make it good. This is an exception where it adds to the tactical challenge of the game, by making the puzzle, that is Furnace board game, into a masterpiece.

Is Furnace for You?

Furnace is a fantastic addition to anyone’s board game collection. A unique visual style, gameplay loop, and solid engine-building mechanics are just some of the things that stand out. I like it for being flexible enough to be played as a filler game between larger more crunch eurogames, but also deep enough that you can dedicate a whole board game evening to it and play several games. All in all, Furnace is a true gem, and one of the best board games of 2023 without a doubt.