Review: Furnace

A well-oiled engine builder!

As a logistics professional who's always striving for optimization, I couldn't pass up Furnace. The game from Jumping Turtle Games looks fantastic and launches quickly.

Over four rounds, you build your own factory, but it all starts with bidding on new cards. You don't bid with money, but with disks (1-4), and according to a few clever rules: you can never bid the same value as someone else on the same card, and you can't bid twice on the same card. The winner of the auction gets the card, but everyone else receives compensation, which can sometimes even be better than the card itself, creating a tension between "I want that card" and "I actually want to lose."

Then you build the cards in your factory and activate them one by one. This can be done simultaneously, which makes the game surprisingly smooth. The character cards add extra variety, making each game feel slightly different.

We played it with four players, and after the initial setup, things really picked up. Furnace is a puzzle game: you have to think carefully about the order in which you activate your production and how to keep your factory running at its best. It feels great when you get everything perfectly coordinated in the final round.

As with many engine builders, the game sometimes ends a bit too quickly (there are only four rounds). And even though there's interaction through the auction, you're still mostly focused on your own puzzle in the final round. It's not a problem, but you do feel it.

Final verdict: Furnace is clever, beautiful, robust, and incredibly satisfying if you make the most of everything at the end. For fans of engine builders and tactical puzzles, this is a must-have.

Interested? You can find the game here !