Furnace is an engine-building Eurogame in which players take on the roles of 19th-century capitalists, building their industrial enterprises in the hopes of earning as much money as possible by buying companies, extracting resources, and processing them in the best combinations.

Each player begins the game with one random starter company card, the resources depicted at the top of that card, and four colored tokens valued 1-4.

The game is played over four rounds, with each round consisting of two phases: Auction and Production. During the auction, 6-8 company cards are laid out with their basic sides face up. Players take turns placing one of their tokens on one of these cards, but you cannot place a token on a card if a token of the same value or color is already there. Thus, you will place tokens on four cards.

Once all tokens have been placed, the cards are resolved from left to right. Whoever placed the highest valued token takes this card, but first, everyone who has a lower valued token on this card gets compensation, either the resources shown multiplied by the token's value or a processing ability (trade X for Y) up to as many times as the token's value.

Once all cards have been taken or discarded, players enter the production phase and use their cards in the order of their choosing. Each company card has one action — either production or processing — on its basic side and two actions on its upgraded side. During the production phase, you can use each card once to gain resources, process those resources into other resources or money, and upgrade your cards.

At the end of the four rounds, the player with the most money wins.

Furnace also includes capitalist cards that have unique effects, and if you wish, you can choose to give one such card to each player at the start of the game. For an added challenge, you can require players to create a "production chain", in which each newly acquired company card is placed somewhere in that chain and locked in place for the remainder of the game.

Sleeves
46x 63x89mm