Show Notes
In episode 30, we review Furnace by Hobby World and Arcane Wonders. To start off the episode, we chat about the games that are bringing us joy and discuss tariffs in the US and how they are intersecting with the board game world, including how they are impacting our FLGS. As we discuss in the episode, the tariffs have been ever changing, and, though we recorded less than three days ago, it was just announced this morning that there is another 90 day pause in tariffs, and the overall tariffs on Chinese goods has been reduced from 145% to 30%. If you are uninterested in the tariff conversation or if it’s a little too much right now, you can skip the conversation (timestamps: 12:05-34:40.) The games bringing us joy are: Taluva, Stonespine Architects, Sea Salt & Paper, and Deep Regrets.
Furnace is an engine-builder played over 4 rounds, each with 2 phases: auction and production. Each player has 4 bidding discs numbered 1-4, a starting company, and a start-up card. During the auction, players place their discs to either win company cards or gain compensation. After all cards from the auction have been processed, each player works through their company cards, activating production and/or processing materials to ultimately produce the most money to win the game. Although a bit of a “multi-player solitude” game–as Angela likes to say–we all enjoy this game and appreciate the 45 minute play time. Though–one of us may already be questioning how long we’ll want to keep it in the collection.
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