New Release – Funtley Mill Travel Box for the Furnace Board Game
We’ve enjoyed Furnace with the family, and like the fast pace, relatively short game with some interesting mechanisms around auctions and production. One thing we immediately noticed was the large amount of recoverable space in the game box, so we again thought there had to be a better way. A regular insert wouldn’t do justice to the amount of free space and would provide all kinds of challenges for us to stick to our goals of storing flat, or on the side, with no component drift, etc.
Our “Travel Box” format sprung to the forefront as a great option to conserve space and create a compact travel package for the game, and so we now have the Funtley Mill travel box available. We test drove this over Thanksgiving with the extended family and it worked out extremely well. Packing space was at a premium, so being able to throw this into the corner of the game bag helped with making space available for other games. One added benefit that came to light was the ease with which we could slide the money and resource trays to the center of the table during the production phase so all four players could draw from them, and then slide them back out of the way for the next auction phase. Rinse repeat, and the game flowed very smoothly.
We specifically designed this so that the travel box itself can still be stored in the original game box. While we don’t have one of the optional play mats, looking at the remaining side space in the box, and some research on the size of the play mat, we are pretty confident that the play mat can be rolled up and stored in the game box next to the travel box.
Sleeved cards are supported, and we came up with a neat little design to store the bidding tokens by player color, as well as the 2-player die and extra “2” bidding token. At the end of the game, you should be able to just drop the bidding tokens one by one into their wells and they should settle into their respective level. So, no more ritualistic sorting of the tokens before you can play.
Lastly, we’ve put together a complete set of 3D printed replacement resources designed to give a little more theme to the game. Coal is now a nugget, Oil is an oil barrel, and well, iron remains an iron bar, but with a little better design that we think is easier to pick up given a better angle on the sides. The upgrade tokens have been designed after the original ones and 3D printed in three different colors. When you select the optional resource and upgrade option, you’ll be getting slightly more of each resource (+3 to +5) than in the original game in order to help reduce the need for using the multiplier tokens. The resources and upgrade tokens are also available as a standalone item in the shop – Furnace Resource and Upgrade Token pack.
To round out the travel box, we also include two cards that summarize the setup, game play, and game end; as well as providing summaries of the variant and 2-player rules from the original rule book. Everything packs away neatly in the travel box and whicn can be oriented / stored in any direction without any component migration.
More information on packing and sleeves, as well as a link to the rules cards, can be found on the Funtley Mill – Tips and Tricks page.
Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this and the game, as much as we do.