Matt Leacock, the creator of one of the most successful modern board games, Pandemic, has teamed up with Matteo Menapace to design a board game about one of the most pressing issues in the world today. Introducing Daybreak, a game about climate change and what we can do to help.
In true Leacock-style, Daybreak is going to be a co-op game where up to four players work together to help solve a problem.
In previous games, this has been tackling and surviving diseases or sandstorms, but how would you go about doing that with a topic as complex as climate change?
Menapace has written a couple of short articles on the thought process behind designing this game and brings up an interesting point:
“We didn’t want the game to give players the illusion that eating less meat or recycling more plastic is enough. We agreed the game should focus on systemic change on a global scale, rather than limited to (commendable but rather inconsequential) individual lifestyle choices.”
Matteo Menapace [medium.com]
Importantly, this game recognizes that the climate isn’t going to be fixed in one day, by one action, but it is going to be fixed one day at a time, one action at a time.
Sociopolitical board games
In recent years, we’ve seen a surge in board games focused around nature (Everdell, Root, Parks, Cascadia and Wingspan) just to name a few. The interest for natural and clean things is here and I think Wingspan, in particular, managed to show us all that modern board games don’t have to be violent or exclusive. They can be nice and serene.
I really hope to see more games covering these types of political and social topics. And I think we will.
The future of the game
I will be following the game closely and eagerly awaiting its arrival.
In the meantime, Polygon has written an article about the upcoming game that I would recommend you read. And if you want to see more of Menapace’s games, they are available online as Print & Play.
Oh, and you can sign up to read more about Daybreak here.