Pandemic Designer Releases Daybreak

Well, if the Pandemic series of games wasn’t phenomenal enough, the designer has gone done it all again! Get Ready for Daybreak!

Yes folks, Matt Leacock is teaming up with another designer, Matteo Menapace, to bring us a new era in co-operative play. And this time, they have climate change on their minds.

Carbon reduction and making the planet a cleaner, better place for everyone is the collective aim, and they are coming at it from an informed position. With Matteo’s background as an educator, this promises to be an experience that will leave you thinking hard about big issues long after the box has been put back on your shelf.

Details are quite scant at the moment as the campaign has yet to launch. But we do know a little bit about the game play. In Daybreak, the main mechanism is co-operative tableau building. Players control their own world power. Implementing policy and technology to mitigate climate change, the aim is to compliment each other’s individual actions to strengthen all societies against the threats to life brought about by untamed carbon emissions. As a team you’ll win the game if you achieve net-zero. Let the temperature rise too high or neglect individual populations and everybody loses.

And who can argue with that? Daybreak feels like art imitating life. The threats we face from global warming cannot be resolved in isolation. Live together, die alone as they used to say in TV series, Lost, has never been truer. Teamwork is the only way to square the circle of human interests that compete for vital funding, publicity, and action. If Daybreak manages to recreate this tension then it is going to be an enlightening and exciting experience.

In contrast to Pandemic, the underlying premise of this game is optimism – that we can innovate and work together to make our world a better place for everyone before it’s too late. With engine building as the core mechanic, Daybreak promises to be the gaming equivalent of an electric vehicle; clean, hopeful, and aspirational.

The theme hasn’t been lost in production either. The Backerkit teaser page makes some bold statements – that it includes zero plastic and has over 200 unique pieces of art! As we only have 6 days to wait until the campaign launches, I’m looking forward to seeing how Matt and Matteo envisage future proofing life on our planet in Daybreak!