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The Guild of Merchant Ex­ plorers by Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert (Alderac Entertain- ment Group), Illustration: Gerralt Landman, strategic explorations for 1 to 4 players about 10+ years
Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West by Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock and Alan R. Moon (Days of Wonder), Illustration: Cyrille Daujean, and Julien Delval, epic campaign game for 2 to 5 players about 10+ years
Nominees
Was that your intent?
Absolutely. We put the seriousness and the scope of the problem on the table. Both Matteo and I wanted players to take the same journey we did while develop- ing the game. It was important that they experience not only the wins—positive aspects—but the complexity of the prob- lem, too. We wanted the players to live the urgency, but also be able to get out of trouble. Naturally, our intention was for people to have fun, as well. So we had to figure out how to make it all happen. That was our primary target, because that’s how you reach people. Who wants to be lectured by a game in a box? I think we’ve achieved our goal in a way that is certainly fitting for the subject, because players realize the power and influence they have.
How do you create fun in this setting?
We asked ourselves, “How do we provide an exciting journey, where the players keep improving on the en- gines they build even as events keep getting worse?” For example, players only have limited resources at their disposal—five cards per round. You can do a lot of things with these cards, and they tend to build on each other, so there’s an engine-building feel. There are also several things in the crises deck that all play- ers have to deal with—such as the inertia effect when
trying to decrease CO2, or the increase in extreme weather situations and how that affects people around the world—as well as other negative planetary events. There are 133 Project cards in the game. This increases the chance factor.
It was important for us to ensure that players get different cards each game, but also that they get to use a large num- ber of those cards to create a variety of different problem-solving strategies and solutions. At first, the game might seem to be more chance dependent, but that’s because new players don’t immediately recognize that a given card can be used in different ways. Indeed, there are very obvious approaches to building up a very strong, sustainable power supply. But you can’t rely on getting these cards every time, so you have to come up with cre- ative ways to solve problems.
Daybreak can be seen as woke. Did that create any backlash?
Not really. We only had one or two such posts; a lot fewer than we expected. I believe it’s because the people who play Daybreak recognize that we have a cli- mate crisis; and we won’t be able to reach those that deny it. I believe that there is a big overlap between gamers and critical thinkers. We received hardly any nega- tive feedback, except that some think the game is too optimistic. Ultimately, people take their own journey; some are optimis- tic, others pessimistic.
Given the topic for Daybreak, was it hard to find a publisher?
We got lucky. We had been working on the game for about a year when were ap- proached by a publisher, thanks to Eliz- abeth Hargrave, the designer of Wing­ span. We had met with her at the start of the project and asked if she wanted to join us. She declined. But when the pub- lisher CMYK asked her if she would be in- terested in designing a climate-themed game she answered, “I’m not, but I know someone who is.” So she put us in touch with CMYK, and they have been a fantastic partner. I haven’t worked this closely with any other publisher. They in- vested a lot of energy in this project and provided a lot of expertise, thanks to one of their team who also works for Climate Space [an environmental organization]. When we first showed them our proto- type, it was complicated and not pretty, and one game would last four hours. It took us a year to get it into the form you know today.
Daybreak is about collective, systemic solutions rather than individual ones. Why is that?
During our research, we were astounded
to see how many reports focus on a personal car- bon footprint. It’s actually a concept that the big oil companies developed to shift the climate crisis focus away from the industry and onto the individuals. Even if everyone uses less plastic, it won’t solve the problem. It only shifts the discussion and focus away from what really needs to be done. That’s why Matteo and I wanted to focus collective action; even though individ- ual action remains import- ant, absolutely. (tw)
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