Daybreak

I can't remember a game that has divided opinion as much as Daybreak seems to be doing right now. This is probably due to it winning the Kennerspiel SdJ award this year, with gamers therefore taking it to task for being an undeserving winner, or lauding it for its brilliance. I am in the latter camp. Never has a theme been so relevant or a game so informative about what's facing us in reality, and yet the wonderful escapism that us gamers love so much is here in spades, with real problems presented in a fantastical scenario. None of us will ever have the individual responsibility of deciding whether to commission nuclear energy or large-scale wind farms, or to initiate projects that remove dirty energy production or pass laws that reduce our carbon emissions, but in Daybreak you do just that, whilst managing global environmental catastrophes along the way. The gameplay is genuinely thrilling and a lovely puzzle at the same time, with a brilliant engine builder at the heart of it and a tangible sense of consequence for actions taken and decisions made. I accept that there is a great element of chance with the cards that come your way, and I have won the game as early as round 2 when given the right cards, and lost the game miserably at the same point when my engine has not been fired up by decent cards. However, the theme is so strong, that when these situations happen, I am simply left with the feeling that the world just did or didn't get it's act together in terms of bringing the right solutions to fruition at the right time. Another criticism of the game is that it works well in solo mode (it does - brilliantly) but can become very multiplayer solitaire when played with more than one. This is absolutely fair comment - I have played this with others and had almost zero player interaction apart from at the end of a round. However, I have also played it with friends who, like me, are happy to spend a longer time at the table and enjoy chatting through their options. A good house rule that motivates interaction is to be allowed to swap or give one card per turn to another player, as this can then lead to good discussions and a sense of the different countries of the world actually cooperating with each other to find solutions (by making their engines work better). You may wish to add a penalty if you do decide to incorporate this, e.g. one extra emission being added to represent the resources used to share technologies. The components are simple and eco-friendly, but, I think, rather beautiful for it. This is one game where I don't think I'll be sleeving the cards - it goes against the very principle of the game's design! All in all, this is a fabulous game with huge replayability. Matteo Menapace and Matt Leacock have created a world class wonder of a game.