This game does something impossible

Thank you to @GamesNight and my players!
- Dom @domainofscience

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Some stock footage courtesy of Getty.
Edited by Luke Negus.

The best board game about climate change, the best representation of climate change in a game, and maybe the most fun you'll have saving the world. Daybreak is a fun game about the climate crisis and how we overcome it. I play with climate scientists and gamers from the yogscast and discuss why I love it so much. If you like board games and care about the climate crisis you will want to check out this actual play board game video about Daybreak.

Huge thanks to my supporters on Patreon:
Norm Zemke, I want to roll down a hill into a river of beans, David Mann, Ben Thayer, Eric A Gentzler, Glen Monks, Daniel Chen, Gary Stark, dryfrog, Marcus Bosshard, Peter Reid, bitreign33 .

Jacob, Bastian Pranzas, Lucas Johnston, Jeffry ., Whitefang, Marius Kießling, Jon Arlov, Artem Plotnikov, Paul H and Linda L, Andy Hartley.

Duffman, Claudia Kapp, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Baerbel Winkler, OldGreyWolf, Oscar Hoffmann, Andy Parr, Ricky Jones, Guy Markey, Nicholas Hamdorf, Katharina Hartmuth, Mark Phillips, Jor Eero Raico Svederic, KJ Xiao, Martin Sinclair, Matt Beer DFC, Tschäff Reisberg, Tobias Ahsbahs, James Gaskell, Denis Kovachev, Michael Thomas, Victor Gordan, Joona Mäkinen, Tanner , Dominik Rihak, Nico Casal, Laura Glismann, Mark Harper, Ryan, Inten, Tyler Schwartz, John, James Haigh, Rick Kenny, Bailey Cook, Sergio Diaz, Aisolon, Christopher Mullin, I'm stuck in a PhD and I blame Simon., Joseph , Nicklas Kulp, Thomas Newman, Anže Cesar, Josef Probst, Kevin B, Phineas, Ishaan Shah, AngryPanda, Circuitrinos, Mark Richardson, Brian Moss, Hampus Sandell, Thomas Miller, Knut Nesheim, Dajeni, AYS , Forever Bulking, Kim Parnset, Crisan Talpes, Pawel Piwek, Ted CLAY, Mike, Seb Stott, xawt, Diederik Jekel, Fuzzy Leapfrog, Jan-Willem Goedmakers, Samat Galimov, Ashley Hauck, Nico, Thibault , GGH, FireFerretDann, Ciotka Cierpienia, Sam, szigyi, Marcin Wrochna, Tom Painter, Phil Saici, Ashley Steel, Simone, Tomás Garnier Artiñano, Steffan , Adam Gillard, Christopher Hall, Miguel Cabrera Brufau, Sylvus , Florian Thie, James Gurney, Eddy Torres, Clemens, Andy Giesen, Jacob Speelman, Robin Anne McDuff, Jean-Marc Giffin, Cifer, Felix Winkler, Christian Weckner, Quinn Sinclair, Ebraheem Farag, Thomas Charbonnel, Sekhalis, Mark Moore, Philipp Legner, Zoey O'Neill, Justin Warren, Heijde, Trevor Berninger, streetlights, Gabriele Siino, David Mccann, Leonard Neamtu, James Leadbetter, Rapssack, Dan Sherman, Matthew Powell, Adrian Sand, Morten Engsvang, Haris Karimjee, Alex, The Cairene on Caffeine, Cody VanZandt, Casandra “Kalamity Kas” Toledo, Igor Francetic, Daniel Irwin, Sean Richards, Michael B., Thusto , Lachlan Woods, Dan Hanvey, Andrea De Mezzo, Real Engineering.

[DJAvren]

As a kickstart supporter of this game, i am so happy it's gaining traction. It is fun and challenging to play, and it fills me with a bit of hope for the future.
Making almost all components sustainable in production (not even shrink wrapped when shipped) was a good way to underline their message.

[EstherV]

Monopoly was originally designed to show how rents enrich landlords and impoverish tenants - it was called The Landlords Game. There were 2 sets of rules and it was to be played once under each set, thus demonstrating the terribly damaging unfairness of the prevailing system of accumulating rents to large land/property owners, and to provoke discussions about how to do things more fairly. One set of rules involved taxing the landowners and one did not (I’ll leave you to guess which set of rules became the more aggressively competitive game which wrecks many a family Christmas now…).

As originally conceived, one player achieving a Monopoly was the losing scenario. The wiki article says that the game’s creator, Elizabeth Magie “hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood”.

Time for someone to reboot that?

[GamesNight]

Wait a minute, this game is trying to trick us into learning stuff! Haha, you're always welcome down here Simon :)

[shezario]

+100 for "we don't want edu games" that term unfortunately has been burned by so many shit attempts. Games have been educational for a long time (civ anyone?) and are the single best tool to affect behavior and learning (theres a reason its the biggest entertainment industry and why we use simulation to train pilots etc.) but the implementation is what matters.

[aficklefangirl]

My mom's favourite board game is pandemic (and it isn't even close, she really loves that game!!) so I think I've found a christmas gift for her! She is also on the board of our local community centre and they have board game nights every fortnight so I can totally see her bringing it in to share with them and starting conversations about climate change :)

[eric]

The mechanics convey the information -- like condensed metaphor in poetry that forces you to think in a new way - a new mental picture popping into your head!! IT WORKS!

[shenrr]

I was so ready to get it, and it's a 40€ delivery to Europe. Please consider more distribution! The idea is fantastic.

[JarrodBaniqued]

I notice Daybreak is like a miniature version of the World Game invented by Buckminster Fuller in 1969.
The Game was first carried out by Fuller and 26 of his grad students, each playing a diplomat representing a given region of the world, and working on a basketball court-sized Dymaxion world map. There is typically a given goal for the Game—the original was ending energy poverty, but world peace, illiteracy and hunger are others that have been used. The Game’s holders have wide discretion over the format, but one example for a four-hour session might be three 20-minute rounds of trade. The UNEP, UNHRC, UNESCO and WHO and four fictional corporations may also have facilitators.
The goal, as with Daybreak, is to encourage cooperation among players, and crucially it relies heavily on real-life and real-time data. It would be nice if multiple people on Twitch or YouTube streamed a whole World Game, as it would be with Daybreak

[eric]

We DO have to all win, OR WE WILL ALL LOSE....

[danilooliveira]

I love how geoengineering are gamble cards, it's such a nice touch. though I would love if the game had some competition, it's even an interesting expansion they could make. because while I love cooperative games, I also love the idea of a game with this theme where people are trying to win, but if they try to win too hard everyone loses.

[WDSolutions]

Pandemic was surprisingly joyful and fun to play (I know, strange considering the topic) so I expect this game to be equally hopeful.

[NewAge]

The difference with games compared to other media is that it gives the participants agency over the course of the story. For most people the game's theme elevates the experience from crunching numbers to seeing the impact of their actions. It offers us a chance to take risks that we might not want to take in real life, and only suffer the consequences for the duration of the game.

When both groups said it was a stressful experience, that's not something you want to go to sleep with every night, but it does help some people to start thinking about the positive change that comes along with reducing the impact of the climate crisis: if executed reasonably well, other parts of life will become more enjoyable and comfortable.

[trevinbeattie]

As a gamer and BoardGameGeek regular, this episode had me totally geeking out. 🤓 Pandemic is one of the games in my collection as well as Roll Through The Age: The Late Bronze Age and I’ve also played Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert, so I know how good Matt Leacock’s games are. Looking forward to the full play-through on Nebula when I have the time to watch.

[eldrago]

"we'll use the women's empowerment to destroy the youth climate movement" is not a bad summary of the effect of Andrew Tate on youth politics over the last 5 years.

[styfen]

Daybreak is an absolute darling amongst us board game critics. It's close to perfection.

[gljames]

Cooperative is the commonly used term which is funnily enough the type of firm we should encourage.

[TheSpearkan]

Very surprised to see Simon namedrop Terra Invicta as an example of a game that looks at solutions to climate change.

Mind you, in defence of its lesser implementation of it, it does a LOT of things at once: Geopolitics, colony building, spaceship design, realistic space combat, realistic orbital mechanics, realistic future technologies. It does make sense that some complexities regarding climate change are lost simply by engine limitations.

Mind you, I do like this game and would recommend if you're into grand strategy with emphasis on grand.

[tiadeets]

I was at a climate activist camp the other day and we realised there's no website that has a database of all of the many climate/sustainability games that exist and I really want to start one because there are so many like these that are great!

[georgesos]

I want to see a group of bankers, corporate CEOs and politicians playing this ..😊

[abody]

Clever way of getting more systems thinking into the population.