51. Daybreak

In this episode, we build the technologies and societies needed to fight climate change in Daybreak!

Daybreak is a 2023 game published by CMYK and designed by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace. In this cooperative board game, up to four players take on the role of world powers like the U.S. and China enacting climate action policies. The goal of the game is to cut carbon emissions before the planet gets too hot or too many communities are put into crisis. That sounds like a lot of heavy lifting for a board game until you consider that one of the game’s designers, Matt Leacock, is the designer of the very popular cooperative board game Pandemic, another game that does a lot of heavy lifting.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to interview Daybreak’s other designer, Matteo Menapace, about the design of the game as a learning experience. In my day job, I help faculty and other instructors in higher education develop and refine their teaching skills and as part of that work I produce and host a podcast called Intentional Teaching. That podcast gives me a chance to interview all kinds of educators about the ways they approach their teaching. I couldn’t resist reaching out to Matteo to talk about Daybreak. He and I had a fascinating conversation about learning design in that context, and I share a few clips of that interview in this first-ever crossover between my two podcasts!