Before we can create a better future, we must imagine a better future.

That was my mantra as I discovered Daybreak, the recent board game co-designed by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace. I first played it only days after finishing Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Both of these artifacts, board game and novel, are about confronting climate change through some combination of hard work, human ingenuity, and international cooperation. Early reports on the board game were mixed. It seemed Daybreak didn’t capture the same highs as Leacock’s previous cooperative titles — a tall order given his authorship of Pandemic. More importantly, it seemed that Daybreak may have tipped the scale from hopeful to sanguine. One critic went so far as to declare it “blindly optimistic.”

I’m of multiple minds on all counts. Daybreak isn’t Leacock’s finest plaything; with apologies to his many Pandemic and Forbidden Island/Desert/Sky/Jungle fans, that would be Era: Medieval Age. What it is, rather, is his most conceptual and most clear-headed design, a board game with a thesis, a tone, an intended takeaway. As prognostics go, I suspect it may well prove too optimistic — but for a different reason than some others have concluded. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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