Daybreak: almost ready

Author: maurovanetti

_drafts/2024-10-28-daybreak.md

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ Carbon cubes that are not absorbed at the end of the turn cause several harmful
 
 So, in Daybreak, players have to reduce net Carbon production, aiming for Drawdown, and at the same time prevent an excess of Communities in Crisis. As already explained, Carbon production can be influenced by modifying the energy mix (more green tokens, less dark tokens) and getting rid of the other dark tokens with icons. Communities in Crisis can be prevented by collecting defensive Resilience tokens, and as a last resort by spreading the harm properly among the players -- one player with too many Community in Crisis tokens is enough to make everone lose. In order to pursue these goals, the players run Projects, both Global and Local.
 
-Projects are cards. Beautiful cards, with a nice image, some icons on top, and a symbolic description of their effects. The icons on top are "tags"; tags are used as requirements to activate the card, and sometimes the more icons of a certain tag you have, the stronger the card effect becomes. There is also a QR code in the bottom right corner of each card, if you scan it with your phone you can reach a page [like this](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1044) with the full explanation of the real-life equivalent of the Project and its workings in the game. Projects, when activated, influence the other elements of the game, creating or destroying resources, applying transformations, modifying other cards, enabling the transfer of resources to other players, etc. The interplay of effects and connectia condensed ng a card in front of an existing stack of face-up cards. This disables the current Local Project represented by the front card of the stack, and enables a new one represented by the new card. This new Local Project will take advantage of all the icons of the stack.
+Projects are cards. Beautiful cards, with a nice image, some icons on top, and a symbolic description of their effects. The icons on top are "tags"; tags are used as requirements to activate the card, and sometimes the more icons of a certain tag you have, the stronger the card effect becomes. There is also a QR code in the bottom right corner of each card, if you scan it with your phone you can reach a page [like this](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1044) with the full explanation of the real-life equivalent of the Project and its workings in the game. Projects, when activated, influence the other elements of the game, creating or destroying resources, applying transformations, modifying proper 
 - Support an existing Local Project, by tucking a card below an existing stack. This gives more stack tags, which can make the effect stronger, or prepare to fulfill the requirements of another alternative Project.
 - Spend cards to activate a Local Project that requires it.
 
@@ -63,6 +63,8 @@ I particularly like the explanatory power of the carbon emission-sequestration-a
 
 The designer Matteo Menapace has explained in detail why they chose Drawdown instead of Net Zero, and I will not repeat his convincing argument. I will add on top of it that explaining that *negative* net emission is possible *as soon as we modify the political landscape of the planet* gives a lot of hope and sense of open possibilities. We can literally reverse the damage done, the world is not "ending", the point is how much avoidable death and suffering we will endure to get our planet back. Aiming at Drawdown helps the delivery of this message that is both mildly optimistic *and* a call to urgent action. Preaching doom never triggers resistance and fightback.
 
+Part of the care for the educational aspect is the effort put in minimizing the carbon footprint of the game itself. In the game box there are no plastic component and no textiles, and yet the pieces and mats are high quality and lovely to touch. I'm not a big fan of the "carbon footprint" concept, [a PR stunt consciously pushed by the fuel multinational BP](https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham) to shift the blame onto individual consumers, but I appreciate how this product can be used as a practical example of how things can be made differently.
+
 Choosing your avatar, "who you are" in the game world, is a key element of crafting a gaming experience in the digital-game world. This applies to board games too, often in a subtle way, although the players' avatars are often invisible, or multiple, or very abstract. In Daybreak, every player is a World Power. Four World Powers are defined: USA, Europe, China and the Majority World, the last being an umbrella term to indicate every other country outside those mentioned above, but with an implicit focus on underdeveloped, more agricultural economies (imagine Egypt, Indonesia or Bolivia, not Canada or Japan). It's a simplification but it's useful because it represents different real-world scenarios and allows for asymmetric play.
 
 However, what does it mean that you "are" the United States, for example? Actually, the players play as the *governments* of this country. This game is strictly political also in the sense that it is not about individual action against climate change, it is about collective action, governmental policies. Preaching individual action is a posture that I personally consider in the best case insufficient, in the worst case flatly harmful. We need to show what must be done on a global scale. Still, the game was physically produced using materials and processes that minimise its environmental impact -- no plastics etc. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
@@ -71,9 +73,11 @@ So, you play as the government of, say, the United States. Are you Donald Trump
 
 I cannot help mentioning that the game was at the centre of a significant political controversy after winning the Kennerspiel des Jahres ("Connoisseur's Game of the Year") prize at the Essen Game Fair in 2024. The fair was during the 2023-2025 Gaza genocide. Matteo Menapace was sporting a Palestine-shaped watermelon pin, to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian people. Since the fair was in Germany, where every support for Palestinian struggles and liberation is maliciously conflagrated with antisemitism, he was falsely accused of anti-Jewish hate imagery, which is completely ridiculous knowing the guy. He was banned for life from taking part in the Essen Game Fair, a truly shameful decision by the fair organisers. [He explained his position](https://medium.com/@baddeo/why-i-wear-55cb9459d8e7) and I believe he deserves a lot of respect for that, this incident is risking to affect his career and he surely knew that there was this possibility but he decided to do it anyway for a cause he believes in.
 
-Many Project cards in the game take a political stance, which is both inevitable and healthy for a game like this. Unsurprisingly, in combination with the Essen controversy, those cards have attracted the attention of critics of both the openly right-wing "Trumpian" and the liberal-capitalist free-market types. This is part of the "cultural" sphere, according to the Rules-Play-Culture scheme, in which the game lives and on which it exerts its influence. Let's examine a few examples:
+Many Project cards in the game take a political stance, which is both inevitable and healthy for a game like this. Unsurprisingly, in combination with the Essen controversy, those cards have attracted the attention of critics of both the openly right-wing "Trumpian" and the liberal-capitalist free-market types. This is part of the "cultural" sphere, according to the Rules-Play-Culture scheme, in which the game lives and on which it exerts its influence. Some cards advocate open borders as a way to increase climate resilience, e.g. [Climate Immigration](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1109) and [Inclusive Immigration](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1108). Some cards favour collective ownership over private property, e.g. [Fossil Fuel Nationalization](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1044) and [Community Ownership](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1018). Other cards show the link between climate change and social justice, e.g. [Universal Basic Services](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1090) and [Universal Healthcare](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1097). The importance of active participation in political struggles and civic groups are highlighted by cards such as [Social Movements](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1004), [Youth Climate Movement](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1223), [Women’s Empowerment](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1222), [Resilience Volunteers](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1207).
+
+The design of the cards also takes a negative stance on a few controversial topics. Geoengineering is represented in the game, artificial sequestration has also got its own wooden tokens, but it is no silver bullet: they are exposed as weak and/or very unpredictable technologies, that cannot solve much and only delay the problems a bit -- precisely like in the real world. [Carbon Capture and Storage](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1121) and various forms of nuclear power are useful in the game, but not strictly required to win; the card description on the website is quite sobering about those cards, particularly the Global Project [Nuclear Fusion](https://www.daybreakgame.org/card/1302), an amazing technology if it ever works, but not a viable solution for the current climate crisis with its short timespan. And finally, Matteo Menapace explained that the game does not include a card for "carbon offset" or "carbon credits" because they do not fix any problem on a global scale, they just shift it around.
 
-- 
+From my point of view, this is all good and part of the appeal of the game. It's not escapist, and it's not neutral. Its optimism contrasts sharply with the dire straits in which the planet currently is. Instead of fostering dissociation and separation between the game table and the world, it makes you _want_ to fix the world in the same way. You just need to find the right moves to take.
 
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