Leacock’s Lab: December 2024 Update
Animal Rescue Team and Winning Daybreak in Real Life
In this update:
Animal Rescue Team!
Recent Appearances
Winning Daybreak in Real Life
Animal Rescue Team – Coming in 2025
Play to Z Games and Shut Up & Sit Down have just announced two new games for next year, one of which is Animal Rescue Team – a new cooperative game that I designed with friend and real life animal rescuer, Lisa Towell.
They write, “You and your friends will puzzle out the perfect rescues of creatures big and small. One game might have you arriving just in time to save a coop of distressed chickens, and another may have you fruitlessly trying to rescue a cow with a motorcycle, or cursing yourselves for ‘unfortunate horse logistics’.”
I can confirm that this is true – you can’t rescue a cow with (only) a motorcycle in this game. (This is one of those “insider bits” you can share with your friends because you’re a faithful subscriber to this newsletter.)
I’ll add that if you’re into cooperative games, like logistics puzzles, and love animals, then you should definitely give this one a look. The game will be crowdfunded in early 2025, and should find its way to your local game shop by October 2025.
Here’s a draft cover for the game (which is a work in progress):
Watch this space for more information on the game!
More in 2025
I’m still waiting on street dates for Flickering Stars and The Problem with Purrballs. I promise to share those with you all as soon as I know.
Recent Appearances
Con season has come to a close. I had a great time at BoardGameGeek in Dallas, Essen Spiel in Germany, Festival Internacional de Juegos in Cordoba, and locally at Game Market West. If you’re an indy game maker you should check that one out.
These conventions are super energizing for me. I’ll spare you the photos of the large crowds. Spiel in particular boasted 204,000 people this year! Perhaps one of them gave me Covid (the only hiccup in our travels) but even that was mercifully mild. While recovering, Donna and I played Alhambra in our hotel room after visiting Alhambra.
I also attended the Verge Conference in San Jose where I got to speak on a panel with Guido Teuber, Jane McGonigal, Rob Davis, and Nathan Cummins about the intersection of climate communications and board games. Guido and the team from Catan Studios taught attendees how to play Catan: New Energies, while I taught them how to play Daybreak. I also got to meet one of my climate heroes, Saul Griffith who inspired me when researching that game.
I also got a chance to teach Daybreak to a room full of people at the 9Zero Climate Innovation Hub in San Francisco. Thanks to Pooja Paul for the invitation!
Winning Daybreak in Real Life
When Matteo and I designed Daybreak, we wanted the game to focus on collective action because we both understood it to be the most effective way to stop climate change. But there are important actions we can all do individually that add up and make a difference. (Hint: it’s not recycling plastic.)
This month I wanted to call out advice from Saul Griffith of Electrify America. His basic take is that when it’s time to replace something—a car, an HVAC system, a stove, and so on—we can’t afford to replace it with a version that’s burning stuff since that will lock in years of additional emissions. We need go electric instead.
Recently we made the jump and replaced Donna’s venerable Honda Accord with an EV and picked up an inexpensive, portable induction cooktop to try out. This year, we’re investigating heat pump water heaters. One thing we’ve learned is that these don’t need to be sacrifices! We love our EV and cooktop.
So all that in mind, I’d invite you to check out Rewiring America the next time you have something to upgrade or replace. It’ll help you put together an electrification plan, find contractors in your area, as well as tax incentives and rebates.