Tho' this is notionally a game where players are building and protecting a town, Dawn, from Green Meadow Games, is in practice a semi-cooperative social deduction game but it's one where players choose for themselves whether to play cooperatively as an Ally working to achieve collective win conditions or as a Scoundrel, building up your own treasury rather than contributing to the common good, or indeed actively sabotaging the collective.
The game is played over six rounds using cards that are in four suits: red (attack), green (health), blue (spy) and yellow (wild). Most cards also show treasure icons but some are negative rather than positive. Players always start each round with a hand of nine cards but initially two of these are wound cards which have no purpose other than to clog up a space in your hand.
A row of tiles is laid out. These will include buildings and threats. The buildings show the number of treasures needed to complete them. The threats show the number of cards of a specific colour needed to beat them. Players can't show each other their cards but they can talk about what tiles they are able to contribute to. First tho', at the start of each round, players must each play one card from their hand face-down to their own personal storehouse. It is the total value of treasure in your personal storehouse at the end of the game that will determine whether you have played as an Ally or a Scoundrel: players whose stronghold cards total 7 or more treasure are Scoundrels; if the players collectively meet the game's scoring objective for the number of players, the Scoundrels lose; if the players fail to meet the scoring objective then victory goes to the Scoundrel who has hoarded the most personal wealth.
This is a game then where players are having to gauge who is onside and working for the common good and who is only out for themselves. Because you only become a Scoundrel when you've hoarded 7 or more treasure, which will be in round 3 at the earliest, everyone starts off as an Ally. Even if you've secretly planned to play as a Scoundrel and have squirrelled away the maximum treasure you can, you might decide to change tack and stay an Ally if you see that the collective is doing rather well in the progress towards its scoring target. Likewise, Ally players who fear their shared enterprise is floundering might change tack to become Scoundrels. Switching allegiance is always an option for every player because you are allowed at any time to swap cards between your personal stronghold and your hand...
In terms of game play each round, you'll each be playing cards face down to the different tiles to contribute (or not) to resolving them. What you don't know tho' is the points value of completing a building or of failing to deal with a threat. Players always have the option of discarding a blue spy card to peek at the reverse of a tile. They can tell the others what they see; for example, the invaluable information that failing to beat the threat has no effect or that the high cost building in the row has only a tiny points value, but you may or may not be telling the truth... And using spy cards to peek at the reverse of tiles means fewer cards available to actually deal with threats or to contribute treasure to complete buildings and score points.
A player can always play three green (health) cards to dispose of one of their wound cards, and that will mean you'll get more usable cards in the next round but spending health to remove your wounds may be seen by others as a selfish (Scoundrel) act. It could be, but it isn't necessarily so - more usable cards in the next round could be to everyone's benefit. You'll attract suspicion tho' if the cards you spend would've made the difference between success or failure on one or more of the tiles.
In addition to the tiles in play each round, there are four Great Building cards with their own specific completion requirements. For these, cards that don't qualify count as negative contributions - rather like the tests in Battlestar Galactica (FFG). The final round focuses only on these buildings and the overall success or failure of Ally players will often come down to whether or not these buildings are completed. Just as blue spy cards can be played to peek at tiles, red attack cards can be used to look at two randomly selected cards of those played to a Great Building, and the player who played the 'attack' can then discard one of the cards face down. Is this the work of a Scoundrel or of an Ally filleting out a card that might be sabotaging the total for that Great Building? You can expect accusations and much banter over such plays.
Tho' the rules of Taylor Hayward's game are commendably simple, Dawn is a social deduction game that stands out from the crowd. We especially liked the fact that there isn't always a correlation between a building's cost and its points value, nor on whether or not a threat needed to be dealt with, so giving real importance to the spy function. Being able to switch between play as an Ally or Scoundrel even in the very last round, gives Dawn a strong 'prisoners dilemma' vibe. In our plays at Board's Eye View, there were some who argued that the optimal play was to max your Scoundrel stronghold out at 21 points (seven three-treasure cards) and do all you can to sabotage the prospect of an Ally victory by using your other cards for sabotage. Certainly that proved to be a winning strategy in some games but concerted efforts from Ally players were able to counter it in other games.
Dawn benefits from Angela Rizza's art, and it comes beautifully packaged in a compact pull-draw box. As a welcome bonus it incorporates a set of sealed envelopes to be opened only when certain conditions are met (ie: when a player has won as three games as a Scoundrel). These are bound to add further to Dawn's replayability.