Whenever I’m in need of visual inspiration, I’ll head over to the the David Rumsey Collection, one of world’s great map collections. They’ve recently posted a collection of over 200 sugoroku game boards​. 

Sugoroku (translated double six) is the name of two types of dice games. The first is a type of ancient backgammon (ban sugoroku), the second is a snakes and ladders-type game (E-sugoroku). They’ve been played for centuries, but during the Edo period E-sugoroku which uses printed game boards exploded in popularity with the rise of woodblock printing. The gameboards use stories and maps to teach children history and geography. 

There is so much to see here. Pro tip, if you want to understand what’s going on, drop them screenshots a good multimodal model and ask for a translation.  Go get lost​. Want to learn more abotu sugoroku? Entropic Dreams has the skinny​.