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. For example in the blue image above Claude tells me:

"This imagery strongly indicates that the board is commenting on the 1867 “ofuda-furi” or “ee ja nai ka” phenomenon. Reports spread that sacred talismans were mysteriously falling from the sky. Communities responded with religious celebrations, feasting, dancing, costumes, and sometimes disorder.”  

Go get lost ​. Want to learn more about sugoroku? Entropic Dreams has the skinny ​.