This is one of my favorite games. I like to build these maps using the cards I designed in 2001. I must have built hundreds of suburban developments by now, but I have never posted enough photos to give a clear idea of what this free card game is really like.

At first, it may appear that this is a place with the sort of street names you might see anywhere.

Then you notice some less typical street names, and some business districts.

There are lots of pizza places.

This meandering road whose name changes every few blocks seems like a metaphor for someone’s life, but in which direction?

The restless dreams of youth might be soothed with some pizza after school. Bet you can walk to Cyan-R-Us if you cut through the parking lots.

And by walking through Sprawlmart, you can get up into that neighborhood with the bridge, whereas in a car you have to go the long way around.  (Sprawlmart is a double dead-end; those are two parking lots, not an underpass.)

That’s Rambling Sprawl Estates. But it is never the same place twice. Read more about Rambling Sprawl Estates here, or just download and print the cards and rules here and start playing with it!

(I realize these are not the most perfect photos I could have taken.  They show what a real layout that you build on your carpet out of tiles printed on ordinary cardstock, with a window fan blowing in the room, looks like, lit by an ordinary overhead light.  I took the photos with my iPad, trying not to cast its shadow or mine over the terrain.  My limited success actually plays up the feeling of confusion I often have about Rambling Sprawl Estates–is it a map or an aerial view?–by adding some shadows like the ones we see in satellite photos.  My iPad and I are clouds….)