Footprint
AP Human Geo · HEI
Unit 1 · Human–Environment Interaction

Footprint

Twelve landscapes are dealt face up. Thirty-six development cards come at you three at a time, and you keep one. Grow the people, the money and the food without spending the land.

How you count

You only count what you can still see. A wild tile shows a 🌿. Build on it and the photo is covered, the 🌿 is gone, and it does not come back. That is the cost of the build.

Because of that, passing is a legal move. Discarding all three cards and leaving a tile wild is one of your twelve choices.

How it works

1
Twelve landscape tiles form a 4 × 3 grid. Each shows the 🌿 it is worth while it stays wild.
2
Each turn you draw three development cards and play one. The other two are gone for good.
3
Every card names the land it needs. Tap a card and the legal tiles light up green.
Building covers the tile. Its 🌿 goes with it — mining and an oil rig leave a scar of 🌿 −1.
Twelve turns clears the deck. Your score is your weakest total. Money at 100% and food at 25% scores 25.

The four totals

🌿Environment — wild land you can still see
👥People — somewhere to live
💰Money — what the land earns
🍽️Food — what the land feeds

Printable classroom set — 7 decks + rules (PDF)

Built from Craig Ladd's classroom deck game Human Environment Interaction. See the full card list and photo credits.

🌿0/8
👥0/8
💰0/11
🍽️0/4
Pick a card.
Twelve turns, deck cleared

Your landscape

Sustainability
0

The weak link

The land you spent

Best so far

Footprint — rules

Counting, which is the whole trick

We count only what we can see. A wild tile shows its 🌿. Put a building on it and the 🌿 is covered — it is not yours any more, and it never comes back. That is what the building cost you.

So passing is a real move. If the three cards in front of you would each cost more land than they return, discard all three and keep the tile wild. That counts as one of your twelve choices.

1
Twelve landscape tiles, 4 across and 3 down. Each shows the 🌿 it is worth while nothing is built on it.
2
Draw three cards, play one, discard two — or pass and discard all three. Twelve turns clears the 36-card deck.
3
Tap a card and the tiles it may go on light up green. Next to means the four tiles sharing an edge, not the diagonals.
4
Mining and an oil rig do worse than cover the land — they take the tile to 🌿 −1.
5
Preserve Nature doubles a tile's 🌿 and locks it. Ecotourism keeps the 🌿 and adds one. Clear Cut strips a forest to flat open land. Irrigation lets a farm sit away from water.
If none of your three cards has a legal tile, the turn passes on its own.

Scoring

Each total is measured against its target. Your score is the lowest of the four, as a percentage.

The deck

Photo credits