Hi all,
I'm a new in the world of board games and I started to develop one after I got an idea after playing with my sons toys ... Game has a lot of cards, a board, a dice and a few pawns ... My problem is that the mat is quite big USA map (I plan it to be bigger then 20x20 inch) and I'm not sure if players will be confortable using it, because every player (mostly 2, but it's possible to have 3-4 players as well) will need to sit on different sides of the table with cards in hands ... will they like to play looking at inverted USA map? Map will have approx. 70 locations which will be connected in a loose grid and every line connecting 2 locations will have 2 numbers assigned ... Should I print the numbers inverted, numbers are like 161/42, they're not simple 1 digit numbers, I don't know if they're easy to read upside down ... target audience is 5-12 year olds ... Is there any game that uses real map with some information printed and where players need to sit around the table? Should I abandon the USA map idea (it can be done with anything depicted, but I wanted to add USA map as an educational component) ... I'm finishing first rough prototype and this is the only logistics problem that I have so far ...
Thanks in advance ...
. It's pretty similar to what you proposing except there's no real numerical data represented on the map. I think if you represented the data in two different orientations (up down in one direction and another up-down orientation at a 90 degree angle to the first) you could pull it off. Most people are able to read vertical oriented text quite easily and will be able to do so from either the right or left side. 
Thanks guys !!!