Santa Claus Takes the Intercity (1997)

A simple game of bidding for 25 intercity railway routes on a map of the Netherlands, self-published and sent to Han Heidema's gaming contacts as a Christmas gift in 1997. Players needed to supply their own crayons or felt pens for colouring routes on the map, and each player needs a suit of 13 cards from a standard card deck. Each turn, one card from a deck of 25 route cards is revealed. Players bid to win the route by each simultaneously playing a card from their hands. Highest untied card wins the route. The highest cards, winning cards, court cards and low cards (whose definition varies depending on number of players) are discarded after each bid. As each route is won it is coloured on the map to show its ownership, a la crayon rail games. Each route is worth between 1 and 5 distance points. The winner is the player with the longest continuous route on the map when the 25 routes have all been won (or when all players are out of cards). Simple but fun. The blue cardstock of the laminated map is the only downside, as it makes darker pen colours hard to differentiate.