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.

Originally titled “Santa Claus Takes the Intercity,” Zoutkaartje is the game’s slightly reworked/rethemed second edition. Zoutkaartje is best translated as “Salt Ticket,” which is a special kind of train ticket issued by the Dutch Railway company (NS) when extreme weather conditions occur in an effort to incentivize passengers to travel outside of rush hours for a reduced fee (40% discount). Interestingly, by some chance, this game would be the progenitor of Han Heidema’s most sought-after Winsome Games titles. After John Bohrer met Han in 1995, Han sent him Santa Claus Takes the Intercity, along with his earlier Christmas cards. Intrigued by this game’s map, John developed and published the popular Dutch InterCity game, crediting Han for its design.