by Michael Feldkoetter

23 Years Earlier
In 2003, I designed a card game that had few rules but required tricky decisions: COCO-NUT. Each player gets 14 palm tree cards and seven special cards. You play a total of seven rounds, for which you choose three cards each. Together the players let the palm trees grow higher and higher so it can bear more and more coconuts and thus become more valuable. The trick now is to claim a palm tree at the right time. However, due to the different special cards, this is everything but easy and you have to try to anticipate the plans of your fellow players.

At that time, I had started to deal intensively with game designing. COCO-NUT quickly became a perennial favorite in my circle of friends and family and the game was also convincing in “neutral” test rounds. I felt encouraged that I had designed a good game and now planned to contact publishers to convince them of the game as well.

SAZ Prize
A small but fine coincidence came to my aid in finding a publisher. In 2004, there was an area at the SPIEL in Essen where game designers could show their prototypes. This was organized by the SAZ (Spieleautorenzunft = Game Designer Association), whose chairman at the time was Alan Moon. He had won the “Spiel des Jahres” award in Germany this year with “Zug um Zug” (“Ticket to Ride”). He donated a sum of money and awarded the SAZ Prize for what he considered to be the best game among the prototypes presented. He chose COCO-NUT.

TENAKEE
Because of the SAZ Prize, the publisher Amigo became aware of my game and included it in its program. However, they wanted to replace the palm trees and monkeys with another theme. We finally came across the totem pole culture of the Tlingit, North American natives who lived and still live in southern Alaska, among other places. The town TENAKEE became the title of the game.

A New Start
About 20 years later, I thought it was time to breathe new life into the game. The game play was still very popular, but the theme of the game was not suitable for re-entering the market. Even though the totem pole culture is a very interesting and venerable culture, publishers prefer to give a wide berth when it comes to Native Americans. So I searched for another theme. I didn’t want to go back to COCO-NUT with palm trees and monkeys either and then I remembered Alan Moon with Ticket to Ride. Instead of playing the cards vertically like with palm trees and totem poles, I transferred the game into a horizontal direction and used trains as theme. With the title RAILWAY STAR, I now offered the game to publishers again.

Image of Railway Star
With the Korean publisher Mandoo Games, I found an extremely committed and qualified partner for my game. Mandoo Games also fell in love with the game play, but wanted an absolutely new and at the same time unusual theme. In the end, they chose hermit crabs, which collect cups on the beach to build a home for themselves: cool theme and cool graphics by Keanu Chong.