by Anja Wrede
Hi, my name is Anja Wrede, and I am a game designer from Germany. Mostly I work on children’s games, and the topic of this article is one of those designs.
The game’s first edition was called Karla Kuchenfee, and it was first published in Germany in 2010 by my own publishing house, Edition Siebenschläfer. I made the game as well as the drawings.
The game went on to be licensed in other countries, with the first one being in France in 2012 from Asmodee under the name Carole et ses drôles de recettes (Carole and her funny recipes).
Other countries followed, and I’m happy that for quite some years Hong Kong publisher Jolly Thinkers has had the game on the market as Moo’s Code or MOO斯密碼, licensing the design in several countries.
The newest version from 2019
What Is Special about the Game?
• When you look at it, the first thing you see is the wooden spoon.
• The second thing you see are different cards with pictures and dots.
• A player gets the spoon and a card that shows them what to do – how many times they should tap on the table to show the combination of items for which they are looking. They strike one to four taps for each item. In between two items, they stir the spoon to show that the signal for an item is done and there will be another one.
• These signals are fixed to the syllables of the items, so it is easy to remember them. And by the way: it is fun, and it is learning as well.
• The other players listen, then look through all the cards on the table for the matching one.
• A mouse appears on some cards, and the player screams to signal this card each time it appears.
• To facilitate the learning of the tapping structure, all players receive an aid card that shows the picture and the signals.
• Because the game is based on syllables, the items used in the game are different in the different language versions.
Why Am I Writing All This?
Looking at these pictures, you can see several versions of the game:
One differs from all the others. Oh, it is obvious, you say: Only one shows a pig, while all the others show a cow.
You are right about this, but this is not the point I want to tell you about. Yes, aside from this detail, they all look the same. Even the themes are the same: You are looking for something to eat.
But one of these is not a licensed version. One of these games is a copy.
As you might guess, the copy is Sandwich Recipe, the game with the pig from publisher Big Bear and Bee. The game is nicely made in terms of material and graphics, and when you see it, you might think, “Oh, it’s a new licensed version of Karla Kuchenfee or Moo’s Code, which are nice-looking games as well.
But no, it is 100% a copy. The number and types of cards, the number of items, the spoon, and even the winning situation are all the same as those of my game.
Oh, okay, let’s say there’s only 99% resemblance since they turned the cow into a pig.
The Company Big Bear and Bee is from China, and it started producing the copied version in 2022. Looking at the back side of the box, you even see they care about the formal information that should appear on a game box. They are trying to sell the game to companies as if they designed it and own the rights.
This is not true, not at all.
So what can we — Jolly Thinkers, the publisher, and me, Anja, the designer – do? We like to play games, and we would like to talk if there is something wrong. We like to follow rules, both while playing and while working in games.
Unfortunately, the situation about the game rights here is difficult, and while we tried to reach out to this company in China, we did not receive any answers to our request, which leaves us with several questions:
• How can I and how can the publisher even take care of the rights all over the world?
• How can we even notice if there is a copy somewhere?
• How can designers and publishers earn their living if others just take their ideas and copy them and earn money with the ideas and the work of someone else?
These are only a few of the questions that should be talked about, and the only answer I can give right now is to show what has happened to as many people as possible, so please share this report.
And please tell Jolly Thinkers and me if ever you see any copied versions like Sandwich Recipe without my name on them, or call out the copycats on social media and identify them as a copy.
Let’s stay together and hope that this copy market will not grow.
Thank you for reading and all the best,
Anja Wrede (AnyaW)
