Links: Bob Ross, Exploding Kittens, and Games about Ancient Medicine

• Let's start this post with advance notice of an event taking place on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020 at 18:00 UTC: a talk by Daniel Burt from University of Oxford's Faculty of Oriental Studies on The Board Games and Medieval Medicine Project as part of the "Knowledge in Motion: Science and Medicine in the Islamic World" lecture series at the History of Science Museum, Oxford. The event is free, but you must register in advance here. (The lecture will be posted on YouTube later should you miss it.)

As for what the talk will cover:

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In this talk, Daniel will discuss the public engagement branch of the Literary History of Medicine Project, which focussed on developing board and card games on the subject of Medieval Islamic Science and Medicine and was run in collaboration with the History of Science Museum's Education Officers, Chris Parkin and Sukie Trowles. Daniel will provide an overview of the project, present the games that were made and played with the public, and look at the wider process of creating games, and how they can be used as a vehicle to engage the general public with the outputs of academic research.

Daniel Burt, ICT Officer at The Khalili Research Centre (the University's centre for the study of Islamic Art & Material Culture) has spent the last 15 years of his career working in the field of Digital Humanities developing software for museum collections, image archives, and databases to aid with academic research. Outside of work, he has been developing board games for almost 30 years, often in collaboration with established board game designer, Maurice Suckling (Freeman's Farm, Hidden Strike: American Revolution), who was also involved in the Board Games & Medieval Medicine Project, their most recent collaboration being as a team for the inaugural ConSim Game Jam which tasked them with developing a game from scratch in 72 hours.

Join us live to hear researchers share their ideas on topics from Medieval Board games and Arabic Books to rethinking what we mean by "science". Everyone from experts to enthusiasts are welcome to join. And you'll have a chance to ask questions of our speakers and to interact with your fellow attendees.

For more on the games themselves, you can visit the "Wellcome Games Project" page on The Khalili Research Centre website, then click the game links in the left-hand column. Several of the games are based on existing modern games: "Tigris" from Antoine Bauza's Tokaido, "al-kitāb" from Phil Walker-Harding's Archaeology: The Card Game, and "al-saūr" from a Todd Sanders design called Six Sons of the Sultan.

• In September 2020, Eric M. Lang returned to a life of freelance game design following three years as Director of Game Design at CMON Limited, and for one of his current projects, he's teaming up with publisher Exploding Kittens to assist with game development and playtesting. What's more, you can possibly get involved. Here's how, as explained by EK:

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Lang will be building out a community of playtesters and is seeking enthusiastic individuals who meet the following criteria:

—Identify as casual gamers or party gamers. (Non-gamers are welcome.)
—Have ongoing access to a group of 3-5 people they can safely play with in person.
—Are willing to film themselves playing the games, and submit the videos to Exploding Kittens for analysis.

To apply to Exploding Kittens playtesting community, email [email protected].

I'm not sure whether a post on BGG News is necessarily the best place to find casual gamers or non-gamers, but you are possibly part of such a community, just as I am in my household.

• In mid-November 2020, Gale Force Nine filed suit against Wizards of the Coast in U.S. District Court over WotC's attempt to end a 2017 Merchandise Licensing Agreement one year ahead of schedule on Dec. 31, 2020 instead of on Dec. 31, 2021. GF9 is asking for "Judgement for monetary damages against Wizards in an amount to be proven at trial, and which on information and belief, is in excess of $950,000.00", in addition to coverage of its attorney fees and the continuation of its agreement through the original timeframe.

You can read the full text of the legal filing at Tenkar's Tavern.

• Speaking of WotC, the company has partnered with the estate of Bob Ross to release a ten-card "Happy Little Gathering" land set for Magic: The Gathering that features ten Ross paintings. Play with them or frame them as you wish...

This set is one of WotC's "Secret Lair" projects in which it releases a small number of theme-specific cards, usually in both regular and foil versions, with new art from artists who don't normally illustrate cards for Magic. Here's another example of this work, with Illustranesia creating a new look for "Decimate" in the "Party Hard, Shred Harder" set, which is summarized as follows: "We picked five cards with the most metal names possible and turned them into Hand-Drawn breakdowns."