Eric Buscemi
Today we are featuring Eric Buscemi, contributor on the Golden Geek-nominated What Did You Play This Week Podcast. He also writes a blog and series of reviews on Board Game Geek called The Cardboard Hoard. You can find The Cardboard Hoard blog here: https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/4099/cardboard-hoard and reviews here: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/212452/cardboard-hoard-reviews . Eric is a father of two kids: one boy and one girl. He is joining us from New York for his very first Granite Game Summit. Make sure to say hi, or invite him to play a game or two.
THREE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ERIC:
He was born on Christmas morning during a blizzard.
Eric is SCUBA certified, and has dived in caves, wrecks, and with sharks.
He is related to Steve Buscemi. Yes, really. He is Eric’s cousin.
Questions by Kimberly Bullock (KB), answers by Eric Buscemi (EB).
THREE BOARD GAME MEDIA RELATED QUESTIONS:
KB: Was there an ah-ha moment for you within the hobby where you decided to create content?
EB:Definitely. When I got back from GenCon in 2015, which was my first big convention, I felt compelled to write about all the cool stuff that I experienced there, and I wrote a travelogue detailing my five days there, which can be found here.
KB: How did you find yourself going from casual gamer to *one of us*?
EB: Probably when Daniel Newman asked on Twitter who would be interested in Feldcon -- a small, local convention centered around the playing of Stefan Feld games -- which he set up, and I responded that I would attend, never having met him or anyone else that would be there. I played a number of interesting games that day, such as Aquasphere and Bruges, but more importantly made a number of real life friends, including many I'm looking forward to seeing again at Granite Game Summit.
KB: What equipment do you use for recording?
EB: I have a Blue Yeti mic with a cheap pop filter strapped to it, and a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones. I, naturally, plug these high-quality pieces of equipment into an absolute rubbish laptop that I keep meaning to replace but haven't gotten around to yet.
THREE QUESTIONS JUST FOR FUN:
KB: How long have you been in the hobby?
EB: In some ways, my whole life. Standard kids games as a kid, Dad taught me how to play chess, as well as four-way chess, Mom taught me a ton of trick taking card games. Got really into Magic: The Gathering in High School, and RPGs when I got back from college. But the games that propelled me into the world of modern, designer board games were probably Munchkin, Sentinels of the Multiverse, and Smash Up.
KB: Which game do you think has the best components?
EB: Okay, I am going to exclude dexterity games from my answer, because there are so many of them with ridiculously great (and generally ridiculous) components, like Flick 'Em Up, Toc Toc Woodman, Ice Cool, and the like. So I'll say Santorini, which is objectively incredibly overproduced, but also so charming and beautiful, it's basically an art piece that invites people to come and play it.
KB: What are you hoping to get played at Granite Game Summit?
EB: I'm excited to see that the Granite Game Summit has two games in its library I've been meaning to play -- Ulm and World's Fair 1893 -- and both are play to win! Other than those, I am bringing Chaos in the Old World, which I own but have yet to play, and am hoping to join Bill Corey Jr's epic nine-player game of Eclipse.
