Episode 331 – Michael Guigliano
Mike runs the CuseCon convention in Syracuse, is one of the co-hosts of The Full 42, and much more!
331 Fact – Speed of sound at 0*C or 32*F (in dry air) is about 331 m/s.
Sponsor message – If you want to talk about how to set up a budget set up a time to talk to First Move Financial by going to Firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers today.
What We’ve Been Playing
Blue Banana (sort of) which makes us think of Stroop
Ecosystem: Coral Reef
Lords of Waterdeep – Mike recommends Asking for Trobils
Treelings
Roll Player
SNAP Review – Featherlight
Do you like collecting feathers? Now you can do it without having to sanitize them first.
Ignore the silly bird on the cover, this game is GORGEOUS! Watch the video or read the transcript of our Featherlight review.
We Like Mike!
We talk about languages for a while…
We met Michael because he runs the CuseCon convention. But that is far from all he does!
Mike was regularly running a board game meetup in Syracuse and expanded it into a full convention in fall 2019.
Also in 2019, Mike reconnected with a local teacher and together they created a game design curriculum for local highschoolers.
After March 2020, “Every Tuesday, we had a livestream” (to continue the work they were doing with board game meetups and the curriculum).
We absolutely love how welcoming CuseCon is, to all ages and all abilities. And they also pull in the highschoolers from the game design course to meet professional game designers! We love that in 2019 a kid asked Alan Moon about staying grounded with the great success of Ticket to Ride…
There’s also a CuseCon Game Designers’ Guild now, in addition to the weekly meetups and yearly convention.
3WS Th3rd World Studios
Best known for their graphic novels (The Stuff of Legend) but Mike fell in love with the board game spin-off, prior to COVID.
Mike says, “I just made a COMMENT” on the Kickstarter about how much he enjoyed the game, and then Mike DeVito reached out to him and asked if he would help out. “You know how you find your tribe?” They’ve now brought Mike into the team as the manager of game development.
The Full 42
This came out of CuseCon meetups (Tuesdays, game design group, etc) being canceled. So Mike started inviting people within the game industry to come and talk to him on a livestream. Chris Strain (Asking for Trobils) came on the show and they had such a great time in their interview and just hit it off. “I can talk about that stuff all day… I could too. Why don’t we?”
They started the show in January 2021. Shortly after they both became friends with Katia Howatson, they both realized that the show was better when she was part of it. Now the three of them regularly co-host the show.
“The Batman Game”
Mike co-designed Batman: The Animated Series – Gotham City Under Siege. It started as an Avengers-themed game for his tutoring students to practice mental math. Mike runs into Richard Launius (designer of Arkham Horror) at some conventions, makes a friendship, and asks him to look at his early prototype… “would you make this game with me?”
They pitched it around and IDW loved it… but couldn’t get Avengers licensing. But would they be interested in retheming it with Batman: The Animated Series? YES!
And being able to design this game led to everything else – CuseCon, game design highschool curriculum, The Full 42, and tons of friendships.
Find Mike Online:
The best place is Discord, either for CuseCon or for 3WS. Look for “GoogsOnTap”.
Cusecon: CuseCon.com, Facebook @CuseCon
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