We're back! After a long hiatus, Andres and Ryan return to your ears. While Ryan sat at home sad, Andres ventured forth to Essen Spiel this year and now Ryan (and you) get to hear all about it from Andres. But this is about much more than Spiel. Oh yes! Andres is a bit down about board games but very up about RPGs. And Ryan has made it his mission to help Andres fall back in love with board games this year. Keep tuning in every month to hear what happens!

This is the relaunch of the Chasing the Dragon Gaming Podcast! Recorded straight from Essen Spiel 2016. Ryan and Andres are joined by Johan Bultsax Broman, and we talk about all of the awesome games we dove into at Essen this year.

In this summoning we interview Anders and Olle Tyrland, two brothers who have designed the game Battle at Kemble's Cascade, published by Z-Man Games.

We talk about their design process and how they converted a video game genre to the tabletop. Ryan reminisces about his philosophy past and talks about Barthes' Death of the Author. How much of board game design is open to influence and change by players? Does design end when a game is published?

We have special guest Ulf Hässelbäck returning to the podcast to talk about storytelling in board games.

Andres and Ryan talk about replayability in board games.

Stick around to the end to hear us have a rousing argument about whether chess is actually a game or not.

Our one year anniversary summoning! We review the past year of our gaming and podcasting, look to the future and talk about how we've changed as gamers and what we've learned about ourselves. Among other things.

How does meta-game talking affect board and role playing games? We discuss the topic in two parts. In the first, we talk about meta-gaming from game to game within a gaming group. In the second, we discuss the three levels of game talking: in game, on the table and off the table.

Interview with Martin Wallace at the Treefrog Games booth at Essen Spiel 2014.

With more Essen Spiel 2014 coverage, Ryan interviews Uwe Eickert from Academy Games. Uwe was giving demos of the upcoming Academy Games release Fief: France 1429, as well as demos of 1775: Rebellion and other games of theirs.

Andres and Ryan welcome Johan from Malmö on their journey through Essen Spiel, the world's biggest board gaming convention. Andres and Ryan went for the first time, listen to the exciting impressions of fresh eyes and unbroken hearts. This is the second part of Summoning 14, which was a preview and laid out our expectations. Listen here to find out if the reality meets the expectations!