Tue. Sep. 15, 2020

Living Starship is clicking along very nicely in development. On top of everything we’re creating a lightweight roll & write version of the Academy segment of the saga to be included in a design contest over on Board Game Geek.

You can follow along on the process and help vote on it and all the other super cool concepts that other designers are developing.

Sat. Aug. 29, 2020

The prototype of RANKaree (2nd edition) arrived yesterday and we played it a couple times last night. It looks (and feels great) - well-deserved kudos to The Game Crafter. Irritatingly, we already found some graphic errors - we uploaded the Sergeant Major icon on every one of the enlisted Health crew cards…..arrgh!

The game now includes the Command Expansion material - 3 Command Mission Tokens and 20 lead characters cards derived directly from the primary Living Starship storyline.

The new rules booklet is also available.

Sat. Aug. 22, 2020

We have accomplished quite a bit this month. We have “re-mathed” the custom dice for Living Starship and had new stickers printed. This time we have included a full set of color-coded dice for each of the seven Division.





We also printed custom stickers for the “card-crafting” elements of each player’s character deck. All of these we were able to do with the amazing services of The Game Crafter.

Now that we are entering an active play testing phase for the new rendition of Living Starship, we are taking some time to revamp RANKaree. We have come up with a super slick 3D rendering of the crew maples for the cards.





We also are going to implement “Named” Character cards from the main Living Starship saga that can be optionally added into the game to enhance the strategic choices in the game for those that want a little more “meat” on the bones of this casual game.

Thu. Aug. 6, 2020

So…long time no post. The COVID-19 pandemic has definitely put a damper on things for us. We had to move in the midst of quarantine and are still not back to doing live shows or live gaming or conventions or any of that fun stuff.

But….being forced to rethink how we’re producing Living Starship has led us to a fascinating new direction - subscription tabletop legacy gaming.

Since it is unlikely we will be able to pursue the idea of our live mega-game events anytime in the near future, we are pivoting to make new chapters available to play every month via subscription “game in a box” methodology.

Every player will create a crewper (crew member) that will serve on ONE gargantuan starship along side EVERY OTHER PLAYER that is part of the subscription service!

Your actions each month will have measurable impact on the viability and ongoing sustainability of the ship as well as have opportunities to impact the the over-arching epic story line. The more you play and the higher you go in rank, the more influence you will have on the saga.

Stay tuned for more details!

Mon. Apr. 20, 2020

The COVID quarantine has enabled me to FINALLY launch the Patreon page for Living Saga content!

So much of Living Empires, Living Metropolis and Living Starship is starting to take shape that I decided to use this free time to enlist you in this endeavor.

As with most creative projects I have tackled over the decades, the best results have always come from collaboration. I have created a monolithic setting which has a monumental story to tell and having you participate in the process will only make it better.

There are hundreds of stories to tell, tons of artwork to share and loads of tabletop gaming content to play. SO go ahead and scour through some of the information that is on this website (we’ll be updating it as time allows) and then consider becoming a Patron and helping to support us (especially since most all of my revenue sources are on hold for the time-being….stupid pandemic….🤬).

Sun. Mar. 29, 2020

Since we are all stuck at home (thank you pandemic), unabashedly inspired by Jamey Stegmaier’s “Rolling Realms” game, we have developed a simple Roll & Write game featuring the Alnite drag personalities.

The theme is to fill out as many of the sections as possible (earning a geometric shape) to flesh out a drag persona on the figure at the bottom of the sheet. Your score improves the more shapes you have that match each other.

Any number of players can play this game simultaneously. Each player needs 4 standard dice (6-sided) and a copy of the sheet to fill out. You can download the image of the sheet and load it into Google’s JamBoard where you can mark it up as needed.

We will be doing some live streaming of the game where players can join us and chat while they all play along.

Fri. Feb. 28, 2020

It’s been a busy month with a solid amount of play testing for Living Starship: Academy Preludes. It’s looking like the Roll & Write mechanic is going to be transforming into Roll & STICKER.

Since the end result of every variation of the Academy Preludes game has been to fill out the character cards, we decided we might as well make the sticker-ing of the crew cards the actual method of the game.

Mon. Feb. 10, 2020

It feels like Living Starship development is hitting light speed these days. Episodes 1-3 of the game are solidly hashed out and ready for intense play testing over the next couple of weeks (as soon as the polyhedral dice stickers arrive).

We’ve rewritten the descriptions of the game and its contents on the Living Starship Game page and we’ll be updating the Board Game Geek page for it as well.

Thur. Feb. 6, 2020

Had a couple small tuck boxes printed by PrintPlayGames.com for Living Starship.

We wanted to see how their quality is on these products (we’ve used them quite a bit for stickers and blank dice). The quality is quite nice and they will serve to store individualized sets of crew cards for different players and/or for different builds of your ship and crew.

Thur. Jan. 23, 2020

Living Starship continues to get fleshed out. We have cobbled together a working prototype of the latest ship board. It is two-tiered and we even lighted the underside of the top deck so that the lower deck doesn’t dwell in darkness.

Wed. Jan. 15, 2020

We finally had three days of concentrated time this last weekend to really dive into the design and layout of the Living Starship officer, crew and location cards plus retooled the game board to reflect the current changes.

The officer and crew cards feature polyhedral dice icons so you know, at a glance, exactly which dice you need to add to your pool on any given away mission.

We have a test set of custom dice on the way (custom d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12) that we are excited to take a gander at and show off at play tests.

Wed. Jan. 8, 2020

Well, the holidays kept us very busy along with a slew of performances. At the end of the year.

We are excited to announce, that in partnership with Drag Haus Alnite we are launching a bi-weekly narrative, fantasy drag show in Denver starting January 9th.

The show is entitled Bandersnatch - Choose Your Own DRAGventure and the first 6-week story is Enchanted Forest.

Sat. Dec. 1, 2019

The latest renditions of crew cards for Living Starship.

Named characters (mostly officers at the start of your game) will each have a full, tarot-sized card. The deck of enlisted crew will have 2 crewpers per card but you will have to choose which side you want to use on your turn. No crewper can be reused until all crew have been activated for duty.

Wed. Nov. 20, 2019

Now that Academy Preludes is settling into solid footing as the game it needs to be, we are turning our attention to working out the final version of Rise to Command.

Players will take the crew characters they trained in Academy Preludes and put them through their paces to see who rises to the highest rank and to gain their first captaincy commission in the Fleet.

Wed. Nov. 13, 2019

This Sunday at the Board Game Republic in Denver, CO, we will be play testing the latest version of Academy Preludes - the first chapter game in the Living Starship saga. It is a roll & write style game with custom dice.

Tue. Oct. 22, 2019

The Kickstarter campaign for HouseBoy is LIVE!





Fri. Oct. 18, 2019

Big news! The Kickstarter campaign for Houseboy the Board Game (3rd edition) will go live next Tuesday, October 22!

Wed. Oct. 9, 2019

We are just about ready to launch the Kickstarter campaign for HouseBoy. We’re keeping it extremely simple without all the clutter of extreme bonus material and endless stretch rewards. The idea is to get this fun and easy game into as many hands as possible.

Also, we’ve had a banner idea for a recurring, interactive drag show here in Denver (more details to come as the solidify):

Wed. Sep. 25, 2019

The launch of HouseBoy (3rd edition) on Kickstarter is almost here. We’re sending out the last review copies and putting the final details on the campaign.

The plan is to keep the campaign simple and straight-forward (pun intended). The bloat that so many game campaigns have in terms of reward levels and stretch goals and all that seems needlessly overwrought for this fun and campy game.

You can watch the campaign splash video on Youtube:

















In related news, a friend of ours in the UK has produced a terrific 5th edition RPG supplement for the LGBT community. Check it out on Kickstarter NOW!

Wed. Sep. 18, 2019

We dusted off the 7 Sign Circle cards and stuff for the monthly Game Designers play test event here in Denver last weekend.

We tweaked the rules for one of the game variations and it played very well. So well, that it may be as good as RANKaree. Now we’re all enthused to work on it and other variations some more, though we don’t have time….gggrrrrr.

Wed. Sep. 11, 2019

SO MUCH is in the works right now, it feels kind of overwhelming at times. We have a ton of exciting shows and products coming your way:

Twisted Thursday Drag Bingo

Starting September 19th and continuing every 3rd Thursday at Board Game Republic in Denver. Cheeky Dingo Games is partnering with Haus Alnite (a Denver-based drag troupe) to bring LIVE gayme show entertainment.

Tabletop Tuesdays

Starting September 24th at Hamburger Marys Denver, we will be launching a weekly event featuring fun party, card and board games followed by a Jackbox TV tournament.



Learn new games, play your favorite games and make new friends! EAT-DRINK-PLAY- and BE MARY!

Wed. Aug. 28, 2019



A boat-load of exciting live game show projects are at the cusp of kicking off in September!



Cheeky Dingo Entertainment is teaming up with Haus Alnite, a Denver-based drag troupe, to bring Space Bingo to Board Game Republic.

We are also planning to do a live, interactive role-playing game show called Drag Stars & Dragons.

Fri. Aug. 23, 2019

As Living Starship coalesces into a terrific legacy game, the story that is emerging is triggering ideas and concepts for plot points in bothers predecessor games - Living Empires and Living Metropolis.

The overarching story is truly epic and makes my brain hurt of I think about it too much.

Wed. Aug. 14, 2019

Gen Con was a tremendous experience, though we feel like we’re still in recovery. It was exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time.

We are now back to work and Living Starship content is flowing forth at a rapid pace. We are in the midst of converting the HUNDREDS of icons into vector format to optimize speed in the companion app.

One new development that came out of this process, is a new Command Division insignia that shares stylistic similarity to the other seven Division emblems.

Wed. July. 9, 2019

Now that the holiday is done here in the US, we’re crackin’ the whip and getting back to work on Living Starship. Crew cards got some slight modifications to better designate the relationship of the information to what dice they can use:

Plus, we’ve hammered out a working set of custom d6 dice, now numbered with the various Division icons (for coolness and to help the color blind) Science Division dice sides depicted here:

Mon. June. 24, 2019

We’re putting on the polish for the Houseboy 3rd Edition Kickstarter (coming’s on July 15 as part of the “Break Kickstarter” event).

We’re also diving into the meat of the story for the Living Starship Legacy Missions along with re-working ALL the crew cards (now tarot-sized), new mission cards and a new ship layout for the main board!!!

Wed. June. 12, 2019

PRIDE is upon us here in Denver so we’re busy with shows and parties and things, but we’re waiting info from our printing partner in China about producing Houseboy en masse.



Stay tuned for the Kickstarter as soon as we have all the numbers together.

Wed. June. 5, 2019

The prototypes of Houseboy 3rd Edition have arrived from the Game Crafter and are being prepped for send out to reviewers.





Tue. May. 28, 2019

Here’s a fun throwback video from the first edition of HOUSEBOY:

Wed. May. 22, 2019

BIG NEWS!

Coming to Kickstarter just in time for Pride season - Houseboy the Boardgame (3rd edition). What better way to celebrate this gay season than with the first gay board game!

Stay tuned for further details as the emerge….

Wed. Apr. 24, 2019

Starfest is this weekend! Are you prepared to join Cit Fleet and serve your galaxy to the best of your abilities?

We are printing the latest game boards and assembling all the bits, parts, pieces, cards, dice, pens and whatnot to make for a spectacular debut.

Frustratingly, the dice-rolling trays we ordered are not being delivered. Apparently Amazon damaged the package and returned it this morning….gggrrrrr. We’ve ordered a new set that will hopefully arrive by Friday.

Today we are updating the Race Profiles for the ten races we have currently developed for gameplay.

Wed. Apr. 17, 2019

Starfest Denver is getting close! We’re super excited to be premiering the Living Starship Live Action Experience there and are getting all our ducks in a row.

The character cards arrive from the printer today and we just finished designing the Service Mark cards that will be used by players to keep track of their advancement through each rank as they continue to work the starship and go on missions.





Wed. Apr. 10, 2019

So we’ve combined the Ship Function board and the Away Mission board for the Living Starship live-action experience. Firstly, this puts all of the player’s active choice information in one place. It also reduces the footprint of the space needed in our booth (yay!)





Wed. Apr. 3, 2019

Final touches are being made to the 24x36-inch easel board for the Live Action Living Starship convention experience. It will make its big debut this month at Denver’s Starfest on April 26.

What kind of crew member will you be?

Wed. Mar. 27, 2019

After two weekends of play testing the “Live-Action” versions of the Living Starship games, several tweaks and modifications are being made to the boards.

Here you can see that we are adding the full-word description to each of the Department Specialty score boxes (the Agency row has the new format and the Engineering row shows the old format):

Thu. Mar. 14, 2019

It’s finally all coming together. Supplies are on the way and game development is mostly complete for Live-Action Living Starship!

We set up a booth at conventions where you can, in mere minutes, have a complete Living Starship experience. You will take a raw cadet and train them in Academy Preludes, then rank them up in Rise to Command and then post them to a massive dreadnaught starship and enter them into an ongoing story in Legacy Missions.

Players will be issued a cadet card on which they will add stickers as the character becomes defined throughout the game. You can record your Academy class results on the back of the card. You will likely suffer injuries and stress during your time onboard, but you can get those taken care of in lieu of rolling some of your dice.





Wed. Feb. 26, 2019

We are developing a new version of the Space Opera Games specifically designed to be played in MINUTES at conventions.

You will receive a Cadet pamphlet and your first stop at the Living Starship booth will take your cadet through their training the Fleet Academy.

Once they have graduated and been assigned a Division and Department of service they will move on to a Rise to Command experience that will “level them up” and provide them the rank they will hold for their next assignment - crewing on a massive dreadnaught.

Now your character’s job will be to work on the massive starship keeping it in top shape and going on Away Missions to fulfill the ship’s agenda as assigned by Fleet Admiralty.





Wed. Feb. 27, 2019

We had a good weekend at Ghengis Con here in Denver. We even met the organizer of Kubla Con (a huge game convention in San Francisco) who loved RANKaree so much he came back and played a second time.

We are now looking to take the entire Living Starship Space Opera on the road over Memorial Day weekend this year and set up at Kubla Con. We will be offering an abbreviated (5-10 minute) experience, a “ taste test” if you will, at our table wherein people stopping by train their cadets, rank them up and participate in a vital mission as part of the crew of a foul starship.

Our plan is to test out the methodology here in Denver at some upcoming venues and events, most notably Starfest in April.

Wed. Feb. 20, 2019

This weekend in Denver is Ghengis Con. We will be running play tests of both Academy Preludes and Rise to Command on Saturday and Sunday.

Wed. Feb. 13, 2019

HouseBoy is getting freshened up with what we’re calling the 3rd Edition. Gameplay will have more strategic decision-making choices as each room of the mansion can only have a limited number of chore cubes in it. This means that when you add cubes to a room you will be bumping out the oldest cubes already there.

Also, we’re switching from a traditional fold-out board to individual, double-sided room tiles. This will afford greater variety in game setup and reduce the size (and hence cost) of packaging as a smaller box can be used.

Tue. Feb. 12, 2019

This week there will be two opportunities to play test Living Starship: Academy Preludes.

First will be Thursday night (7pm) at Mile High Hamburger Mary’s and then on Sunday at Board Game Republic from 3-6pm.

Academy Preludes is shaping up as an easy dice-drafting/worker-placement game with some depth to the strategic decisions needed to get your Fleet Cadet to the top of the class.

Thu. Jan. 24, 2019

We did some play testing this last weekend of the latest version of Legacy Missions for Living Starship. It illuminated one issue in particular, that the action methodology for each crew character is not as intuitive as we had thought.

So, we have streamlined it even further. Each crewper will roll Skill Dice every turn that they activate. This means that the discs that get stored up on the ship are now classified as a “stockpile of success” that can be used by anyone to fulfill missions and tasks and to activate ship systems.

This will mean more dice rolling (an exciting bonus for some players, perhaps a tedious task for others)!

Wed. Jan. 16, 2019

With so much Living Starship content coming together, we’re looking at launching the Kickstarter campaign for it in late April (to coincide with Starfest in Denver where we plan to demo all the Space Opera games).

With the discovery of acrylic discs (from the Board Game Geek shop), we have just revamped the ship board in Legacy Missions to replace the acrylic cubes with acrylic discs (which will have stickers added to them shortly).

One significant issue this change addresses is it makes distinguishing each of the 35 Department resources easier for color blind people and will keep all players from having to remember things like: “Was this purple cube we stored on the shuttle from Medical or Counseling?” Now each disc will be labeled and still retain that light-catching coolness of acrylic.

Also, we think the board has a cleaner look:

Wed. Jan. 9, 2019

Happy New Year! We had some time off over the holidays to recharge batteries and whatnot. Now we are plunging back in with finalizing all the Living Starship Space Opera elements in order to bring it to Kickstarter this spring.

Here is is peek at the “Maneuver Boards” that bring a light tactical element to the Legacy Missions game and how your crew uses their ship in relation to other vessels both in normal space and Dynamic Space (the FTL zone).

In normal space, the closer your ship is to other vessels (you sit at Range Zero in the center), the fewer difficulty dice you roll when interacting with them but they draw more impediment cards. The further away they are, you will have to roll more difficulty dice but they draw fewer cards.

Dynamic Space, colloquially called "Streaming Space”, has as much in common with maritime sailing as it does with interstellar travel. Access to Streaming Space is granted through gates that are charged with dark matter and gravity particles, but once in there, navigators must utilize their piloting skills to “float” along the currents between gates. Energy discharges and engines are useless in helping correct your coarse, but well-timed release of matter (usually air vented from inside the ship) can help keep ships from drifting into oblivion.

Wed. Dec. 19, 2018

Academy Preludes and Rise to Command are really starting to flesh out with clean dice mechanics and interesting strategic choices players need to make using their character’s motivations.

It’s been quite rewarding finally being able to work in the motivation mechanics after so many failed attempts over the years. It’s bringing the story-telling and character-building aspects so ,much more depth.

Sat. Dec. 8, 2018

We have a new supplier of merchandise for Living Starship wearables. They print entire shirts so you can now get replica uniform tops that have a full 360 degree design (not just the front panel)!

We’ve uploaded the enlisted crew styles for men’s shirts. We’ll get the women’s shirts and the hoodies next.

Thur. Dec. 6, 2018

We’re continuing to put together all the major details of the Space Opera games. Today has been about fleshing out the details of the Prizmidiin (pronounced PRIZ-MI-DINE) Sector, the portion of the Citadel Galaxy where your starship crew will be working at the opening of the saga. Here is an outline of the locale:

The Prizmidiin Sector, colloquially called the Aleela’Nahn Sector, sits on the perimeter of the Citadel Galaxy on the far opposite side from the alien Krukari incursion. Due to its distance from the war, the residents of this sector have felt little impact other than the reduction of Fleet presence and services. Fleet resources are being called to the war front in greater volume every month.

This is leaving increasing opportunity for dissidents and seditionist influences to gain traction in local politics and society. Piracy has markedly increased as has rhetoric from isolationist demagogues.

Mhatz Kee Zifr, the local pirate planet, has dozens of settlements secreted across its surface even though its biosphere is incapable of producing food of nutrient value for any race. One year ago, not long after the first attack by the Krukari in a distant sector, the planet suffered major tectonic upheaval that caused a burning rift to open across multiple continents. The tear in the planet’s surface is visible from far orbit and spews gas and smoke into the atmosphere wreaking havok with the ecosystem.

The Aleelu and Nahn civilizations dominate this sector and wield the greatest political influence. Chandonon culture is heavily influenced by the nearness of Aleelu Prime, and it is not uncommon for people to confuse the two races as they share much physical similarity. The Vedon’Rek are reclusive, a trait only enhanced by the distance of their single colony from the rest of local civilization. The Dugatot have long been among the most vocal of societies pushing for greater independence for the colonies and striving to reduce the need to rely upon the galactic government for many of the basic necessities of life.

The Prizmidiin Mining Outpost is operated by a committee comprised of members from all the local colonial governments. It supplies a large portion of raw materials for construction and water supplement used by all the denizens of the sector. Over the last two centuries, it has evolved into more than a work encampment and into a full-fledged recreation destination.

Many of the asteroids large enough to have gravity, have been riddled with tunnels over the centuries. These warrens have been adapted to house concert venues, theaters and playgrounds that draw performers and families from all over the galaxy.

The Vandoreen Research Station is operated by the Vedon’Rek Star Society, a collective of elite scientists who work to plumb the reaches beyond the Citadel Galaxy looking for habitable planets, unique stellar phenomenon and new resource deposits - all without traveling by ship. They house the largest telescopic array and suite of sensory equipment in the galaxy. It is not uncommon for the Citadel to send Fleet Science Division personnel to study there.

Sector Attitude

Acquisition 13%

Benevolence 9%

Conformity 10%

Power 6%

Protection 10%

Self-Direction 29%

Stimulation 10%

|Universalism 3%

Fri. Nov. 16, 2018

Well, we are back from vacation and it’s time to dive back into Living Starship and get things finalized before the end of the year!

Despite my best efforts at trying not to think about ANYTHING game related during my vacation, the notion of using custom dice in one or more of the games kept haunting me.

So…fine! Let’s get the bits together and start making some prototypes:

Wed. Nov. 7, 2018

Things are really pulling together for the Living Starship Space Opera Box!

Academy Preludes is pretty much set and is heading into full-fledged public play testing.

Rise to Command is nearing the point of having its mechanics set but needs some play testing to make sure it’s as solid as it seems.

We are playing some Arkham Horror (the new 3rd edition) because its really cool and we suspect we’ll get some inspiration on how to handle missions and plot lines for Legacy Missions.

Thu. Oct. 31, 2018

Since the Living Starship Space Opera Box is going to have SO MUCH stuff in it (4 entire games!!), we are assembling all the rules into an e-book. It will have a searchable glossary and even a ton of content on the setting itself.

We may even include videos of gameplay, setup and rules explanations.





Academy Preludes is coming along rapidly. Here’s a look at the latest version of the player boards:

Thu. Oct. 25, 2018

Design Diary:

The Academy Preludes has gone through about a half dozen full-fledged iterations. Each version has had some great pieces that work really well, but all of them, until now, have also fallen a bit flat in either feeling like a thorough game or fulfilling the base theme.

The base theme that we want to bring out in this game is the training of raw cadets - giving them the skills they need to serve onboard your starship in the legacy game.

We want it to be a dice game, have the sense that your cadets are going to class, gaining knowledge and then having to past tests using that learning. By the end of the game they need to be ready to serve in one of the seven Divisions of Service in the Fleet.

So, we took some inspiration from Sagrada. Academy Preludes now finally feels RIGHT as a dice-drafting game. Each player is claiming 3 dice from the classroom board each round and adding the results to their accumulated knowledge. When they have a high-enough score in one or more categories, they can take a test (claim a test card) from those available on the board.

The first player to complete one test in each Division (color), triggers the end of the game and gains bonus points for being the first to graduate.

Wed. Oct. 17, 2018

Design Diary:

Living Starship is ballooning into a much bigger and grander project than we had expected. With crowdsourcing evolving, we feel that trying to offer each game as an individual entity on Kickstarter is not likely to be successful as there are so many game projects available.

The Legacy Missions is, possibly, the only one that might stand out enough (since the legacy format is popular), but we feel that we can make a much bigger splash by offering all four games in one giant box and really working to make them all flow together more tightly than originally intended.

The downside is that this dramatically increases the cost of production, but we hope that the spectacle of the product might outweigh some of that.

The Space Opera box will have a quick and casual game in it (RANKaree), lightweight games (Academy Preludes and Rise ot Command) and a full-fledged “gamer” game with Legacy Missions.

We are now taking a fresh look at how Academy Preludes works. The current version is that each player is playing one cadet. That means that if you wanted to “train”/customize your entire crew BEFORE playing Legacy Missions, you would need to play enough games to graduate 43 characters! With two players that would take 21.5 games which is probably daunting to many people.

We’re considereing ways of altering gameplay to have each player managing multiple characters in each Prelude game, but the offset is that there will likely be less of a feeling of individuality to each character.

We’ll keep you posted as to how things are working out.

Thu. Oct. 11, 2018

So we’re diving into the “big picture” of what our Living Starship line of games needs to be. We’re even thinking that the pending Kickstarter campaing might be for one BIG BOX that includes all 4 titles!

Wed. Sep. 19, 2018

Working on “interior” details of the Living Starship Legacy game. Putting together cards that detail all of the special system abilities that each department duty station provides to the players.

Each of these line items will be a sticker that gets added to the card as the players “unlock” each system in the first few games.

We’re thinking that back side ought to list all the Ship Functions as a reference.

Mon. Sep. 10, 2018

We’ve come up with a fun concept for marketing Living Starship with a tongue-in-cheek nod to Star Trek:

Wed. Sep. 5, 2018

B-Con was a good weekend. It was nowhere near as crazy as last year, but we still got in some good play testing with some fans and with fellow designers - especially Shaun Cranford of Myndzei Games.

We hammered out a lot of Starship Preludes issues and came away with a VASTLY improved methodology of integrating of the results of Prelude games into the full Legacy Starship game. Here is a peek at what the new legacy crew cards look like (on the right) as compared to the existing version (on the left).

Wed. Aug 22, 2018

This weekend is B-Con up in Northglenn, Colorado. Come experience 1 or all 3 of the Living Starship Games. We will be demo-ing RANKaree and play-testing Starship Preludes and Living Starship Legacy all weekend.



Wed. Aug 22, 2018

Starship Preludes continue to evolve at a rapid pace. Here is the latest play test setup that, once we finished, spurred yet another set of overhaul concepts to tune it up and tighten the functioning of the mechanics.

We found there wasn’t as much interactivity with the dice as we had hoped so we are adding some simple elements to make it more interesting than “I acquire that die and that card, now it’s your turn to choos a die and card”.





Tue. Aug 14, 2018

With B-Con coming up at the end of the month, we are working feverishly to polish up all things Living Starship because we’ll be running sessions of all three games all weekend.

Rankaree - is, of course, all complete, but we’ll be running a couple sessions of it for those who want a light-wight card game themed with the military ranks of Living Starship.

Starship Preludes - are, at the moment, deep in development in a new dice game style inspired by Roll Player. You will be training cadets BEFORE they get stationed on your ship in the full board game.

You’ll be able to choose whether you want each character to be an officer or an enlisted crew member and you can let fate determine their starting motivations and aspirations or you can pick them to attempt to make sure you have a wellp-rounded crew.

Living Starship Boardgame - is roughly 80% complete and is fully playable. What is not fleshed-out yet are unique descriptors on most of the cards, but the underlying mechanics and gameplay are all very close to being set (though playtesting will likely reveal more things that need adjusting).

Mon. July 23, 2018

Yesterday's play test of the Living Starship Game at Board Game Republic went really well. One of the playtesters made a wonderful suggestion which, as always, seems perfectly obvious and leaves me with the felling that "I should have thought of that....duh!"

The FUNCTION meters that I have been using worked just fine, but constantly required extra explanation for people to grasp their flow (which was from bottom left then up to the next row and moving to the right, etc----or follow the alphabet printed on it). Once they understood it, they worked but I've been wanting something more intuitive.

One of the players mentioned something about bar charts or the like so I re-worked them today and WAH-LA! The new FUNCTION meters fill up (or un-fill as damage is taken) from the left column to the right. The look is also MUCH cleaner on the full board.





Tue. July 17, 2018

With a play test event coming up this weekend and a Denver gaming convention (B Con) at the end of August, we’re in full revamp mode with Living Starship.

Currently there is a redesign of the starship board to upgrade it’s look and feel into something more finished. The interiors are being designed with tech-looking walls in place of the plain straight lines and geometric shapes it previously used.

We are also putting the Department icons at each duty station which will help color blind players see the difference in locations more easily.

Here’s the board we’ve been using for the past year or so:

Here’s the new layout (obviously, still in progress):

What are your thoughts?

Tue. July 10, 2018

In Living Starship news, the Fleet Service Division icons (the first ones on the left of each row) have been revamped so as to be a uniform size for both digital and print use. Plus, we think they are just way cooler than all the previous iterations.

Wed. July 4, 2018

Happy Independance Day to all our folk in the USA!

We are currently working on the thrid iteration of what will become the Living Starship Prelude games where you get to train your starship crew BEFORE they begin their journey in the legacy board game.

This version ascribes polyhedral dice values to each character’s 8 Attributes (Strength, Reasoning, Demeanor, etc.) and those dice are used to train in classes and then complete exams in each of the seven Divisions (Tactical, Health, Science, etc.).

The winner of the each game is the player who gets their character through graduation in the Fleet Academy first.

Wed. June 20, 2018

After a crazy weekend of Pride festivities here in Denver, we’re back to crackin’ the whip on game design. Have been working on some Character Attribute card layouts and master scoresheets for the mini legacy game - Living Starship Preludes.

The scoresheet keeps tracks of your character’s education. They will graduate from training with a specialty in one of the seven Divisions and will be ready to post to your vessel in the Living Starship Board Game. The sheets are double-sided so that you can choose to train your characters as officers or enlisted (as needed).

Wed. June 13, 2018

Been working a lot on the Living Starship Preludes concept. In the current version, we are adapting the wonderful Ganz Schon Clever (by Wolfgang Warch) dice game into a legacy format.

The concept is that each character you play with is undertaking their education and training at Fleet Academy. As they complete each game they will be filling out their character form with their wins (whichever color/Division they score the best in) to see in which of the Divisions they will serve when getting posted to a starship.

There are 7 Divisions (Colors) and each test sheet will featuring a different arrangement (there are 2,520 different combinations!), so no two games will ever be alike.

Plus, the players all work off the same test sheet and 7 random dice are drawn each round (there are 5 dice of each of the 7 colors).

Wed. June 6, 2018

SO MANY THINGS in development, it’s hard to keep all the balls in the air. However, we have yet another exciting new project to announce - DRAG HAUS - featuring the artwork of Denver drag queen and artist, Holly Monroe.

This casual card game puts popular Denver drag personalities into your hands. Use an established drag house such as the Haus of Cortez or Haus Alnite or concoct your own by mixing and matching the queen cards.

Then you will craft the look of each personalitiy in your house with the avaiable drag cards for Face, Hair, Frock and more before tossing them on stage to collect the most tips from the audience.

More details to come soon!

Wed. May 30, 2018

In a creative fugue fueled by chocolate martinis, we got a lot of work done on the mini legacy games - Living Starship Preludes - that will serve as character prologues for the main Living Starship board game.

We also concocted a loose outline for a superhero legacy game that will be set in the timeline between Living Empires and Living Starship. It will likely have a similar feel to Netrunner but will not focus on digital, corporate espionage and more on how the society is embracing and exploring genetic manipulation.

After all, all the races populating the galaxy in Living Starship evolved out of the fantasy races in Living Empires. This is how we will let you live that story.

Sat. May 12 2018

This week sees the return of SPACE BINGO to Denver. We will be launching the weekly game show at the marvelous Tabletop Tap.

Plus, we’re working on a series of card games that are “mini Legacy games” that will feed into the main Living Starship board game. The working title is currently "Starship Academy” a Living Starship legacy prelude.



The idea is that each box will come with two unique character decks and a third deck of ‘tests”. The premise is that two players go head-to-head with cadets who are intraining at the Citadel Fleet Academy. The results of your series of fast set-collecting games will determine the Division (Health, Tactical, Operations, etc.) and Department Specialty that each character will serve in onboard your starship.

Wed. Apr 11 2018

The wheels are rolling hot and fast for the Living Starship Legacy Game development!

Today’s highlight is on the re-vamped crew cards (not much has visually changed from the previous version but the rules behind the information sure have.

Tue. Mar 27 2018

The RANKaree Kickstarter campaign is live now! Please go check it out and support it if you think a casual and fun card game is up your alley!





Tue. Mar 20 2018

The mighty LOGAN CHOPS has posted a video play-through and review of RANKaree on his YouTube channel. Please go watch it , Like it and subscribe to his channel.

Mon. Mar 5 2018

Big news! We plan to launch the Kickstarter campaign for RANKaree on Tuesday, March 27th. Stay tuned as we tease more details….

Tue. Feb 27 2018

The Living Starship play test we did this past weekend was a success. The new deck-building elements of the game (that replaced the previous dice-rolling mechanic) are working quite well.

Now it’s time to buckle down and polish off the RANKaree campaign. We’ve got a video to produce and still need to get all the elements for online digital play (via Tabletopia.com) uploaded, plus…you know….work, make a living, grocery shop and all that.

We did, however, come up with an improved design for the RANKaree cards (AFTER paying for 10 prototypes and uploading the images to Tabletopia), so there will be some more work to finish them up for print-readiness. What are your thoughts on the new look?

We decided that since the cards are meant to represent the crew of each player’s starship, they should have imagery to reflect that. While the idea of the old cards was to resemble the Fleet uniforms, the new cards accomplish both.

Tue. Feb 20 2018

There must be something in the air. We randomly discovered ANOTHER misprint/layout error in the military rank poster for the Living Starship setting. We ended up creating a whole new layout:

Mon. Feb 19 2018

So, we’ve been out of commission for a couple weeks due to medical stuff (you know, nothing major, just some spinal surgery). But…we are getting back on track now!

We are gearing up to launch RANKaree on Kickstarter in early March and still have a few review copies to send out. We happened to discover an irritating misprint (the Agency Corporal card is numbered with a “1” and should be the number “2” card in that suit) so we’re getting some replacement cards sent out.

While dealing with that and AFTER uploading all the graphic files on to Tabletopia so that the game can be played digitally, we thought of a better layout/design for the cards that is more reflective of the theme, especially given that the cards represent the crew of your starship:





Sat. Jan 27 2018

Further details on “How to Play Living Starship” have been uploaded.

Mon. Jan 22 2018

Today's glimpse into the development of the Living Starship Game is at the Uniform Cards.

Citadel Fleet Crew members are all issued uniforms that not only designate their division of service, rank and department specialty, but are wearable pieces of technology.

Their uniforms are attuned to each wearer's specific genetic identity and help regulate their bio-functions, integrate them directly into the ship's digital systems, serve as emergency space suits and can be upgraded with additional software and hardware device utilities.

Wed. Jan 17 2018

There are two opportunities this weekend to play test Living Starship in all it’s new glory.

Saturday (Jan 20) at 2pm at HexaCon.



Sunday (Jan 21) at 2:30 at Board Game Republic.

Wed. Jan 10 2018

Happy New Year everyone!

This is the year that Living Starship dives into it’s final stages of development. We have ditched the dice mechanic system and it’s being overhauled to feature deck-building elements along with the already-existing worker placement methodology. We cannot describe the excitement of how the new format is making us feel.

RANKaree will be hitting Kickstarter in February and copies are being sent out to reviewers and are available for playing in Denver local game stores (Both Enchanted Grounds locations, Board Game Republic and the Wizard’s Chest).

Thu. Nov 16 2017

There’s a lot going on this weekend for us. First up is the FIRST EVER game of Space Bingo being held at Odyssey Beerwerks in Arvada, CO.

Then we will be play testing the second scenario of the Living Starship Board Game on Sunday at Board Game Republic in Denver at 2 pm.

Wed. Sep 20 2017

There’s so much exciting stuff finally coming together here at Cheeky Dingo that we’re nearly bursting at the seams.

Over the next couple weeks we’re going to gradually provide insight to most of what’s going on with the massive Living Saga line of products and will hopefully be launching the Kickstarter for the first offering - RANKaree.

Mon. Sep 4 2017

Had a smashing good time at B-Con & Conclave this weekend. We managed to demo/play test Rankaree, 3 sessions of Scenario #1 for Living Starship plus the very first test of Scenario #2 AND got in the inaugural play test of the new deck-building/legacy aspect of 7 Sign Circle!

Kudos to the organizers and volunteers who made the convention great and a special thank you to all the play testers who stopped at our table and contributed to the evolution and improvement of our games.





Tue. Aug 22 2017

Last week’s epiphany has evolved into a significant re-development of 7 Sign Circle. Follow along in the blog.

We are also now all set to demo games at Rocky Mountain Con on the last weekend in September. Come check out the latest developments in the Living Saga: Starship & Empires.

Tue. Aug 15 2017

So, in the midst of all the fervor of creating Living Starship Game content (Rankaree, the Living Starship Board Game, the solo character "Choose your own adventure"-style game books), I woke up this morning with a completely different game idea burning a hole in my brain.

Stay tuned for more details about a unique legacy-style deck building card game!

Mon. Aug 7 2017

We had a wonderful time at MaLCon this past weekend. Layman Kingsford sat on a couple panels (about GMing in role-playing game and one about games and fan-culture).

Upcoming appearances for the next several months include:

Aug. 27 - Playtesters-Designers Unite at the Board Game Republic. 7 Sign Circle play test.

Sep. 2-3 - Conclave of Gamers/B-Con. Living Starship, Rankaree and 7 Sign Circle demos.



Sep. 31- Oct 1 - Rocky Mountain Con

Oct 27 - 29 - MileHi Con. Panelist and Living Starship game.



Jan 19 - 21, 2018 - HexaCon. Living Starship game.



