Where did you get that action figure? Was it someone’s custom build or did they actually make them?
I think it must have been a custom build. I can’t imagine anyone thought they could make money off Laser Blast merchandising.
I just found the image on Google, like the common crook I am.
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I am sooo interested in where everyone found inspiration for their names and characters. Also, quite curious where we’re all coming from, I’m pretty sure we’ve got Alaska, Chile, California and England covered, good spread!
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I’m near Kansas City.
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Found it: http://www.tombsofkobol.com/bmovies/lblast-01.html
“Additionally, a model of the aliens was released by Billiken but is now out of production.”
Pasadena, CA (It’d be Burbank if I were doing this at work, which I assssure everyone reading thisss that I am mossst certainly not.)
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Well, there we go… now I have to watch that film!
WAAAAAANNNNTT!!!
Really, I do.
English, but in Seattle.
I chucked in some EE ‘Doc’ Smith stuff early on, the rest is just crap jokes. Stole photos from Alien Resurrection, Space : 1999 and The Last Starfighter and a couple of old Asimov covers from Panther editions.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pulpcrush/sets/72157629166930864/
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I just looked on eBay and there isn’t one there. But I am sure it will pop up sometime.
I regret that I haven’t really gotten as good with the writing of a back story as some of you. Also I found it hard to think up a original name, and was too unsure about what this game would become (never played anything like this), to know if I would be comfortable using a borrowed name.
In the end I decided to see if I could work current internet slang into a far future name without making it too obvious or stupid. This name (Newb Naiv with the First Post1) could also fit my favorite kind of bumbling idiot hero (like Space Quests’ Roger Wilco, Monkey Island’s Guybrush Threepwood (can’t remember correct spelling right now) or even worst, Arnold Rimmer of Red Dwarf).
I’m sure I don’t need to explain but just to be sure:
Newb : n00b or newbie
Naiv stems from naive
and First Post1 is the terribly annoying habit of people to be the first in a thread (usually even failing at this) exacerbated by hastely replacing the exclamation for a 1.
What would be nice is a link at the end of eacht closed thread to the next thread and some sort of (email) reminder that there is a new thread. I missed the first few rounds and have trouble finding each new round (last one right now is “a tiny bit of trouble” right?)
I’m from the Netherlands, Amsterdam.
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Well my name is the name I use online for many things. It came from my nickname as a kid.
The ship name is the best I could come up with as a Latin translation of “Hunk of Junk”. The extra “s” was originally a typo, but hey I’m a lizard and it works. A happy accident.
The only picture I posted
https://cdn.discourse.org//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/boingboing/original/2X/3/36fdd2a37726263701fa4b6f89b191dc6e5e28a4.png
was a crude shoop of The monopoly guy and one of the results of a google search for “cartoon lizard”
10 meaningless interweb points for anyone who figured that out
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As Patrace correctly guessed, I’m from Chile.
Ironclad Almirante Cochrane was a Ship that fought in two wars, the first one against Peru and Bolivia, called War of the Pacific, and later during the Civil War of 1891.
The fun fact, is that the ship got it’s name from Admiral Thomas Cochrane, who leaded the Chilean Navy during our independence war against Spain… after he got dismissed from the Royal Navy following a conviction for fraud on the London Stock Exchange. Quite a colorful character.
Paul Seldon got it’s name from Gary Seldon, because I’m a huge fan of Asimov’s Foundation series.
I’m playing the character based on those influences; he did something and got expelled from ICUP, joined the rebels, and now he will try to get redemption bringing order to a uncivilized region.
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Mine is pretty straightforward, sort of; I went for a Data-type android and my starting point was that, like Data, my character doesn’t quite understand everything properly at first if it isn’t strictly logical.
I did that, if I’m honest, because I haven’t done any sort of roleplaying of this sort before (or computer RPGs either for that matter, besides Fallout 3 & New Vegas). I figured I could get away with not knowing what’s going on if my thinly-disguised fictional representation of myself was meant to be confused too.
That’s where the name of my ship came from too; I tried to think of classic ship names and then combined ideas and metaphors that don’t really go together (the reasons why they don’t go together wouldn’t necessarily make sense to my android character). So it’s nonsense, actually.
As it happens, the other characters in my ship were, appropriately, mostly the result of my own confusion. Also, it was hard to write from the perspective of an android who doesn’t quite understand what’s going on when I wanted to actually put forward ideas that others might care about.
I figured I would make up for my slap-dash and confused characters and narrative (compared with everyone else) with silly pixel art, most of which (initially, anyway) I copied and tweaked from pixel art stuff I’d done previously (like the TNG Enterprise bridge, and the cartoon version of myself). As things got more and more interesting, I spent a lot of time making new stuff (like the organ replicator).
Overall, I was going for a Space Trucker vibe; sort of a combination of Data with the (human) characters in Alien, and the one Space Trucking episode of Cowboy Bebop, and of course all the other random half-remembered sci-fi stuff (involving space truckers or otherwise) rattling around in my brain.
And now, I find out that you’re all outright thieves and that’s the reason your characters and stories were so much better than mine! 
@Donald_Petersen - I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the characters and the story you’ve been coming up with, one of the most enjoyable here for me, is not what’s in the movie (I seem to have missed that MST3K and will definitely seek it out) and is in fact far superior to it.
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You are too kind, Chris. I admit, it wouldn’t be hard for even a hack like me to come up with a better story than that found in Laserblast. (I keep forgetting it’s only one word. Laser Blast is an Activision game for the Atari 2600 that was kinda like a reverse Missile Command.)
I’ve been digging your narrative, and especially the pixel art. It’s a constant source of delight for me, and one of the best things about this game. I always wanted to play RPGs ever since I first heard of D&D in the late 70s, but somehow never had occasion to play D&D until a brief campaign with some old veterans who thought it’d be fun to start one with brand-new Level 1 characters, back in 1999 or so. And it was heaps of fun, but I haven’t done it since. I played some Baldur’s Gate about twelve years ago and loved it (though I missed having interactions with other players), and I played maybe ten hours of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and probably 120 not-quite-satisfying hours of Skyrim, but really, the most RPG experience I’ve had is, like you, in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, both of which I played the shit out of and thoroughly enjoyed.
I thought this game would be a mildly pleasant diversion. I had no idea what I was in for. Between the cool missions and hilarious narration by @patrace, the profound depths of narrative and analysis brought by @agfish and @bizmail_public, the barroom antics aboard the TARD-iss hosted by @awjt, the bloodthirsty calculation and murderous ambition of @daneel’s Captain Richard M. Nixon (in stark contrast to the real one… oh, wait.), the brilliant animated GIFs of @Felipe_Budinich, @Mister44’s Grey Mouser and its curious devotion to the Supreme Intelligence, and your always entertaining and content-rich pixel-artworks, as well as the contributions (both collaborative and treacherous) by the rest of our fleet, I’ve had more fun with this game than I’ve had since… well, money can’t buy this level of enjoyment at any rate.
I’ll never forget the image of Dusty the Space Cat communicating with his Arcturan Cone of Silence from his litterbox, while my beat-up old Organ Replicator dutifully spat out fresh spleens in the background. No writer could ever imagine his goofy ideas being brought more vividly to life, and made ten times goofier thereby.
A million thanks, or as many as the Jewel’s hold can carry!
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I actually recognized the name once you posted the shematic ( Chilean Naval history is really cool – and I am a nerd), so I was really confused by the Captain’s name. I could NOT figure that one out.
Thanks for explaining. Also, I was pretty sure you were Chilean – You have to admit, Felipe Budinich is a pretty plausible Chilean name – which is why I sent you a case of Sena 2001 early. Accroding to Wikipedia, it’s ones of the best wines to ever come out of Chile, which is saying a lot. Apparently you’re not big into snobby wines 
I want to thank you again for the Marshal Seldon character. Most of us are playing fundamentally self-interested characters. I loved the way you laid out the moral principle for standing up to bullies, and then did it. I really thought you were a goner - that there would be more defections and the Talionis would pulp you.
Seeing you take that stand – and be victorious – had whooping out loud. It was better than seeing Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” (again).
Thanks again for adding an entire dimension to the game.
Tylerh
Irvine, Ca
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You weren’t the only one. A great suggestion if we ever do this again.
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