Tereglith

I'm trying to create a large Lego-style set for Algernon's Steam Empire Project, and to give it that extra lego-ness I would like to add it a generous helping of play features such as the ones that Lego uses. I was looking through an old catalog, and it seems that it was mainly catapults and the soccer-chair missile method back then, not things that are really innovative. What I want from you, Eurobricks, is for you to post your favorite, most clever play features that you remember from their sets, not only for my use on this MOC but for the use of others in the future. Hopefully, what we can get is a comprehensive list of LEGO play features, large and small, ingeniuous or dopey *cough* flick-fire *cough*. Post with a description or picture if you can find one, and say one set that it came in.

You mean deeplink? You have to upload it to a photo-sharing source like photobucket or flickr before you can do that. Then you just grab the pictures url and put it between tags (but without the spaces)

Hmm... facebook informs me that: I guess we'll have to wait until you buy that new computer...

If I'm building an official set, I'll usually just sit cross-legged in the middle of the living room in front of the coffee table, with the box underneath the table. The biggest distraction I have is trying to keep my cats from eating various parts . If it's a licensed set, I'll sometimes listen to the soundtrack associated with the scene that I'm building. When I'm buidling an MOC, I sit in my bean-bag chair (hint: NOT a good idea) and search through the four ten-gallon ziploc bags that hold all my loose lego. Anything too large to hold in one hand gets perched precariously behind me. I need to figure out something better than this...

O_O How was this done? It's rather a lot what I imagine a drug trip being like, actually And what was with them playing "Up is Down" from the POTC:AWE soundtrack? Was there a trippy-laser show of a POTC brand, too ? Also, I've managed to talk my mom into going to TRU wednesday . Don't worry, if I get a set I'll do a review.

I'm mainly posting it so that I have something to link to when people ask me how much I hate Twilight. A golden light blasted throughout the parking lot, penetrating all objects, leaving no shadows. Bella shielded her eyes as Edward attempted to see what was causing it. A small breeze sprung up, and the knee-high grass of the unkempt planted section of the lot whipped around their legs. After a few seconds, the light dimmed, allowing them to see a silhouetted form – a tall, muscular man, wearing a cowboy hat. Soon, the light had lessened enough for them to see his features, mainly a phenomenal beard and musculature beyond description. The soft golden light still played about him. “He’s so… attractive!” Bella whispered. “I’m glad you think so,” intoned Chuck Norris. Edward, looking at the demigod standing before them, wondered if he might somehow be inadequate. Looking at Bella, and how her eyes were travelling up and down Chuck’s biceps, and, feeling the need to prove himself, he stood up and said, “Don’t worry, Bella. I’ll save you from this creep. Just like with the car.” “Yeah… the car…” Bella said, transfixed. “Hey!” Chuck said. “What do you think you’re doing?” “Get away from my girlfriend!” Edward said, unsheathing his fangs. “D’you want a roundhouse kick?” “Y’know what, Mr. Cowboy? I don’t care if you give me a roundhouse kick!” Edward half-shouted, holding up his hand as if to block it. Chuck Norris became a blur, moving around too fast for the human eye to see. On impact, Edward was gone. There was a sonic boom, and a column of air caught on fire. Only a few milliseconds later, the blur that was Edward passed through the side of a huge tree trunk growing in another grassy area, shattering it into a million splinters, a tan cloud spreading out from the huge bite-shaped hole in the trunk. A fiftieth of a second after that, a good chunk of the wall of the Lowe’s behind them imploded, giving a view of rows and rows of shelves being pulverized, a vaguely Edward-sized hole appearing in rack after rack of gardening implements and knives, still too fast for the eye to keep up with. The air was still on fire in Edward’s ionized trail. The opposite wall of the Lowe’s exploded, revealing a busy freeway. A shipping container on the back of a truck was ripped in half from the bottom. Pieces of flaming blacktop shot straight up with enough force to take a VW bug twenty feet in the air as Edward hit the ground, creating a deep, flaming furrow. He bounced up underneath another semi cab, sending the truck flipping into the air. As it flew, a dark shape punched through the top of it, flying twenty feet up before finally falling back down, snapping through three electrical wires. Back in the grassy area of the parking lot, the first drop of blood hit the ground, followed by the rest, a gallon of vampiric fluid spattering in a trail along the pavement. Something clattered into an empty parking space. It looked like a fragment of Edward's collar bone. A shiny white object clinked against a barrier. A molar. A lance of calcium punctured a monster truck tire. Half of a femur. A fine white dust coated several cars. What was left of his lower arm bone. What was left of the tree trunk twisted around, leaves flickering off of the smoothly turning branches. It tilted, snapped, and fell, sending a shockwave through the ground. The rest of the wall above the implosion fell in, followed by a section of the roof. The S from Lowe’s hit the rubble. The first screeches from the pileup crash that was occurring on the highway reached their ears. After a few seconds, Chuck turned to Bella. “Well, I figured that since he was so confident an’ all, he had some sorta defense, so I didn’t go quite as easy on him.” Bella’s mouth was gaping at the trail of destruction wrought by the late Edward’s body. Eventually she managed, “Why?” “Well, I saw this book, and sensed with my second vision that it was really bad. So the I accessed my infinite knowledge stores of everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, and discovered that it is such a bad book because of yer boyfriend there, and he’s the reason that it makes so many people miserable. So then I used my interdimensional tunneling powers to teleport into your fictional world and roundhouse kick the crap out of him. Figured it’s better this way for quite a lot of people who like good writing. Goodbye.” With a whoosh, Chuck Norris disappeared from the fictional universe.

I'd say that there's about 1 and a half times as many books as that dispersed throughout my house. Sadly, without as many expensive and uber-cool lego exclusives scattered among them. And... OMG MY DAD HAS THAT KERMIT PUPPET!!!!!!! (the muppets rule) As for my favorite books, I was basically reading down Peppermint M's list and going "yep... yep... yep...". I've read about seventeen of Pratchett's novels in the past few months. As for things that weren't on her list, I enjoy the following... Harry Potter (fer shure, read my signature) Quirk Classics (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies inspired one of my MOCs) Ursula K. Leguinn's Earthsea trilogy Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron Candlewick Press' extraordinary 'Ology series Stephen Hunt's The Court of the Air (it was my introduction to Steampunk) Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 Star Wars Fiction - except the parts after Mara Jade dies and everything just gets all sucky again for the characters Star Trek fiction James Rollins' technothrillers MY BOOK! And as for non-fiction, I'm a sucker for anything that involves the paranormal. I also greatly enjoyed Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, which was an excellent and highly accesible overview of modern physics, as well as a great introduction to the concepts of string theory.

Atlantis was semi-religious socio-political commentary on Ancient Greece, written by Plato. It could be considered the first polictical editorial essay. It was at no time real. It's just fun to think that it was, and it makes for a really good fiction story hollisbrick, the King Octopus/Cthulhu connection has been explored in the pages 20-30. I don't think that Lego would intentionally link a kid's theme to the 19th century phantasmagorical horror of H. P. Lovecraft, though. (also, wikipedia is your website? WOW! That's awesome ) I'll have to go check out my local TRU. My mom is gonna go there for my birthday shopping soon (Rubik's has a new product!), but I might have to tag along to point her to any leaked 2010 sets.

Thou hast besmirched my good name! If there were a twilight theme, I would be running towards it with a number of machine guns and maybe a nuke or two. Twilight is to fantasy what Santa Clause Conquers the Martians is to science fiction and Christmas movies. IT SUCKS. Plus, I wanted to hit some people with the cast-iron bat on my staff. Oh well, maybe next year. If you'd like to read about my sigfig's fascinating backgroiund, you can check out this action-packed excerpt from my novel (which is his origin). Now that the story is over, do you think that we could convert the topic into a true Bulwar-Lytton contest?

There are so may theories and misconceptions about the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis... The most common one linking the two is that Atlantis was in the area that is now the Bermuda triangle, and that it was powered by a giant crystal (like in Disney's Atlantis), which randomly emits bursts of energy that sink ships. The real reason that ships sink and planes crash there is the methane crystals at the bottom of the sea. They emit bubbles that mess with engines and altimeters. This, coupled with the high frequency of freak waves caused by the currents in the Triangle, makes for sudden and traceless disappearances. Of course an alternate explanation is provided in my awesome novel, which also involves bigfoots and lots of explosions. And a fight scene on a helicopter (hint: everything has a fight scene on a helicopter).

...Mark had a revelation. "How is it," he said, "that the Emperor sent the gineau pigs, if my mother-in-law said that it was Roland Emmerich?" "Complex, the ways of The Force are." "Is he getting on anyone else's nerves here?" Mark asked. "Hey, bub, it's part of the job. Do you know how disillusioned people would be if I stopped talking backwards and spouting arcane wisdom?" Yoda snapped. "I mean... Annoyance leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. To the dark side, that path only goes." Suddenly, as they entered the city, a flicker filled the air. "Look up!" Qui-gon said, pointing to the sky as a few golden hexagons were replaced with regular blue. "We're in a borg holodeck simulation!" "Know so much about Star Trek, do you all of a sudden?" Yoda said. "That doesn't matter now. This must mean that we're in the dangerous legendary land of themes that never were. We could encounter anything here, from Star Trek themes to a Steampunk theme to a *gulp* Twilight theme. If lego hasn't done it, and more than a few people wanted it, it's here. We have to stay on our toes." Qui-gon said, pulling out his lightsaber. Suddenly, the hologram flickered, and they were in a drab gray room. Out of the shadows came... Eep. Extremely long, but I think that this could make the story a whole lot of fun. Plus, it gives a chance for my sigfig to come in.

I agree. Especially as a kid's toy, Lego historic themes must have some fantastic elements to remain interesting and relevant. I personally wouldn't mind if there was a little less fantasy, but I also don't mind the amount that there is now. (Also, the "kraken" is a reasonable size for the well-docemented Pacific Giant Octopus, a recognized species that can reach ten feet in length. If it were a squid, a length of fifty studs would have to be reached before the creature would leave the realm of scientific documentation and become a fantasy element, as that would put it on a par with the Thimble Tickle specimen, the largest recorded squid at 55 feet. -Your Friendly Neighborhood Architeuthologist)

"... up... my..." Zorro's head jerked as a disturbing chittering sound came from the region of his neck. His body seemed to go slack, then it tensed up again, his eyes closed, and when they opened, they were no longer his own - they were the glittery black eyes of a LEGO-eating gineau pig, radiating pure evil. "Been taken over by the gineau pig, he has! Fight him, you must, or succeed in destroying all Lego, Roland Emmerich will!" Yoda shouted. "BUT I'VE NEVER TAKEN FENCING LESSONS, AND HE'S A FRIKKIN' FOLK HERO! HOW'M I SUPPOSED TO FIGHT HIM?" Mark yelled at the diminutive jedi. "Learn quickly," Yoda said, as Gineau-Zorro launched himself at our hero, sword swinging so fast it was a blur. Mark held the lightsaber up in front of his body and... Feel free to chastise me if I'm being too long-winded. But I think this story needs a sword-fight. All stories need sword fights, when you get down to it.

That's a pretty clever design for the tree. The white makes it look like an artificial tree, though. I've never understood those...

Good thing you can put them back together if you've kept the instructions

"NO! For reasons of sanitation, use a lightsaber, you must. Cauterize the wounds to the gineau pigs, it will. A sword, slice them open messily, it does. Blood all over your carpet do you want?" "You've... you've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" Mark said, kicking gineau pigs into the walls while trying to decide which weapon to choose. "He has indeed," said Qui-gon. "When you've been around for 900 years, you have a lot of empty time to think about things like this. Now are you going to do anything about those gineau pigs, or are you going to let them eat your legs?" Mark saw that the vicious rodents, in an absence of lego pieces, had begun gnawing on his pants. He made up his mind as to what weapon he was going to use, reaching for... A bit long. I'm an author at heart

...for appearance sake, a few of them into the air lift with the force, to with your lightsaber slice apart. Epic, this will be, if done correctly it is. The first part of your training, consider this, herh herh herh!" Mark leapt for the bed, his hand outstretched for the revolver, but... Yay! An action scene! Last year's was a bit too incoherent for my taste, there was never any epicness in it.

I'm fine with FB. When do you think you'll get access to a proper computer?

I like the shape of both of those nintha. Put on some greebles and you'll be right as rain. See if you can get a piece count, though, that looks more suitable for the 39.99 price point. If you want, you can fill in the holes with dark grey, we've added that to the queens color scheme. I'll post pictures of my queen's biotic recon ship soon, I'm too busy with schoolwork at the moment to take the pictures. I'm glad we've got the topic going again! Maybe over Christmas break I'll work on a $79.99 size queen's village.

See, that's why you should have bought more Dino Attack sets. Best source of dark red I ever bought as a foolish youth. Good tank, it looks like something from an online game. Like tank wars, from maidmarian.com, is what it first reminded me of.

Isn't MS paint a wonderful invention ? That looks about right. so they might have some use. The wizard would have to explain why he has pictures of sea creatures on his cart's wheels though...

Hmm... the oldest one that's completely intact is The Batwing: Joker's Aerial Assault, which I kept from succumbing to the second law of thermodynamics like the rest of the sets on my shelf because it's just so epic. I got it for Christmas '06, so approaching three years now. Oldest set that's stayed mostly intact but is missing a few pieces is ths one, because you gotta have an x-wing. That one's coming up on seven years this Christmas. The rest of my stuff mainly falls apart on my woefully unkempt shelf. Or, like Dumbledore's office (which I would have kept intact to this day if I could have) is destroyed by my little sister and evil cats.

If you're looking at SW from a storyline point of view, Lucas deliberately took EVERY STINKIN' MYTHIC ARCHETYPE OUT THERE and mashed them all together. Where SW's originality comes in is the idea of a "used universe". Before Star Wars came along, popular (And I use popular the same way as Popular Mechanics) science fiction amounted to, well, ST:TOS, which is all clean lines, shiny spaceships, and blocky, un-messed up tricorders. Really, the reason that everyone liked Star Wars was because of the greebles, and because of how unoriginal the storyline was. Luke, Obi-wan, Han, Chewie, R2, Vader, Palpatine, Yoda, all of them are ripped right off of a list of character archetypes and put into a science fiction story. And the reason that those characters and events are archetypes is because that basic storyline is so appealing. I myself like both Star Trek and Star Wars very much (despite the fact that ST:TOS had no special effects budget whatsoever, and even despite the fact that Jake Lloyd can't act worth a pile of Bantha poodoo). But it's in very different ways. ST is hard SF, complete with ideas and science. SW is a self-professed science fantasy, which has the sole purpose of making the ancient archetypes appealing to the modern viewer. And lightsaber fights are totall kick-megablocks. (If anyone would like me to, I can ramble on about archetypes all day. I have the curse of being the son of two English teachers) EDIT: I forgot to add. I utterly hate and despise SW:CW with a passion. I hate it more than 4Juniors sets. I hate it more than Megablocks. I even hate it a bit more than clone brands. It's just... geurgh...... Also, the new Star Trek movie was actually Star Wars, complete with blasters, a bar full of aliens, nonsensical relationships, a farmboy protagonist without a father, a giant ship that can destroy planets, an encounter with an awful creature on an ice planet, and gaping plot holes.

I think that what Pi meant was that many jewels in an affordable set.

Well, the queen's city is large probably enough to have ground vehicles on it. Just don't make anything too large if it's ground based, probably nothing above the $14.99 price point. Don't get me wrong, that's a great diorama you have there. But I doubt that lego would make it into a set. The point here is to make MOCs that look like they were in a pretty box with a LEGO logo on it a half hour ago. So no dioramas, mainly vehicles and bases. I feel like I'm staging a coup