12 years ago today, 29th October 1999, Transformers At The Moon was first launched.  The website, at that time, operated from the domain www.transformers.themoon.co.uk which was based from the email address transformers@themoon.  It was by registering this email account that we decided to settle on the name for the site.  Whilst both the email address and the domain have since moved to domains owned by us and to better reflect the focus of the website, Transformers toys, the site has continued to be maintained by the two brothers who first launched it.

We had hoped to launch the 9th version of the website to coincide with the anniversary of the site, however due to my computer at home failing, that project is still outstanding.

We will, however, still run the 12th anniversary celebrations, in terms of new special content and announcements, just as soon as wee are able to.  But in the mean time we would like to express our thanks to all of you who have visited the website over the last 12 years, joined the message board, Facebook group or follow us on  Twitter.  So on behalf of thhe pair of us, THANK YOU.

Steve and Dave AKA Transformers At The Moon

• On the creation of the first game
• On game narrative
• On managing Transformers lore
• On scripting a game
• On creative limits
• On designing characters
• On the War for Cybertron toys
• On Dinobots

Following up from the recent announcement of the Dream Toys 2011, the British Toy Retailers Association has now listed their category specific top tops which includes Transformers in the Boys Toys. You can view the list below

Bakugan Dragonoid Collossus - Spin Master - £39.99
Ben 10 Ultimate Alien - Ultimate Ultimatrix - Bandai - £19.99
Cars 2 Fully Secret Spy Attack Finn McMissile - Mattel - £30.99
Doctor Who Personalise Your Own Sonic Screwdriver Set - Character - £19.99
Hot Wheels Wall Tracks - Mattel - £29.99
Nerf N-Strike Barricade RV-10 Blaster - Hasbro - £17.99
Nerf Vortex Nitron Blaster - Hasbro - £44.99
Star Wars Ultimate Force Tech Lightsaber Asst - Hasbro - £39.99
Toy Story Turbo Glow Buzz Lightyear - Mattel - £41.99
Transformers Ultimate Optimus Prime - Hasbro - £69.99

AsiaOne.com are reporting that Transformers: The Ride will open in Singapore on December the third.

Here is a copy of the announcement

Come 3 December, Universal Studios Singapore (USS) will launch the world's first theme park attraction based on Hasbro's iconic Transformers brand.

Planning for this ride had started even before Resorts World Sentosa was built. From conceptualisation to construction, the latest theme park ride of USS took over four years to complete.

This motion thrill ride will showcase the most advanced evolution of immersive theme park entertainment.

The attraction will feature 12 scenes, comprising sets blended seamlessly with hyper-realistic 3-D digital media and special effects to bring tactile realism to every moment.

A spokesperson from Resorts World Singapore told AsiaOne that the ride duration is approximately four minutes, and that the ride is currently in a testing phase where it is put through thousands of hours of test cycles.

In this latest ride at USS, guests will be transported onboard advanced motion-based ride vehicles into the Transformers universe, and partake in the ultimate 3D battle against the Decepticons right alongside the Autobots.

Enlisted as NEST recruits, guests are tasked to help the Autobots protect a remaining shard of the ALLSPARK – a powerful energy cube that gives life to the Transformers. As the Decepticons attack the facility in a bid to obtain the shard, guests will be introduced to a new Autobot – EVAC – created exclusively for the ride.

EVAC is a stealth transportation Autobot stationed on Earth designed to transport personnel and classified materials at hyper speeds. For the ride, park guests will board EVAC and zip through subway tunnels, down city streets and across rooftops, with the Decepticons hot on their heels.

Park guests, especially fans of Transformers, will be thrilled as they come face-to-face – and be transported – by an Autobot. This epic ride experience will allow guests the opportunity to truly "Ride The Movie".

Special year-end holiday packages for Universal Studios Singapore will be rolled out through the Resorts World Sentosa website and authorized travel agents.

Guests signing up for these special packages will receive a Transformers The Ride commemorative souvenir and express entry to the attraction. More details will be available at www.rwsentosa.com.

Transformers movie director Michael Bay will be in S'pore for launch party

Transformers The Ride will celebrate its world premier at an exclusive evening event on December 2.

Michael Bay, director and executive producer of the Transformers blockbuster movies who also served as the attraction's creative consultant, will be in attendance to help commemorate the occasion.

Mr. Michael Bay said: "I am very excited about the debut of this attraction at Universal Studios Singapore. Finally, Transformers fans will not only have the chance to watch the Autobots battle the Decepticons on screen; they will actually be part of the action."

Jim Sorenson has posted a new additional to his Ark Addendum yesterday called Mircobots Part 1 .  Here's Jim to tell you all about it, though remember to click the link to view the character model.

"This week in The Ark Addendum... MICROBOTS!  Part 1.  No, it's not a two-part episode, I just have some more designs from the episode.  Unusual ones... but we'll get to that next week.

This week's installment is the backgrounds and props from the episode.  As we all remember, the Decepticons discover the remains of their as-yet-unnamed starship, which Beast Wars would dub Nemesis.  Inside is the Heart of Cybertron, which powers up Megatron and prompts the Autobots to shrink down, Fantastic Voyage style, and infiltrate Megatron's body. 

To me, the stand-out models here are Floro Dery's take on Megatron's insides.  He reused some of this imagery for the inside of Unicron a little later.  It's just a lovely alien landscape, bizarre and compelling.  Hats off to you, sir, hats off."

The British Toy Retailers Association have now named their top 12 toys Christmas 2011.  The list, shown below in alphabetical order, are the associations predicted top sellers and will/have featured in national press and news outlets this weel:

Doggie Doo, John Adams, RRP £22.99
Fijit Friends, Mattel, RRP £54.99
Fireman Sam Pontypandy Rescue Set, Character, RRP £29.99
Kidizoom Twist, VTech, RRP £49.99
LeapPad Explorer, Leapfrog Toys, RRP £79.99
Lets Rock Elmo, Hasbro, RRP £69.99
Milky the Bunny, Flair, £59.99
Monster High Lagoona’s Hydration Station, Mattel, £39.99
Moshling Tree House, Vivid, RRP £18.99
Nerf Vortex Nitron Blaster, Hasbro, RRP £44.99
Ninjago Fire Temple, Lego, RRP £91.99
Star Wars Ultimate Force Tech Lightsaber, Hasbro, RRP £39.99

Toy-Hobby-World have posted three scans from the latest issue of Dengeki Hobby Magazine. The scans have another look at the next Japanese Luck Draw figure, Sentinel Prime, as well as showing some new images of the upcoming DA­-28 Striker Optimus Prime and Human Alliance Soundwave toy. Check out the mirrored scans below.

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Los Angeles Times have posted a video with British model turned actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley regarding the chances of Transformers 4 and whether she thinks that Shia LaBeouf could be pursuaded to return.
"We'll see about that," Huntington-Whiteley told Los Angeles Times, Monday at the Hollywood Awards, seemingly doubtful about LaBeouf's statement. Asked if the actor could be persuaded to return for another "Transformers," she replied: "I think so. He'll kill me for saying that."
You can view the video below.

As you have no doubt notice the number of updates to this website, including news stories, has gradualy become less and less over recent weeks and so I thought I would take the time to update you all as to why this is the case.

For those of you who do not know this website was set-up and run by some twins 12 years ago.  In fact the site first launched on the 29th October 1999.  However, for the last few years, as we have gotten older, both of our professional careers have taken up more and more of our free time.  Its fairly common for both of us to work 12-16 hour days and personally I have worked 37 hours straight only a few months ago.  Because of this the time we get to maintain the website code, add new galleries and launch new features has dwindled.  The last year has been especially difficult for us as my brother, who you may know as Moonbug, no longer lives in the same town as myself and he use to maintain a lot of the content whilst I was working on the code.  During this time, and indeed the year prior, I have been re-writing the whole website from the ground up.  What was suppose to have been a 6-8 month project has slipped to 2 years.   I was hoping to launch the website this month as a part of ther 12th year anniversary celebrations, however as of last night my the motherboard on my main computer has died.  The machine has been on its last legs for a while with both the graphics card and soundcard failing and finally the fan on the northbridge has once again packed in causing the board to overheat and fry.

The good news is that when the issues stared all of the data was backed up onto an external hard disk so I have, at most, lost about a few days worth of coding and 2 months worth of emails to an old email address.

I will continue to update the news from work, when I can as well as from home via my phone or this extremely low powered netbook whilst I order and re-build a new computer.

My brother is currently out of the country on holiday but once he is back I am sure that he will try to update the site as much as he can whilst I am unable to add new galleries, yes this netbook is that low powered it can't handle high res image editing.

I will continue to try to complete the last 3% of the website re-write as well as things are so close to launch but I wanted to let you all know that if things seem quiet around here for the next week or so it is not because the website has stopped, on the contrary, we have a lot of unique content that we have been preparing to add to the website from hard copies and testshots through cartoon models and behind the scenes Sunbow documents as well as general toy galleries.

What it does mean though, is the big celebration I was hoping to have to commemorate the 12th aniversary of the website will be delayed, perhaps to the 12th anniversary of the official launch of the site which was the 11th November 1999.

Thanks,

Steve AKA Quartz

TakaraTomy have announced, via their website, their latest prize campaign within Japan, also known as the lucky draw c­ampaigns, with the top prize this time being a gold chrome Transformers: Dark Side Moon Sentinel Prime.  Dark Side Moon being the Japanese name for the 3rd live action Transformers movie.

The figure will be limited to 10 pieces with collectors able to enter the competition by collecting the serial codes from the Transformers Dark Side Moon toys.  Other then the 10 Voyager Sentinel Primes other prizes include 10 special edition Transformers web cameras and 100 new gold Mech Tech weapon.

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ACToyshave posted some new images of their prototype Dinosaur combiner.  The toys are shown in their individual Dinosaur modes as well as the combined form.  You can view the mirrored images below.­

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In a guest post over on Jim Sorenson's blog, Disciples of Boltax, Monzo has posted an article reference and re-producing some storyboards from the first ever cartoon episode of Transformers, More Than Meets The Eye, that were sold on Heritage Auctions way back in 2002.  The images show some high resolution scans of ten pages of storyboards which make some interesting analysis.

You can check out the blog here.

Our thanks­­ go out to Neurie for tweeting us confirmation and images that Cyberverse Guzzle (£6.49), MechTech Cyberfire Bumblebee (£9.49), Mech-Tech Specialist Ratchet (£9.49) and the Battle Hooks Optimus Prime with Comettor (£19.99) are all now available at Smyths stores across the country.  You can view images of these toys on the shelf below.

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A quick heads up. A few people including Neurie, Matt Marshall and Simon Williams have all let us know via one medium of another that this week's issue of Doctor Who Adventures (#240, pollybagged with Silent mask) comes completed with a Kreon Optimus Prime mini-figure.  The toy is the same figure that was given away at Botcon so it is not normally available.  The magazine costs £2.99 http://www.dwamag.com/this-week%27s-issue.aspx