Legendary Game Composer Rob Hubbard to be Immortalised in Book, Game, and Album Form

If you've played any amount of videogames from the mid eighties to the early nineties, then you'll probably have heard the sound of Rob Hubbard. The musician was hugely prolific on the British 8-bit and 16-bit scenes, with his work featured on many games including Populous, Desert Strike, The Last V8, and Samantha Fox Strip Poker.

Fans of Rob's work will be pleased to know that a Kickstarter campaign is being run by the pleasant folks over at c64audio.com which will feature a slew of goodies related to the man and his music. It's almost entirely funded already at the time of writing and can be found here.

The campaign spans three different goodies:

First, they're doing a detailed, comprehensive, full colour book about Rob Hubbard called "Rob Hubbard - The Official Reference", available as hardback or digital. It's got biography, music analysis, technical information and discussion, and a look at his fans, remixes, performances along with lots of interesting facts about the legendary composer.

Secondly, Rob is going back into the studio to record definitive "premixes" on some of his tracks, with this exclusive album being available on vinyl for an extra £50. The album, entitled Hubbard '80 will feature electronic instruments from 1979, and explores how some of Hubbard's famous chiptunes might have sounded if they were recorded as real synth songs before their use in games. There's also a CD of new SIDs composed by Rob and an archive album of lots of unreleased/rare material. If that wasn't enough, there's a deluxe version with four more albums and SID files for a number of tracks.

Last but not least is Rob's life, a new cartridge game for the C64. This stars the artist and will be available as a USB wafer, a digital download, or a real physical cartridge that you can hold in your hand or put in your mouth if that's your thing (don't worry, we won't judge you for it).

The group are hoping to raise £50,000 for the project, with most of that already in the bag as we go to press. If successful, backers can expect to receive their books, albums, records, and even mugs if they want them, in 2019.

If the campaign is an even bigger success however, they are hoping to stage a grand concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing arrangements of some of the 80s' best tunes live. Dubbed "8-Bit Symphony", the ambitious concert will feature an  programme of favourites from composers such as Rob himself, Ben Daglish, Martin Galway, Mark Cooksey, Paul Norman, Fred Gray and more.