Trombone Champ news & patch notes

Hello! We're rolling out a small patch today, which should bring the game to v1.28H. This patch only fixes one bug that we accidentally introduced in the last version. The update should be around 1.5mb, which is probably smaller than this webpage!

• Fixed issue where the gameplay scene would break after clicking "Test Track In-Game" in the Tootmaker level editor.
• Bonus feature: if you return to the Tootmaker after testing a track in-game, the level editor should automatically load the level you were working on. Sorry for not implementing this earlier!

That's it! Look forward to more in the new year! Have a great holiday everyone, and thanks for playing! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

This holiday season, we're thrilled to announce the first official DLC packs for Trombone Champ: UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE, Celeste, and Pizza Tower! It's like a Christmas present from us to you, except you need to buy it with your own money! Anyway, all three DLCs are available right now! Please note: all three DLCs require v1.29 of the base game, which just launched yesterday!! So, you might need to restart Steam in order to get that update first! Combined, these 3 song packs contain 34 tracks, which is significantly more than Trombone Champ had when it launched! It's a big chunk of content, and we've been very busy putting these DLCs together for the past few months. It's truly an honor to have these games represented in Trombone Champ, and we worked hard to do them justice! That being said, let's dive into them...

DLC 1: UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE Song Pack

↪ See the UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE Song Pack on Steam! Playing UNDERTALE or any of the DELTARUNE games means stopping every 4 minutes to say: "why is this song for this one \ so good?" There's an astronomical amount of amazing music in these games, and the soundtracks literally contain hundreds of songs, so it was really difficult to narrow it down to 7 from UNDERTALE and 7 from the various DELTARUNE chapters. Be warned: this is a really difficult collection of songs! The most popular tracks from the soundtracks tend to be ridiculously fast and complex. These are really dense pieces of music, which is unbelievable when you think about how much music Toby Fox wrote for these games! A smaller version of this DLC pack has been available for the VR version of the game for a while. Apologies for the delay: we had some contractual kinks to work out! Also, if you like the UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE soundtracks, consider buying them on Bandcamp! Literally hundreds of songs! https://tobyfox.bandcamp.com/album/undertale-soundtrack

DLC 2: Celeste Song Pack

↪ See the Celeste Song Pack on Steam! Dear lord is this is a beautiful soundtrack! It's one thing to "write a bunch of cool songs" for a game, and it's another to create a true soundtrack, where the songwriting feels like it was designed hand-in-hand with the game itself. Of the three DLC song packs, this is the one most likely to make you weep at your desk. The Celeste Song Pack contains less tracks than the other DLCs, but the total playtime is approximately the same because the tracks are a lot longer. A lot of the tracks from the original soundtrack release are very long—the original “Reach For The Summit” is 11 minutes! So, before we could even start making these into Trombone Champ tracks, we had to start by carefully editing the songs down to a playable length. But we're glad we spent the time on it, because this is probably the largest collection of Celeste songs available as DLC for any music game out there. Before you complain: sorry, yes, we know that all of these tracks are from the "Original" soundtrack, and therefore none of the beloved B-sides are represented in this DLC. Legally, the B-sides are a separate album, which would require another contract to acquire. But we love Celeste, so unless this DLC sells zero copies for some reason, we'd love to make a second B-sides pack at some point in the near future. Finally: if you're into Celeste, check out the rest of Lena's discography! There's a lot of amazing stuff here beyond the Celeste soundtrack! https://radicaldreamland.bandcamp.com/

DLC 3: Pizza Tower Song Pack

↪ See the Pizza Tower Song Pack on Steam! The official Pizza Tower Soundtrack is 73 tracks long, and an unbelievable number of them are absolute bangers. It took a long time to decide which tracks to include, and there are still tons of tracks that cause us immense pain to have skipped. All of the Pizza Tower tracks are fast and insane, and they fit Trombone Champ extremely well. "It's Pizza Time" is so much fun to play that it's hard to believe it wasn't written for Trombone Champ. We also got to use some neat Trombone Champ-specific functionality in these tracks: "Put on a Show" contains really subtle pitch bends, and some segments of "Unexpectancy Pt. 2" are charted out-of-tune to match the samples used in the song. Also, as a warning: like the UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE Song Pack, this is also a really difficult set of songs! But we imagine that the type of player who enjoys both Trombone Champ & Pizza Tower will enjoy the challenge. Fun fact: if you purchase this song pack, your copy of Trombone Champ will contain two remixes of "Funiculi Funicula." As far as we know, Trombone Champ is the only game in history that contains multiple artists' interpretations of "Funiculi Funicula," which is the greatest honor imaginable. Also, if you like the Pizza Tower Soundtrack, you should grab the album here: https://ronandecastel.bandcamp.com/album/pizza-tower-soundtrack ... And don't sleep on the rest of ClascyJitto's discography, which you can find here: https://rizi.bandcamp.com/ ... and here (we love this album): https://fakenumberland.bandcamp.com/album/sound-of-feeling

Accessing the DLC

If you purchase a DLC Song Pack, it should simply appear as a new "Collection" in the lower-right hand corner of the Track Select screen. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/94b9de22168157af9f896e17df770021868721da.png If the DLC does not appear:

• Try restarting Steam: the DLC may not have downloaded yet, or you may not have received the Trombone Champ 1.29 update yet.
• Make sure you've played at least one track, because the Collections button doesn't appear until after you've completed Warm-Up.
• It's possible that some mods may interfere with loading the DLC collections. If you're a mod user, try playing the game without mods until the mods receive updates.

On DLCs in general

Trombone Champ has been out for three years, which is pretty late to start releasing DLC. We waited this long for a few reasons: Firstly, in general, it feels a little scummy to charge for content if the base game itself obviously needs a lot of work. Trombone Champ launched in a pretty janky state, and we definitely wouldn't have felt comfortable releasing DLC at that time. But, by this point, we've added a billion features, more than tripled the number of songs that are included with the base game, and are pretty close to what we feel is a "finished product" that we're totally happy with. So, we feel like we're at a stage where we can release DLC without feeling too guilty about it. Secondly, we weren't sure what would make a good first DLC. We've had a few ideas, but they all fell through: either due to licensing woes (you likely have no idea how horrible this process is), or because they just didn't "feel right" for Trombone Champ. Huge thanks to Flat2VR Studios, who manage the VR version of Trombone Champ, as they're the ones who really got the ball rolling with UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE. Once we started talking to Materia Collective, it was pretty obvious that these three soundtracks fit perfectly: a celebration of indie games in Trombone Champ! Thirdly, we're confident that these DLCs rule and are worth the money. A lot of music games charge approximately $2.00 per song. These packs are priced at $7.99 and contain between 10 and 14 tracks, which is approximately 3X the content per dollar.

Other Stuff in Update 1.29

The vast majority of our work has been in building the DLC song packs and updating the game to support them, but there's some other stuff in the update as well. Here's the changelog:

• Tweaked lots of stuff to add support for official DLC song packs.
• Added a shiny "S" badge that appears on top of a collection if you S-rank every song in the collection.
• Lots of small improvements and bugfixes in Tootmaker.
• The Accessibility settings menu has been cleaned up and categorized.
• Fixed issue where you could accidentally click RETRY instead of CONTINUE in the Track Select screen.
• Fixed issue where overlapping music could play if you clicked the Collections button at the right time.
• Fixed issue where rounding errors could cause the track time to contain a negative second: e.g., "4:0-1"
• Fixed issue where "S" would still be visible after deleting scores for a song.
• Adjusted how settings are loaded and accessed during gameplay.
• Adjusted which accessibility settings cause the circular rainbow sprites around "CHAMP" to be hidden.

What's Next for Trombone Champ?

We'd intended for our next update to improve on input - better native support for gamepads and controllers, with the goal of getting the game working more smoothly on Steam Deck out of the box. However, once we decided on a December release date for these DLC packs, we had to pause the input work. That being said: input is definitely what we're going to focus on next for the Steam version! Although we'll also be working to get this DLC available on the Nintendo Switch ASAP. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/f70bd9c3db3dc7b0d611b191dcd4a1f39256f696.jpg Thanks for playing! Hope to share more stuff soon! Enjoy the holidays! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Trombone Champ has been updated to v1.29G! This primary purpose of this update is to prepare the game for something we're announcing tomorrow (December 18th). The "thing" we announce tomorrow will require version 1.29 or later! That being said, there are a handful of other fixes and improvements in this update. If you use the Tootmaker, we've been gradually adding features and improving the general workflow. It's not perfect, but we think it's very solid now! Note: mod compatibility As usual, we've had this update available as a beta for a few weeks so that the community can get a head start on updating their stuff. If you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But please hop on the newest version as soon as you can! Changelog:

• Tweaked lots of stuff to add support for a secret thing that drops on December 18th.
• Added a shiny "S" badge that appears on top of a collection if you S-rank every song in the collection.
• Lots of small improvements & bugfixes in Tootmaker.
• The Accessibility settings menu has been cleaned up and categorized.
• Fixed issue where you could accidentally click RETRY instead of CONTINUE in the Track Select screen.
• Fixed issue where overlapping music could play if you clicked the Collections button at the right time.
• Fixed issue where rounding errors could cause the track time to contain a negative second: e.g., "4:0-1"
• Fixed issue where "S" would still be visible after deleting scores for a song.
• Adjusted how settings are loaded and accessed during gameplay.
• Adjusted which accessibility settings cause the circular rainbow sprites around "CHAMP" to be hidden.

Check back tomorrow for another announcement! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Hello! We're rolling out another small patch today, which should bring the game to v1.28F. This one really only does two things:

1. Unity Vulnerability Patch

1.28F applies a fix for a vulnerability in the Unity engine that was recently discovered. You can read about that here: https://unity.com/security/sept-2025-01 On our end, we had to upgrade our Unity editor from 2019.4.40f1 to 2019.4.41f1 and rebuild the game. Sometimes, upgrading the editor can be a nightmare (which is why we're still using Unity 2019 in the first place). But luckily, as far as we can tell, going from 2019.4.40 to 2019.4.41 doesn't seem to cause any compatibility issues!

2. Track Loading Bugfix

We recently learned about a bug where the game's "final boss battle" wouldn't load under certain circumstances. When we looked into it, we found an issue with how the Track Select screen stores and manipulates track data. This issue can also make "streamer mode" act weird. Anyways, the issue should now be fixed! On PC, this patch should only be around 50mb. For some reason, the patch is a lot larger on Mac, coming in at around 500mb. We don't have a lot of control over this... we just build the game, and then Steam figures out how to update the files. Apologies for the inconvenience! We have a lot of really cool stuff in progress, and are excited to get back to work now that this patch is out! Thank you for your patience! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Hello! At Holy Wow Studios, we have a proud tradition of shipping each update with at least one bug. We spared no expense with 1.28! And so, we're rolling out a small patch today, which should bring the game to v1.28E. Here's what it does:

• Hotfix for bug where "Streamer Mode" would cause the Track Select screen to crash.
• Hotfix for Free Improvisation mode.
• Fixes to scrollwheel behavior in the Tootmaker.
• Input improvements in Tootmaker for Mac devices:
  • The Command key is now be accepted instead of Control.
  • On laptops, you can now scroll horizontally using the trackpad, which feels great!

We've been spending a lot of time making charts in the Tootmaker, and after this new patch, doing it on our Mac laptop feels awesome! Thanks for your patience, and stay tuned for more! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Today, Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.28! This track mainly adds two spooky tracks for Halloween, plus a bonus track! But it does some other stuff too! Note: mod compatibility As usual, we've had this update available as a beta for a few weeks so that the community can get a head start on updating their stuff. If you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But please hop on the newest version as soon as you can!

New Tracks!

Firstly, this update adds two tracks for Halloween: "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saëns, and a fun remix of The American Quartet's "The Skeleton Rag!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26eZ2J6h8HE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJPrt62X20 We originally wanted "The Skeleton Rag" to be in the game for last year's Halloween, but we started work on the track too late and didn't have time to get the update live before the holiday. We've also added another track for no reason: "Hungarian Dance No. 5" by Brahms! This is an incredible piece of music, and the background art is among our favorites. (Note: "Hungarian Dance No. 5" is one of the few tracks that was purchased from an audio library, so it's not streaming-safe.)

More Stuff!

Now, when you pause the game, you can adjust basic audio settings. Previously, if you wanted to adjust audio levels, it was super annoying! You'd need to quit the song you were playing, go all the way to the main menu, adjust the sliders, and then load another song to see if it sounded right. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/d6cd51fa66d1d8cc544646383d46b89dfb56ab26.png Finally, we made some adjustments to how tracks are loaded in order to support potential DLC later in the year. The game supports two formats: json (custom tracks) and binary (base game tracks). Previously, binary tracks would always look in one specific folder to load their content. Now, binary tracks are much more flexible, and we should be able to drop DLC content into the game easily! Stay tuned for more.

Full Changelog:

• Three new songs: "Danse Macabre," "The Skeleton Rag (Remix)," and "Hungarian Dance #5!"
• Audio settings can now be tweaked in the Pause screen.
• In collections of custom tracks, Default sort is now alphabetical.
• Added ability to sort tracks by track tag.
• Adjusted the logic that checks for duplicate trackrefs when packaging a Tootmaker track.
• Bugfix: Fixed issue where default tracks wouldn't initially load when changing languages.

What's Next for Trombone Champ in 2025

We've starting working on our next game (unannounced), but we have more Trombone Champ stuff in the pipeline! Previously, we'd planned to tackle controller stuff for this update. However, our priorities shifted a bit. We've spent a ton of time on the Nintendo Switch update, plus a ton of time on "secret stuff" that we hope to announce around the holiday season! Here's where we are: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/31a42156b3498bf314d9b331c209c77a5ae24999.jpg We hope you enjoy this update... Stay tuned for more and thank you for your patience! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

We just pushed a tiny update that should bring the game to 1.27F. This patch fixes literally one line of code that was preventing Favorites from loading. If you're curious, here's the line of code (it was accidentally commented out): GlobalVariables.track_collection_loader.initiallyLoadFavoritesCollection(); We're currently working on a patch for the Switch version, controller support for the PC version, and a handful of new tracks. Stay tuned and thanks for your patience! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Today, Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.27E! Mainly, this update adds support for 21:9 ultrawide resolutions, but it tweaks some other stuff as well... Note: mod compatibility As usual, we've had this update available as a beta for a few weeks so that the community can get a head start on updating their stuff. However, this update adjusts the GUI in almost every screen, so it's more likely to break mods than previous ones. If you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But please hop on the newest version as soon as you can!

Ultrawide!

Firstly, We've added support for 21:9 resolutions! This was more work than you might think because most of Trombone Champ's user interface is made of tons of 2D artwork that was arranged to fit a 16:9 window. If you widened the screen before this update, there was usually nothing at all in the extra space to the left and right! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/839cd81e40e40e15a6d1e8c0f7ca80e9b693c76d.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/56d3cc1a4b8b697558a7f71ceb8ae48c4ecfb378.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/197c5a9898c7a9035fa332bce5942651a2c4714f.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/360b2e0f584ec6e0b26f287d40789eb81c868fae.jpg During gameplay, backgrounds are currently letterboxed to the middle of the screen. In the future, we might add options to stretch or zoom the backgrounds (although it will look bad). But there are lots of other tweaks: the GUI fits nicely into the corners, the tromboner is shifted to the right, etc. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/0075ceb80a6e5c1414e64a1f7105ecc6a942af9e.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/9ff0bc10c11cc8f45db6f799b9963c648d3ee2c4.jpg As we adjusted the GUI for 21:9, we usually ended up breaking the 16:10 display. So, when we were done with 21:9, we went through the screens a second time to make 16:10 work again. In a lot of cases, 16:10 should actually look a bit nicer than it did previously! Do we plan to support 32:9? Probably not, sorry! We'd need to add a ton of artwork to each scene in order to fill the screen, which is a lot of overhead to benefit a very very small number of players.

Custom Track Errors!

The game now displays error messages if custom tracks fail to load. If you have any problems with custom tracks — such as duplicate tracks, tracks that are missing required files, etc — this should help you troubleshoot them! (Ideally you shouldn't have any errors at all. But now that Steam Workshop is online, it's definitely easier to bump into some of these problems...) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/e89008c8427b9a9665a581d4d357eee5c34be3e7.jpg If any of your custom tracks can't be loaded, error messages should appear as soon as the game starts. You can also review these errors in Settings -> Customs. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/d0d359e6a9d1795c7c142e2e19c9921cecc30aab.jpg

More stuff!

There are a handful of other tweaks and improvements in this version:

• Some storyline cinematics have been tweaked to make stuff look better & to make the sequence of events easier to follow.
• The mute button in the Track Select screen has been expanded to provide additional Amazing Muting Options.
• Default track collection has been changed to "All" for users with custom tracks (only if the user has never clicked the track collection button).
• Added support for difficulties over 10 (although we don't recommend giving tracks difficulties over 10).
• The game now prevents tracks with duplicate "track tags" from being loaded.
• When packaging a custom track in the Tootmaker, the game now checks to see if the track tag is a duplicate and throws an error message if it is.
• Bugfix: fixed issue where the Help & View Waveform buttons were hidden in Tootmaker.

What's Next for Trombone Champ in 2025

We've starting working on our next game (unannounced), but we have more Trombone Champ stuff in the pipeline. In addition to a handful of new tracks we plan to release later this year, our biggest priorities at the moment are patching the Nintendo Switch version and improving controller support on the Steam version so the game plays better on Steam Deck. Here's where we are: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/6a2d014068a7316a748bd845d1b453ba79de26f8.jpg We hope you enjoy this update... Stay tuned for more! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Today, we're pushing a tiny update for Trombone Champ, which updates it to 1.26G! Mod compatibility with 1.26G This is a very small update, so we don't expect it to break anything that wasn't broken in 1.26F. But, if you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But please hop on the newest version as soon as you can! Fixes:

• Fixed issue where "The Trombone Champ Collection" tooltip would appear in the Track Select screen when starting a new game and forced to play "Warm-Up."
• Added some additional code to the Steam Workshop uploader that should attempt to auto-delete a Workshop item if the upload fails. Previously, failed uploads could result in a blank item being added to the Workshop.
• Added a tiny arrow to the Collections button in Track Select to make it appear more clickable.
• Fixed metadata for "Taps" to display the correct song length.

Look forward to more updates soon! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.26! This update mainly adds support for custom tracks via Steam Workshop. Mod compatibility with 1.26 As usual, we've had this update available as a beta for a few weeks so that the community can get a head start on updating their tools. But if you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But please hop on the newest version as soon as you can!

Browse and subscribe to tracks in Steam Workshop!

You can now browse and subscribe to custom tracks via Steam Workshop! For Steam users, this is probably the easiest way to get started with custom maps. You can view the workshop page here: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=1059990 After subscribing to items, they should appear in a new "Steam Workshop" collection in the "Track Select" screen. You may need to restart the game, or click the "reload" button in the Custom Tracks section of Settings, to make newly-subscribed tracks show up. https://i.imgur.com/0OCl8tM.png We've personally made two tracks to celebrate the launch of the Workshop, with more to come soon. Vogons is a really fun Max Tundra track, and Item Shopping is a remix of a track from one of our old albums! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3480593643 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3480589806 The community has already uploaded a bunch of tracks to the game's Workshop... and now that the Workshop is public, we anticipate lots of new content soon! Are you musically inclined?... if so, why not contribute yourself?...

Upload your tracks to Steam Workshop!

We've written a guide on how to upload your incredible tracks to Steam Workshop here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3484303312 To summarize, there's a new button in the Tootmaker level editor: https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/10843595434281437303/E4133A4B332387A02F76E63227A142385603A0FB/ ... and when you click the button, you get a popup that should be self-explanatory. All you really need to do is point to a folder, attach a thumbnail image, and click "submit!" https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/13198470362750566460/6173E52813F88D8EAAB416DADF57693302E05CE3/ We plan to hold some sort Workshop contest soon, so if you're interested, check it out!

Other types of content in Workshop?

At the moment, you can only upload custom tracks to Steam Workshop. However, we plan to continue experimenting with additional workshop functionality. For example, it would be great if users could upload and download gameplay mods in the workshop! However, this will be a bit trickier to implement since it will involve a lot more tracking and file management than custom tracks do.

What's Next for Trombone Champ in 2025

We've been pretty busy over here... in addition to Trombone Champ stuff, we've started prototyping our Next Game (unannounced). Gotta make sure it's actually fun to play before diving in! But, in terms of Trombone Champ, here's what we plan to do next: https://i.imgur.com/ms3ONv6.jpeg

We need to update the Nintendo Switch version of the game to address a few (very minor, visual only) issues with the Switch 2 version. It works great, but a few animations run too quickly!

For PC / Mac, we've started going through a bunch of screens and making them look better in ultrawidescreen resolutions. People have been complaining about this forever and it will be nice to get it done!

We'd like to revisit input. We'd love to have nice controller support, mainly so we can get the game working as smoothly as possible on the Steam Deck. Trombone Champ does work on the Steam Deck, but it doesn't control nearly as nicely as it could. (The game was released at a time when the Steam Deck was heavily backordered — we weren't able to get one until much later!)

We're working on some cool secret stuff that we can't share yet! At the moment, we're not even sure how much of this stuff will pan out!

After that, we're probably done in terms of significant updates, but we'll still continue to support the game, fix bugs, and add new tracks. Thank you for your continued support!! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone, When we put v1.25 live, we expected to find a few bugs after launch. Patch 1.25G fixes a handful of pretty significant ones! (edit: Whoops! We had another bug pointed out to us, so now the game should be 1.25H instead of 1.25G) Here's what it does:

• (Fix in 1.25H) Fixed issue where newly-created save slots don't save stuff correctly.
• Fixed several small bugs / weird behaviors that can pop up while favoriting & un-favoriting tracks.
• Fixed a bug where quitting a custom track before it was finished & and then switching to a default track would cause the track to load incorrectly.
• Fixed a condition where the final storyline event could potentially glitch out if the last track played was a custom track.

To see what we're working on next (e.g., right now), check out the roadmap at the end of our 1.25 announcement post: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1059990/view/519707981834616835 Enjoy! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios P.S. We've also disabled the "1.25" beta branch in Steam - there's no need for it now that 1.25 is actually out! It looks like 0.14% of users had this branch active, so if you're one of those, please switch to the default branch 🙏

Today, Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.25E, one of the biggest updates in a long time! Mainly, this update adds the ability to play custom tracks without any mods & officially adds an in-game level editor. Note: mod compatibility with 1.25 As always, we've had this update available as a beta for a few weeks so that the community can get a head start on updating their tools. However, this update is much bigger than most: to natively support custom maps, we had to rewrite a lot of the code that handles how songs are loaded, how high scores are saved, how song data is managed, etc. There are a lot of changes under the hood! So, a lot of community-made tools are likely to be broken, and others may not be fully updated on day one. "My game is busted, what do I do?" If you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. However, each update after this one will require the changes that 1.25 implements, so please check your mods for updates and hop on the newest version as soon as you can! "I already play custom tracks... do I need this update at all?..." If you're already using community-made tools to load custom maps, this update probably won't help you out much! You'll probably want to continue using the game the way you already have been; or, maybe, temporarily rolling back to the previous update (see the note above). But if you're a new player, have never installed mods, or only lightly dabbled in them, then this update should make playing with custom content much easier and we highly recommend sticking with 1.25. Anyways, let's walk through all of the new stuff that 1.25 brings...

New Stuff in 1.25

1. New Stuff: Custom Tracks & Collections

The biggest change is that the game now natively supports custom maps, which you can manage through "collections." Simply drop custom tracks into the specified folders and they'll appear as collections in the Track Select screen! If you put your tracks into subfolders, each subfolder of tracks will appear as a separate collection. You can even add jpg thumbnails and edit the collection names and descriptions with json! We've made a video explaining how to load custom tracks here: https://youtu.be/MoK1du9WPpw "What types of custom maps are supported?"

• Any custom track with a png, jpg, or mp4 background should work.
• At the moment, custom tracks with 3D backgrounds built in Unity are not supported. The track should still load, but without the background. We MAY support these in the future, but at the moment, you'll need mods to get them working.

"Where do I get custom tracks?"

• The next major update will add Steam Workshop, which will probably be the easiest way to upload & browse community-made custom tracks. Until then we really can't recommend a specific resource!! You're free to search for and share tracks on your own, but make sure you're using music files that you have legal rights to use (public domain, royalty free, music you make yourself, etc).

https://i.imgur.com/oCwXbhK.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/seZuLRk.jpeg

2. New Stuff: Favorites!

With the addition of collections, we're guessing that users will be interacting with many many more tracks than the number that comes with the base game. Therefore, we've added the ability to "favorite" tracks! Every track has a little heart button that you can click to add the track to your favorites. Then, you can play them all in your Favorites collection! https://i.imgur.com/ExofMiW.jpeg

3. New Stuff: The Tootmaker Released!

The built in track editor, which we call "The Tootmaker," has officially been released! It's been added right to the home screen. We're thrilled to finally have this as an official part of the game. Taking a song you love and turning it into a custom track — for any rhythm game, not just Trombone Champ — is a spiritually-enriching experience. Give it a shot! https://i.imgur.com/ajDleEo.jpeg It's easy to export and play tracks you make with the Tootmaker! When you're finished working on a track, simply click the "Package" button. The Tootmaker will copy all of your track files into a new folder, renaming them if necessary. If you "package" your track into the default folder, your track will immediately appear in the "My Tootmaker Tracks" collection. But you can also package your track into another folder, like one on your desktop, so you can easily share it with your friends (if, of course, you have legal rights to use the music)! https://i.imgur.com/KowCdCC.jpeg Also, you can also use the Tootmaker to make tracks for Trombone Champ: Unflattened, the VR port of the game!.

4. New Stuff: "Rhapsody in Blue!"

This update also adds one new track: "Rhapsody in Blue!" We're beyond excited to have this song in the game. Trombone Champ is made in NY, and somehow there's never been a song that more perfectly captures "new york energy" than this one. With its time changes, long runtime, and multiple sections, this track probably took longer to make than any other. We hope you enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFy8Wfmxgd4

What's Next for Trombone Champ

Trombone Champ is a few years old and we're finally at the point where it's beginning to feel "mostly complete." Here's what we plan to do next: https://i.imgur.com/XZcVSjD.jpeg

We're certain that we'll find a handful of bugs and quirks now that the game natively supports custom tracks. So, first and foremost, we'll be keeping an eye on things and looking for anything that needs patching! We also need to make the Nintendo Switch version of this update! The Nintendo Switch will not have custom maps or a level editor, but it will get Rhapsody in Blue & other improvements.

Our next step for PC & Mac is Steam Workshop integration. The game now loads tracks in a pretty smart way: you can basically specify any folder and the game can load all of the tracks in that folder. So, we think Steam Workshop may be pretty easy to implement at this point. Conversely, it would have been nearly impossible to get it working without all of the updates made in 1.25.

After that, we'd like to revisit input. We'd love to have nice controller support, mainly so we can get the game working as smoothly as possible on the Steam Deck. Trombone Champ does work on the Steam Deck, but it doesn't control nearly as nicely as it could. (The game was released at a time when the Steam Deck was heavily backordered — we weren't able to get one until much later!)

We're working on some cool secret stuff that we can't share yet! At the moment, we're not even sure how much of this stuff will pan out!

After that, we're probably done in terms of significant updates, but we'll still continue to support the game, fix bugs, and add new tracks. By the time we reach this point, our time will be better spent on new projects & games! We're going nuts and can't work exclusively on a comedy trombone game forever! We hope you enjoy 1.25! This one took a lot of work, but it transforms the game into something with the potential to be a creative tool rather than something you simply consume, which is very important to us. Thank you for your continued support!! Forever in your service, https://i.imgur.com/6ogqbAZ.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone - just letting you know that we plan to drop v1.25 pretty soon! This is a big update. Probably the biggest one since the game launched! Here's what to expect...

What's New

1. Custom Track Collections

The biggest change is that the game now natively supports custom maps, which you can manage through "collections." Simply drag-and-drop your tracks into the specified folders and they'll appear as a collection of custom tracks. https://i.imgur.com/oCwXbhK.jpeg Track Select screen with the new Collections chooser in the lower-right corner. If you create subfolders of custom tracks, each one appears as its own collection. You can even add jpg thumbnails and edit the collection names and descriptions with json! https://i.imgur.com/seZuLRk.jpeg The Collections Chooser, showing the default collections. You can have any many collections of custom tracks as you want here!

2. The Tootmaker!

The Tootmaker will be officially released in this version! It's currently hidden in a "secret menu" in Settings, but in the next version, it will appear right on the home screen. https://i.imgur.com/ajDleEo.jpeg Building notes in the Tootmaker. We made sure the Tootmaker integrates nicely with Collections. When you're done working on a track, simply click the "Package" button. The Tootmaker will copy all of your track files into a new folder, renaming them if necessary, and the track will immediately appear in the "My Tootmaker Tracks" collection in the Track Select Screen! https://i.imgur.com/KowCdCC.jpeg Packaging a track in the Tootmaker. Also, you can also use the Tootmaker to make tracks for Trombone Champ: Unflattened, the VR port of the game! We've included "background events" that let you control which "lane" the notes appear in if you load the level in Unflattened.

3. More Stuff!

As always, this update will also contain a new track. It also contains new settings (required for Collections), and other stuff that felt necessary with the addition of Collections (the ability to delete scores, the ability to favorite tracks, etc).

Release Timing

Apologies for this update taking a while! Getting multiple lists of custom tracks required a lot of work! We had to rethink and rewrite tons of systems, such as how high scores are saved and loaded. Also, of course, making a user-friendly level editor is a ridiculous amount of work in itself. That being said, we hope to have this update live in "around a month!" We're currently getting a bunch of copy localized, testing the update for bugs, and working on other finishing touches. Since this update changes so much about how track data is loaded and used, most mods will need significant overhauling. We made some documentation explaining how the game has changed under the hood to help out modders, which you can check it out here! In the meantime, if you want to check it out, it's available as a beta in Steam via the new "1.25" branch. If you decide to try 1.25, please back up your saves and/or use a new save slot! Also, please note that none of the localized copy has been hooked up yet, so the new features are English-only until the update officially releases. Also, of course, since this is still a beta branch, expect a handful of bugs. We're already aware of a few small bugs and are planning to update this branch asap. We're excited to share this update with the world soon! Thanks for your continued patience. Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone! Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.24B - the holiday update for 2024! This update adds two holiday songs: "Carol of the Bells" and "Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah!" It also adds a "bonus" track: "Puttin' On the Ritz!" All three of these are pretty tricky but a lot of fun! (We usually include a note here like: "this may break your mods, please check them for updates"... but this update is fairly small and shouldn't break anything.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYTz7OjDBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJInjPIGOeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKk16RCOWjc We were originally planning to make this update much bigger... we have tons of updates in progress, and a lot of them are almost ready to roll out. But the past few months have been busy with the launch of Trombone Champ: Unflattened in VR, plus the 9-player typing game we showed at NYU's No Quarter 2024 event. Around mid-November, we realized: "whoops, if we want these holiday tracks released before the holidays, we need to work on getting a smaller patch out the door immediately." Here's a full list of what's new:

• New Tracks: "Carol of the Bells," "Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah," and "Puttin' On the Ritz!"
• When sliding trombone notes, the tone you hear should match the slide much more accurately.
• Replaced the logo on the home screen with the official logo used everywhere else.
• The game should jump from the Loading screen to the Gameplay screen a bit faster.
• OMG! Lots of improvements to the Tootmaker level editor (which is still "secret" for now).
• Fixed some conditions that caused the mouse cursor to reappear if the user had activated the Disable Mouse Cursor setting.
• Other minor graphical optimizations and tweaks.

The second bullet point is a big one! If you haven't noticed, pitch bending has been pretty inaccurate since launch: when you bent a note, the tone you would hear would be slightly off-tune in lots of cases. We found a new solution that works like magic and will probably write a blog post about it. This is one of those things that we're embarrassed to have left in the game for so long. Before the end of the year, we'll make another post about our 2025 roadmap, but to summarize, we have a few large, fundamental updates we'd like to finish ASAP. In the meantime, happy holidays and thank you for your patience! Forever in your service, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38630453/59c4f0aedff84f945240698158cf42ddcebca2df.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone! We're working on the next Trombone Champ update, but as always, it's taking a bit longer than expected. In the meantime, we'd like to highlight a bunch of related Trombone Champ / Holy Wow projects... We sometimes post about these on social media, but haven't really mentioned them in Steam News! Without further ado...

Trombone Champ: Unflattened

Flat2VR Studios are working hard on the official VR port of Trombone Champ, which we're calling Trombone Champ: Unflattened. This has turned into a much larger & more ambitious game than we were imagining, and we have lots of plans for post-launch content and support. Flat2VR is doing the vast majority of development, but we're helping with a lot of stuff, like art assets, sounds, storyline, writing, ideas, etc. One of the things we like most about this project is that one of the primary developers is Raicuparta, who made the first VR mod for the PC version of the game shortly after it launched! Trombone Champ: Unflattened comes out later this year for Steam, Meta Quest, and PS VR2, so pre-order today! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3151670/Trombone_Champ_Unflattened/

Trombone Champ: The Card Game Kickstarter

https://i.imgur.com/Tdm7ykl.jpeg Around a year ago, indie board game designer Jason Anarchy approached us and asked if he could prototype a Trombone Champ card game. We told him to go for it, and a few months later, he showed us a prototype via Table Top Simulator. It was really fun! Even as people who play a lot of board / card games, we genuinely had a great time. Jason is currently running a Kickstarter for the game and there are a few stretch goals left to hit... check it out here! —> Trombone Champ: The Card Game on Kickstarter

Debuting a New Holy Wow Studios Game at No Quarter 2024

https://i.imgur.com/7Z8Dj3t.jpeg We're excited to be taking part of NYU's "No Quarter" event, at the NYU Game Center in Downtown Brooklyn. At No Quarter, a small number of game developers are invited to show a new game. The experience we're developing is very ambitious: a nine-player competitive typing game, with nine keyboards centered around three vertical screens. Every part of the game was designed to be shown in a public space... it should be super fun to play and for others to spectate. Consider stopping by if you're in the New York area! —> No Quarter 2024 Official Website

iam8bit Trombone Champ Vinyl Soundtrack

https://i.imgur.com/e0n3yfT.jpeg Our iam8bit vinyls were briefly sold out, but now they're back in stock! They did an amazing job with the artwork and packaging... these truly look beautiful in person. Once they sell out, they will probably be gone forever, so grab one if you're interested. A handful of these contain a special collectible Tromboner Card like the ones from the game... and a VERY small number of these contain a golden Babi card. It's possible that nobody on earth owns the Babi card yet. We really hope someone finds the golden card and lets us know!! —> iam8bit | Trombone Champ Vinyl Soundtrack

Our Etsy Shop

https://i.imgur.com/F11HN0M.jpeg We have pins, t-shirts, and stickers available at our Etsy shop! We screenprint the shirts ourselves, basically right next to the computer where we make Trombone Champ. If you're looking for a shirt and the site says we're out of stock, feel free to message us - we may be able to screenprint another batch (we have a box full of blank shirts). —> Holy Wow Merch World on Etsy It blows our mind that Trombone Champ—a game we expected to have "mildly-viral success" at best—is still trucking along in 2024. Thank you all for your amazing support. For the next game update, we have a lot of stuff in progress: a much-improved level editor, a main menu refresh that lets you actually access the level editor, a whole batch of new tracks, and additions to the level select screen that allow you to choose "collections" of tracks. This "collections" system is probably the largest piece of work... It allows you to browse and play tracks you make yourself, but is also extendable so you can theoretically load it up with multiple collections of tracks. Building this is critical for workshop support, DLC support down the road, etc. We'd love to get this update in your hands ASAP, but we've been so busy with the stuff listed above that this may end up being a holiday release (we already have two holiday tracks that are almost done). However, we'll release a smaller version of the patch as a beta, so people who are interested can at least try the improved level editor in advance. Thank you for your patience! Eternally in your service, https://i.imgur.com/6ogqbAZ.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone! We pushed a very tiny update today, which does nothing except hide the "Save (Binary)" button in the Tootmaker level editor. This was intended to be hidden. We literally have a checkbox called "enable_developer_features" and left it checked. Whoops! This is the karmic punishment we deserve for making last-minute updates right before setting this version live. It's not reflected in this hotfix, but we've already have made a LOT of improvements to the level editor since this last version went live... we may push a beta soon that adds a lot of level editor features, so keep your eyes open! (The next "real" version will add more than level editor features, so keep your eyes open for that too.) Anyways, apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience... and now, to continue working on the trombone game... Forever in your service, https://i.imgur.com/6ogqbAZ.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone! Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.23E! ⚠️ As usual, this update may require updating some mods! In the meantime, if you need to, you can play the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, choosing Properties, clicking the Betas tab, and choosing last_version in the dropdown. But if you do this, please switch back to the newest version whenever you can! Apologies for the long wait: in addition to spending a *lot* of time on the "Tootmaker," the built-in level editor (more on that below), we've also been helping the folks at Flat2VR Studios with Trombone Champ: Unflattened, the VR port of Trombone Champ that launches later this year. Flat2VR is doing the vast majority of work, but we're helping with lots of art, assets, music, writing, etc. Anyways, this update adds two tricky new songs: "The Can-Can" and "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2!" These are both pretty fast and difficult! Personally, "Hungarian Rhapsody" is now one of our favorites, with lots of very tricky rhythms and mode changes. https://youtu.be/9o-3brNQOns https://youtu.be/47qsxSRoEJs The biggest update here is something slightly hidden: a preview of the work-in-progress Tootmaker level editor! You can find it hidden in the Settings menu (you shouldn't have to look very hard to find it). The main reason this update took a while is because we worked really hard to make this tool as polished and nice as possible... it takes a long time to put together tools like this! We think the Tootmaker is a great way to introduce new users to the world of custom content creation. If even one person tries this out on a whim, and has their first experience creating their own content for games, it will all be worth it to us. I certainly have a lot of fond childhood memories hacking together DOOM levels, building maps for Worms Armageddon, etc... the first time you see your own stuff working in a "real" game is a magical experience. However, if you're a power user or someone with a lot of experience making custom tracks for rhythm games, you will probably be better-served by one of the community-made level editors out there, since those have been out for a while and have tons of features that this one is probably missing. The next update will hopefully make the experience much more full-featured:

• Updates to the Track Select screen so you can browse and play levels you've created without needing to launch them from the Tootmaker itself.
• Adding a proper button for the Tootmaker from the main menu.
• Localizing the text (currently it's only in English).
• Trying to integrate Steam Workshop so that Tootmaker levels can be freely uploaded and downloaded.
• Of course, fixing bugs & adding new features.

If you find any bugs with the Tootmaker, or have any suggestions, please leave a comment in the Tootmaker Steam Discussion thread. Hope to share more soon... as always, thank you for playing the game and for your continued patience! Forever in your service, https://i.imgur.com/6ogqbAZ.png Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone! Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.22D! This update adds three new songs, each of which we're very excited about: "Toccata and Fugue," "The Four Seasons (Summer)," and a "Trombone Champ Medley" that unlocks after beating the game. There are also some other small bugfixes and tweaks "under the hood." ⚠️ As usual, this update may require updating some mods! In the meantime, if you need to, you can play the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, choosing Properties, clicking the Betas tab, and choosing last_version in the dropdown. But if you do this, please switch back to the newest version whenever you can! https://youtu.be/PGFfuH1OCV8 https://youtu.be/yJR650Wk4Bo On the PC side, this update isn't that huge - we spent a lot of this time researching input stuff for the Nintendo Switch™ version of the game, which should also receive an update today. That update has the potential to make Joy-Con™ performance better, and we're really excited about it! Meanwhile, we're continuing to plug away at stuff that will eventually allow us to enable Steam Workshop. We've gone quite a bit of work on something very fun, which we hope to be able to share soon... we're at that slightly frustrating point where we have lots of cool stuff we'd love to show, but it's not quite ready to show yet. Trust us when we say we're working on it!

A Note for Mac Users

Thanks to a user on the discussion boards, we're now aware that the game's performance on Mac is not great on Sonoma. Previously, our primary Mac was a year behind on OS updates. We upgraded that machine to Sonoma and noticed an immediate performance hit. Needless to say, this is super annoying... a game dev's worst nightmare is an OS upgrade that breaks their game. However, we're looking into various ways to fix it! Ultimately, the solution will probably be to release a Mac version built with a newer version of Unity. This will most likely address the performance issue, although it will probably cause other issues in terms of compatibility: specifically, any user-made content that uses Assetbundles will not work in builds that use newer versions of Unity. In the meantime, apologies, and thank you for your patience! (On the bright side, we've added two resolutions to the Mac version that may fit Mac laptop screens better.) Hope to share more soon... as always, thank you for playing the game and for your continued patience! Forever in your service, Holy Wow Studios

Wow! Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.21D! This isn't a huge update, and mostly adds two songs: "Korobeiniki" and "Hello! Ma Baby!" We really love both of these tracks... especially "Korobeiniki," which is probably the most fun tempo-changing track we've made so far. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqqaxEl6_Y8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if4qryyqKCw ⚠️ As usual, this update may require updating some mods! In the meantime, if you need to, you can play the previous version of the game (1.19) by right-clicking the game in Steam, choosing Properties, clicking the Betas tab, and choosing last_version in the dropdown. Temporarily, this branch is going two versions back instead of one, since there's such a technical jump from 1.19 to 1.20 (anyone using 1.19 for any reason will probably have their stuff broken by 1.20, which introduced localization and really shuffles around the game files). But please, we beg of you - switch back to the newest version whenever you can! This is a fairly small and simple update, but we're also working on bigger stuff! We mainly wanted to get some new content out quickly, because the Nintendo Switch version of the game hasn't received a content update in a very long time. This is because we were swamped with PC localization work for a solid month! Anyways, here's everything that's new in this update:

• New tracks: "Korobeiniki" and "Hello! Ma Baby!"
• Replaced "The Blue Danube Waltz" with a much, much better-sounding version, plus made the background animations nicer. People complained about this track a while ago, and we finally realized how bad it was. Apologies!
• New setting: "Streamer Mode," in the Audio section, which completely hides tracks from the base game that may possibly get flagged during streams. With this checked, you should be able to play the base game to your heart's content without worrying about any songs getting flagged.
• Small updates and fixes to localized copy.
• Many optimizations to assets in the Baboon screen, which should load slightly faster now - with more to come!

We have a variety of bigger updates (new features) & smaller updates (new songs, new content) coming down the pipeline... Don't worry, we hear you in the comments! We know what we should be working on! Thank you for your patience, and happy tooting! -Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone, We're very excited to announce that we're releasing a vinyl version of the Trombone Champ soundtrack, courtesy of iam8bit! This version of the soundtrack features the music from volumes 1 and 2 of the soundtrack, with amazing art by Iri Chen. If you thought the game had too many baboons, just wait until you see the record... https://i.imgur.com/gsbOo38.png This vinyl also contains all three songs produced by Max Tundra - if you're a music nerd, you know this is a big deal!

Tracklist

SIDE A

• Trombone Champ
• Warm-Up
• Long-Tail Limbo (by Max Tundra)
• Baboons!
• Card Shopping
• Trombón Fuerte
• Trombone Skyze
• Click That Chest!
• Eine Kleine Nachtmuzik (Trap Mix)
• Skip to My Lou
• Weird Little Guy
• SkaBird
• Auld Lang Syne (Champ Mix)

SIDE B

• Gymnopédie No. 1
• Max Tundra's Silent Night (by Max Tundra)
• Flight of the Bumblebee
• Are U Ready 4 Thiz??
• Danny Boy
• Happy Birthday (Ska Mix)
• Funiculi, Funicula
• Old MacDonald
• Sakura Sakura
• Martian Killbots!
• The Sailor's Hornpipe (by Max Tundra)
• St. James Trombonery
• Cmdr. Tokyo, the Dancing Robot (by CV)

We've been making music for a very long time, even before we got into video games. We can remember the first time we recorded music to cassette, and later, the first time we were able to burn our music onto a CD... it's very cool seeing your music in a physical format for the first time... Needless to say, it's an honor to have our music stamped onto vinyl, especially alongside tracks by Max Tundra and CV. The vinyl is now available for preorders! http://bit.ly/8bit-trombone (We also have updates to the game coming soon, so stay tuned for that too.) Thank you for your support, and happy tooting! -Holy Wow Studios

Hi Everyone! Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.20F - the "F" stands for "Full of several fixes." All this update does is fix a handful of tiny issues with localized text. It also makes the dropdowns in the Settings menu a lot better - although that change also came about because the previous dropdowns had trouble fitting some text in Spanish. As a reminder, if you speak any of the languages we've added support for and find something that's mistranslated, feel free to ping us here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1059990/discussions/0/4291439686300865495/ Meanwhile, we're working on more substantial updates... thank you for your support and patience! Have a great weekend and happy tooting! -Holy Wow Studios

Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.20, which is probably by far the biggest update we've done since launch! Unfortunately, if you're a native English speaker, you shouldn't notice that much in this update. However, if you speak one of the ten languages that we've added support for, this should be a big update for you! We've tested the localization as thoroughly as possible: however, it's nearly impossible for us to be 100% certain that every word is 100% perfect in all ten languages. Luckily, it's very easy for us to fix language issues, so please let us know about any language problems you find in this Steam Community thread. ⚠️ Since this is a large update, most mods will almost definitely need to be updated. If you absolutely need specific mods that don't yet support this version, you can play the previous version of the game (1.19) by right-clicking the game in Steam, choosing Properties, clicking the Betas tab, and choosing last_version in the dropdown. But please, we beg of you - switch back to the newest version whenever you can! Anyways, here's everything that's new in this update:

• (⭐⭐⭐ Biggest Change) The game has now been localized into ten languages: English, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, & Spanish! (We may add additional languages in the future - now that the game supports localization, adding more languages isn't that difficult from a technical perspective.) Since this work required adjusting every piece of text in the game, many tiny things will have changed throughout the game. Some examples:
  • Structure of song data files has been adjusted. This is why the download size of this update is larger than most. (This will also help us support a map editor and add Workshop support later on!)
  • Tromboner Card graphics replaced. Previously, each card was one image, with all text baked into the graphic. Golden cards look a lot better now!
  • There's a new "Language" section in Settings.
• (⭐⭐ Second-Biggest Change) Due to several scoring changes, the maximum scores for all songs should be significantly increased!
  • Score change: Notes split up into multiple slide segments should now be treated as one note rather than multiple notes. This also looks less weird, as you will no longer see multiple "bursts" and animations throughout complex curved notes.
  • Score change: Note weights have been adjusted so that short notes aren't completely dominated by long notes. Previously, notes were simply multiplied by their lengths, which make very short notes worth almost nothing.
  • Please note: these changes don't affect letter grades (S, A, B, C, etc.) because those are based on percentages rather than point totals.
  • Leaderboards: Since all scores are now higher, we did not reset the Steam Leaderboards. If you care about leaderboard rankings, you should replay the songs you care about, because you'll probably be able to get scores almost twice as large as your previous ones!
• (⭐ Smaller Changes) Here are some additional things that have been tweaked:
  • The MacOS version should now support Retina screens better.
  • The Trombone model in the Character Select screen is now better-lit.
  • If you play a song in turbo or practice mode, a small popup now appears in the score screen that informs you how this affects your toots earned.
  • The flame effect that appears when summoning an NPC looks so much better!
  • The tool that allows you to adjust timing / latency has been tweaked and should give better results.
  • The credits have been expanded to show the teams that helped with localization.
  • Other bugfixes, optimizations, and tweaks.

This update ended up taking longer than expected, so thank you for your patience! We're very tired, but here's what you can look forward to in future updates:

• We expect to push small updates that fix language issues and add songs. We have two songs that are almost done already!
• Gyro support is near the top of our list - we hope to have a "work-in-progress," testable version of that soon!
• Later this year, we plan to push bigger updates that finally add better support for user-made content: a proper level editor & Steam Workshop integration.

Thank you for your patience, and happy tooting! -Holy Wow Studios

Hi Tromboners, We're excited to announce that a Trombone Champ update is coming soon, which will allow the game to be played in 10 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean! This update is a lot larger than the usual ones, because adding support for multiple languages means adjusting every single piece of text in the game. This is also why it's been a while since we've posted an update here! It's time-consuming work that requires a lot of testing. While we finish up this update, we'd like to take a moment to discuss it in (perhaps too much) detail!

Update Size

Unfortunately, since almost every single piece of GUI has been adjusted and all of the track assets have been restructured, this update will be around 500mb. This is a bummer, since people playing in English shouldn't see that many changes. Apologies for the inconvenience, but this is unavoidable! Additionally, this is definitely one of those updates that will destroy most existing mods when it comes out. As usual, check for mod updates - and if you need to, you'll be able to opt-in to the previous, un-localized version of the game using Steam's "Betas" tab.

About the Localization Work

The vast majority of localization was done by Keywords Studios. They've done a tremendous amount of work... all of the GUI, all 50 cards, and the metadata for every base track has been localized! That's more content than you'd think, especially now that the game ships with almost 60 tracks! Keywords Studio's work was mostly aimed at the Nintendo Switch™ version of the game, so there are a lot of very small text fields specific to PC that we had to add and adjust ourselves using online tools, such as graphical settings, some button language, etc. We took care to double-check these for accuracy, but it's difficult to ensure that every single piece of text is perfect in every single language. When the update comes out, we will make a thread in the Steam Discussion page dedicated to mistranslations - so if you see anything that's mistranslated or awkwardly translated, don't hesitate to mention in there! Luckily, it's very fast & easy for us to adjust / correct text problems.

Benefit: Restructured Track Assets

One of the most challenging parts of getting localization working was adjusting how track metadata is saved and loaded. In the previous version of the game, all of the track metadata (track titles, descriptions, artists, genres, etc.) were kept in one enormous file. Needless to say, adding ten languages to this already large and messy file wasn't a great idea. Ultimately, rather than hack together a quick and ugly solution, we decided to significantly rework how the game loads track assets. The new system is much cleaner and actually makes sense! Each track simply has a folder, and this folder contains everything the track needs: metadata files in various languages, the track's level data, the sample audio clip, etc. Previously, these files were scattered all over the place. Even though normal gamers shouldn't notice that the data has been restructured, this restructuring comes with a bunch of benefits:

• Half of the work we'd eventually need to do to get an official level editor working has been done, thanks to this updated structure.
• Likewise, half of the work needed to eventually get content loaded via Steam Workshop should also be done thanks to this restructuring.
• If you're the type of person who likes to tinker, it should be much easier to dig into the game's files and mess around (just don't complain to us if you break the game).
• As the game grows in size, it should be much easier to add songs to all versions of the game.

Visual Changes

If you're playing the game in English, the new version should look & feel almost identical to the previous version. However, since we needed to adjust basically every single piece of GUI, we've made some tiny improvements and polished up a number of items throughout the user interface. Some of these updates are things already present in the Nintendo Switch™ version of the game. Notably, the "Tromboner Cards" look a little different - previously, each of these was a single PNG with the text baked into the image. In order to get these to display in ten languages, we had to break them up: the text is now rendered in-engine. One benefit of this is that we're able to make a much nicer "golden" effect!

PC & Nintendo Switch™

If you have the Nintendo Switch™ version of the game, you might have noticed that it already supports localization. So why did it take so long to come to PC?... To make a long story short, we had to split the Nintendo Switch™ and PC versions into separate projects - and stupidly, we did this before beginning localization. So, we essentially had to do all of the localization work twice over. Fortunately, since we've already done this work for Nintendo Switch™, we were able to do it much more quickly this time. Also, of course, we were able to re-use huge chunks of code to speed up the process even further.

Bonus Update: Score Changing

This update also changes how scoring works: short notes are worth a bit more and long notes are worth a bit less. Also, notes that consist of multiple "slides" are now treated as one note, rather than being broken up into a bunch of individual segments. As a result of this, the maximum scores for every track are increasing! If you're competing with your friends on the Steam Leaderboards, you'll want to replay the tracks you really care about!

The Future of Trombone Champ

We plan to continue to update Trombone Champ for the foreseeable future! However, once this update goes live, we will finally be close to having a version to which we can say: "if we were to disappear from the face of the Earth, we would be ok with where this game left off." As mentioned earlier, the next "large" update will likely be centered around an official level editor, which then will lead into Steam Workshop integration (unless we hit any unforeseen roadblocks). Of course, in addition to "large" updates we have planned, we also plan to add more tracks and continue improving the game in incremental ways! We hope to release this update very soon, and are already working on new content for the updates beyond that. Thank you for your patience as we finish up!!! -Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone! Welcome to 2024! A number of things caused us to slow down over the holidays, but we're back with a pretty nice update. Don't forget: if something about this update messes up your game, you can revert to the previous version (1.181) by right clicking the game, clicking Properties, going to Betas, and choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But for the love of God, please change back to the newest version whenever you can.

New Stuff

• New Tracks: "Habanera (from Carmen)" and "Trombone Skyze (Nasty Mix)!" Habanera is a nice medium-difficulty track, while "Trombone Skyze (Nasty Mix)" is much more difficult. Since the game is getting older and its players are getting better, we'd like to offer more difficult tracks in future updates.
• New Feature: You can now have the option to "dance" manually by moving the mouse left and right. This is cosmetic only, but really fun in "Free Improvisation" mode. You really feel like you're in control of the character with this enabled! You can toggle this option on and off in the character select screen, above the "Jubilant / Estudious" toggle.
• New Feature: Added ability to skip the initial logos using the externalparams.json file, which is in the same location as your save files and settings. Since this screen contains an epilepsy warning, we really don't want you to skip this stuff! This is why the setting is hidden in an external file rather than in settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyThMr0C6TA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReEsBPOG13c

Changed / Improved Stuff

• The tiny combo counter near your cursor now counts up past ten, so you can always see your current combo. This is really nice, since previously it was impossible to track your current combo unless it was also your highest combo. The large counter that appears near the "Perfecto! / Nasty! / etc" text still maxes out at 10x, to indicate that anything past 10 doesn't affect scoring.
• The small explosion effect that appears when a note finishes now looks much better. The previous effect bugged us for months - we made it pretty quickly during the post-launch update frenzy, and it could have used a little more love.
• Input code tweaked so that pressing multiple keys no longer mutes the trombone. If you prefer the previous system, there's a new "multiple keys mute" option in Settings -> Controls. Many people have asked for this!
• If mouse smoothing is set to zero, there is now no smoothing whatsoever. Previously, there was still a very small amount of smoothing, even if smoothing was set to zero. With the new code, frame-perfect movements should be possible.
• Note lines are now more visible in Free Improvisation mode, which should help you play melodies.

https://i.imgur.com/O48aRqj.png Above: much-nicer bursts when notes complete, and the counter goes beyond ten!

Fixes

• The breath meter now pauses correctly when gameplay is paused.
• Breath now recovers twice as quickly in Turbo Mode.
• Added missing sound effect when getting "Perfect" on a track.
• Adjusted the volume of a few sound effects that were too dang loud.
• Other small bugfixes and optimizations.

What's next?... We've mentioned this in earlier posts, but we have two large goals we'd like to leap on in 2024: localization + a level editor. Both of these are already in progress and we hope to share updates soon! Thank you for your patience and happy tooting! -Holy Wow

Hi everyone - if you're wondering what today's tiny Trombone Champ update does:

• Most important: Fixes the new accessibility setting that enables / disables the "edge rainbow" that appears during Champ mode. This wasn't saving right in 1.18 and would always default to "on." It should work as designed now!
• Fixes a small issue where users can get 1 less card than they're supposed to when building multiple cards at once.
• Adds the weird comma in the confusing name "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."

Please forgive us, and have a great holiday season! -Holy Wow Studios

Hi everyone - we just made 1.18 live, which adds two new holiday songs and a number of other improvements! We'd originally planned for this to be a tiny update that only added some holiday content, but we ended up adding a handful of other small QoL improvements as well... Don't forget: if something about this update messes up your game, you can revert to the previous version (1.17) by right clicking the game, clicking Properties, going to Betas, and choosing the "last_update" beta branch. Here's what's new:

• New tracks: "O Christmas Tree" and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."
• A special graphic now displays when you "Perfect" a song (never breaking combo). You also get more toots!
• Added option to turn off the "edge rainbow" during Champ mode in the Accessibility menu.
• Added a small window to the pause screen that shows some easy-to-miss controls.
• The option to turn off menu music has been added to the Settings menu. Previously, this was only available via the tiny buttons in the screen corners.
• Timing / latency adjustment should now be consistent when choosing Practice Mode & Turbo Mode.
• Small "New High Score" icon now appears under your score during gameplay when you beat your previous score.
• You can now build multiple cards at once if you have enough turds... wow!!!
• When turding a card, you now see how many turds you've received.
• Adjusted amount of turds you get when turding golden cards. Now, you receive 375 turds per golden card, but there's also a chance for a big jackpot!
• Fixed some lyrics in in "Hino Nacional Brasileiro."
• Other bugfixes and optimizations.

After this update, we will likely slow down on small updates and instead focus on the bigger things we've mentioned earlier: localization and a level editor so that we can ultimately build Workshop integration into the game. We also have so much other stuff we're working on... busy, busy, busy... We hope you all have a wonderful, happy holidays, and thank you for your continued support as we enter 2024!!! Thank you!!! -Holy Wow

Howdy! We just pushed 1.17 live, which adds two new tracks, a handful of improvements and optimizations, and more. Don't forget: if something about this update messes up your game, you can revert to the previous version (1.16) by right clicking the game, clicking Properties, going to Betas, and choosing the "last_update" beta branch. Here are the updates:

• New tracks: "Arirang" and "Night on Bald Mountain." It took quite a bit of work to find a usable recording of "Night on Bald Mountain," beatmatch it, and edit it down into something actually playable... but we're very happy with the results! It's one of the most iconic classical pieces of all time and we're glad to have it join the game...
• Improved visual effect that triggers when "Champ Mode" activates.
• Added two new secret achievements...
• Tracks now attempt to resync at fixed intervals rather than resync being tied to tempo.
• Significant optimizations to the display of lyrics.
• Ability to toggle Motion Blur added to Graphics menu.
• Other bugfixes and optimizations.

The new "Champ Mode" effect actually comes from the Nintendo Switch version of the game. On the Switch, the "light bloom" post-processing effect was causing the framerate to dip slightly, so we made a custom graphic and animation. After looking at both versions for a while, we realized that the Switch's effect is actually a lot nicer than the one on PC, which only used the bloom. (The PC version still has the light bloom, but it's been toned down quite a bit...) A lot of the updates we made might be invisible to most users, but should slightly improve performance & possibly solve weird issues that can pop up with long, intense custom-tracks. What's next for PC?... here's what we're working on:

• With the addition of Korean, we're finally finished with localization on Nintendo Switch™, so we can start moving all of that over to PC. This is a big chunk of work, but since we've already done it on Switch, we're comfortable handling it!
• We've started really digging into Steam Workshop integration! The trickiest part of Workshop integration is that users need to be able to create and submit content from the standalone game itself. We're beginning this process by starting work on a nice in-game level editor. We already have a level editor in the game - this is what we use to make the new songs - but it's horrendously janky and not really usable by the public. So, we're doing our best to take the existing level editor and make it actually usable. Since we actually want the level editor to be nice, this will probably take a while, and we don't expect Workshop integration to be functional until 2024. However, we may have a level editor available for testing purposes before then...

Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for your patience! -Holy Wow Studios

Hello everyone! We just pushed 1.16 live, which adds two new tracks and a handful of improvements... (Note: This update DOES make some pretty significant changes to game logic, such as how the game calculates elapsed time. It also makes some minor adjustments to how notes are displayed. Therefore, this update probably will break a handful of mods.) Don't forget: if something about this update messes up your game, you can revert to the previous version (1.15) by right clicking the game, clicking Properties, going to Betas, and choosing the "last_update" beta branch. Here are the updates:

• New tracks: "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" and "Jasmine Flower (Mo Li Hua)!"
• Time calculation should now be more accurate, which should help some users in a bunch of ways. If you've been using "Time-Locked" mode rather than "Smooth Scrolling" mode due to weird issues, it may be time to give smooth scrolling another shot.
• Mouse smoothing should now be framerate-independent.
• More framerate options added to Settings menu.
• Various minor GUI tweaks and improvements.
• Other bugfixes and optimizations.

As mentioned in our previous update post: one big update coming down the pipeline is localization. We have one more language we plan to add to the Nintendo Switch™ version ASAP, and then we'll be able to move all of the supported languages over to PC. The nice thing about doing this on PC after the Nintendo Switch™ version is that, by the time we move it over, we'll be much more confident about the quality + accuracy of all of the language, and already worked out all of the difficult kinks. Future updates will also likely continue to increase the accuracy of calculations, as this update did for timing. This update fixes floating point errors that we never expected to pop up in regards to level generation, but there are a few other parts of the game that may be prone to floating point errors if the game is stretched enough with custom content or extremely high framerates. We hope to address those ASAP! Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for your patience! -Holy Wow Studios

Hello everyone! We just pushed 1.15 live, which adds two new tracks and a handful of improvements...

• New tracks: "House of the Rising Sun" and "Hino Nacional Brasileiro!"
• Added a very small bar that shows elapsed time, so you can see how much time remains at a glance.
• Adjusted scoring so that slides are slightly more lenient, depending on the intensity of the slide.
• For new users, the default target framerate is now 120, which should lead to smoother scrolling for most users.
• The delay before playing a song preview clip is slightly extended when you first enter the Track Select screen.
• Small bugfixes and optimizations.

We really like the little time bar thing - it's great being able to see the elapsed time at a glance! Previously, it took a second to actually read the numbers and figure out how much of the track was left. Now, you can immediately tell that you're 25%, 50%, or 75% through. Don't forget: if something about this update messes up your game, you can revert to the previous version (1.14E) by choosing the last_update beta branch. Here's our plan for continued updates:

• Adding a 3 more languages to Nintendo Switch version. As soon as all of these are done, it's time to bring the entire localization package to PC. We'd also like to add new songs to celebrate each of the new languages.
• More tracks, bugfixes, and optimizations.
• Controls: we're really into the idea of making an "official" schematic for a 3d-printable Trombone Champ controller. If we end up creating one, we'll make sure it's officially supported by the base game out-of-the-box, which means adjusting the Controls menu.

We hope you enjoy the update! Thank you for your continued patience! -Holy Wow Studios