To coincide with the Steam Spring Sale, we're excited to announce a FREE update to the UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE Song Pack DLC! (Plus some other stuff!) We've added 7 tracks from the DELTARUNE Chapters 3+4 Soundtrack, which means this DLC now contains 21 tracks! Please note: all Trom
To coincide with the Steam Spring Sale, we're excited to announce a FREE update to the UNDERTALE + DELTARUNE Song Pack DLC! (Plus some other stuff!)
We've added 7 tracks from the DELTARUNE Chapters 3+4 Soundtrack, which means this DLC now contains 21 tracks!
Please note: all Trombone Champ DLCs require v1.30 of the base game, which just launched today! You might need to restart Steam in order to get that update first!
We're really happy with all seven of these additions! "TV World" and "It's TV Time!" are a blast... "Black Knife" is one of the most unique tracks in the game, with slides that push you right to the edge of running out of breath... "Dark Sanctuary" is a great calming piece, followed by "The Third Sanctuary," which is unbelievably difficult... these seven tracks alone are a rollercoaster!
New Tracks from DELTARUNE Chapters 3+4...
TV World - Toby Fox
It's TV Time! - Toby Fox
Black Knife - Toby Fox
SWORD - Toby Fox
Dark Sanctuary + Neverending Night - Toby Fox
The Third Sanctuary - Toby Fox
GUARDIAN - Toby Fox
Steam Timeline Integration for Steam Recordings!
We've also added Steam Timeline integration to this update! If you use Steam Recording to record your gameplay, you should see little icons on the timeline that help you visualize and navigate the recording. You can see precisely when each song begins and ends, and see when you enter other parts of the game like the Baboon scene, Card scene, or Tootmaker.
Changelog
Most of our work has been on these new DLC tracks and the Nintendo Switch version, but here's the full changelog:
Minor tweaks to prepare the game for additional DLC.
Added Steam Timeline events when recording the game in Steam.
Garbage Collection is now paused during trombone gameplay and resumes after gameplay, which may help prevent small stutters and hitches during very long songs.
Additional small improvements in the Tootmaker.
What's Next for Trombone Champ?
The beginning of 2026 has been really chaotic for us, with a lot of "life stuff" that's kept us busy. Unfortunately that will probably remain the case for a while, but we still have work to do! In general, here's what we're doing:
We're trying to bring the DLC to the Nintendo Switch version of the game ASAP. This is a bit tricky, because the way the Nintendo Switch version handles data is completely different than the PC version. We also need to build the Collections functionality into the Nintendo Switch version - we'd never patched that in previously, because that version isn't able to support custom tracks. But we're making fast progress!
We're also exploring a Switch 2 update, but that is also more difficult than expected for several reasons. Mostly, it requires dramatically upgrading the version of Unity that the game runs on (from 2019 to 6), which can lead to a billion side effects.
We've also done a bunch of exploration around controller support, which is our top priority for the PC version.
We've also started working on a few prototypes on different games altogether. One of them is coming along very quickly.
We posted this image last time, but the same still applies to the PC version:
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 s
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!
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 righ
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!
Playing UNDERTALE or any of the DELTARUNE games means stopping every 4 minutes to say: "why is this song for this one [battle / scene / location] 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!
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/
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for playing! Hope to share more stuff soon! Enjoy the holidays!
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
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.
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: On
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!
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" wou
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!
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
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.
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:
We hope you enjoy this update... Stay tuned for more and thank you for your patience!
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.initia
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!
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
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!
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.
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...)
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.
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:
We hope you enjoy this update... Stay tuned for more!
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 t
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.
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 i
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:
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.
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!
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:
... 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!"
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:
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.
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) Fix
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!
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 updat
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).
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!
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!
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)!
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:
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!!
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 map
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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! (W
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.)
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!
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
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!
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!
Debuting a New Holy Wow Studios Game at No Quarter 2024
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!
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!!
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).
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!
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 karmi
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...
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 cho
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.
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.
Trombone Champ, 2022's funniest PC gaming phenomenon, is getting a snazzy VR version that aims to fully immerse you in fudging your way through Ode to Joy with the world's most inherently comical musical instrument... Read more.
Trombone Champ, 2022's funniest PC gaming phenomenon, is getting a snazzy VR version that aims to fully immerse you in fudging your way through Ode to Joy with the world's most inherently comical musical instrument... Read more.
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 bu
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!
