Trombone Champ

It was nominated for the British Academy Games Award for Debut Game, as well as Family Game of the Year during the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. A standalone virtual reality version, Trombone Champ: Unflattened, was released in November 2024.

• Developer — Holy Wow Studios • Publisher — Holy Wow Studios • Released — Windows September 15, 2022 macOS January 24, 2023 Nintendo Switch September 14, 2023 Unflattened Meta Quest, PlayStation 5 November 26, 2024 • Genre — Music, rhythm • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Engine — Unity • Platforms — Windows macOS Nintendo Switch Meta Quest PlayStation 5 • Director — Dan Vecchitto

Trombone Champ is a rhythm game in which players use a virtual trombone to play along to various songs, ranging from classical and public domain songs to original tracks and remixes. Players move the mouse to change the pitch of the trombone and use either the mouse button or keyboard keys to play. Players earn points by successfully hitting notes as they slide across the screen, with more points earned by maintaining successive combos and filling a meter that activates Champ Fever when filled, earning even more points. Missing notes, however, will cause the player to lose their combo multiplier and Champ Fever, as well as potentially lose points. Players will also momentarily run out of breath if they hold a note for too long. At the end of each song, players receive a rank from F to S based on their score, as well as an in-game currency known as Toots. Toots can be spent on in-game trading cards known as Tromboner Cards, which contain humorous and sometimes fictional trivia about musicians, trombones, and game lore. Unwanted or duplicate cards can be transformed into Turds, which can then be spent to create new cards. Hidden throughout the game are non-playable characters who assist the player in becoming the eponymous Trombone Champ. By fulfilling requests such as offering a certain amount of Toots or Turds or trading specific Tromboner Cards, players can unlock additional playable characters, trombone colors, and sound sets. There is also a secret boss level that requires certain conditions to fully defeat and claim the title of Trombone Champ.

Creator Dan Vecchitto had long thought of an arcade video game based on moving a trombone-like slide controller, but the idea was always a joke. He later got the idea of using the mouse cursor to act as the trombone slide, and realized that there was a game concept behind that. His studio, Holy Wow Studios, was a group of part-time developers and while Vecchitto had thought it would take only about six months to realize the game, it ended up taking four years. Two features of the game forced the longer development time: the introduction of the Tromboner Cards, which was to parody loot box systems in other games, and a loose story involving baboons, which Vecchitto created in parody of the Dark Souls series' narratives. The studio ran a small open playtesting of the game a month ahead of its planned release, from which they received a far greater amount of feedback than expected. When the game was first fully released in September 2022, the reaction to the game went viral, drawing in more players and feedback. Due to this, Vecchitto said they were considering more features as well as potential console ports of the game. Initially released only for Windows, Trombone Champ became available for macOS users in January 2023. A port for the Nintendo Switch was announced during a Nintendo Direct on September 14, 2023, and released on the same day. The Switch version features alternative control schemes that use the gyroscopic and infrared sensors of the Joy-Con to play the game, as well as local multiplayer support for up to four players. Localization was added to the game on March 14, 2024, with support for ten languages. Trombone Champ: Unflattened, a VR adaptation by Flat2VR Studios supporting Meta Quest, Steam VR, and PlayStation VR2, was released on November 26, 2024. A patch released on March 13, 2025 for Windows and macOS added native support for custom tracks, and an in-game level editor. Support for browsing and subscribing to custom tracks via Steam Workshop was added in a patch released on June 18, 2025. On December 18, 2025, the first three official DLC packs were released for the game, providing a total of 34 song tracks from the games Undertale, Deltarune, Celeste, and Pizza Tower.

As of, the Trombone Champ base game has a total of 76 playable tracks: 63 arrangements of public domain music, 10 original compositions, and 3 contributed compositions by third-party artists. Developer Holy Wow Studios has expanded the number of playable tracks through free updates, and expressed interest in using future downloadable content to expand the tracklist as well. In addition to the first-party included tracks listed below, there are unofficial mods that allow custom tracks such as "Through the Fire and Flames" and "One-Winged Angel" to be loaded into the game. (In-game support for custom tracks was added in a patch released on March 13, 2025.) On December 18, 2025, three song packs were released as DLC, providing 34 additional tracks. Seven additional tracks were added to the DLC on March 19, 2026. • Title — Composer — Added in • "Also sprach Zarathustra" — Richard Strauss — v1.00 (original release) • "Auld Lang Syne" (Champ Mix) — Robert Burns, Holy Wow Studios • "Baboons!" — Holy Wow Studios • "Beethoven's Fifth Symphony" — Ludwig van Beethoven • "The Blue Danube" — Johann Strauss II • "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky • "Eine kleine" (Champ Mix) — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Holy Wow Studios • "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (Trap Mix) — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Holy Wow Studios • "The Entertainer" — Scott Joplin • "Entry of the Gladiators" — Julius Fučík • "God Save the King" — Unknown • "Hava Nagila" — Abraham Zevi Idelsohn • "Long-Tail Limbo" — Max Tundra • "O Canada" — Calixa Lavallée • "Old Gray Mare" — Thomas Francis McNulty • "SkaBIRD" — Holy Wow Studios • "Skip to My Lou" — Unknown • "Stars and Stripes Forever" — John Philip Sousa • "The Star-Spangled Banner" — Francis Scott Key, John Stafford Smith • "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" — Albert Von Tilzer, Jack Norworth • "Trombone Fuerte" — Holy Wow Studios • "Trombone Skyze" — Holy Wow Studios • "Warm-Up" — Holy Wow Studios • "William Tell Overture" — Gioachino Rossini • "Rosamunde" (Beer Barrel Polka) — Jaromír Vejvoda — v1.03 • "Jarabe Tapatío" — Jesús González Rubio — v1.05 • "ARE U READY 4 THIZ?" — Holy Wow Studios — v1.07 • "Happy Birthday to You" (Ska Mix) — Patty Hill, Mildred J. Hill, Holy Wow Studios • "Ode to Joy" — Ludwig van Beethoven • "Martian Killbots!!!" — Holy Wow Studios — v1.08 • "The Celebrated Chop Waltz" — Euphemia Allen — v1.085 • "Sakura Sakura" — Unknown — v1.087 • "Taps" — Daniel Butterfield, Oliver Wilcox Norton — v1.088 • "La Marseillaise" — Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle • "Jingle Bells (Jazz Mix)" — James Lord Pierpont, Holy Wow Studios — v1.089 • "Max Tundra's Silent Night" — Franz Xaver Gruber, Max Tundra • "Mars, the Bringer of War" — Gustav Holst — v1.0897 • "Funiculi, Funicula!" — Luigi Denza, Peppino Turco — v1.091 • "Gymnopédie No. 1" — Erik Satie — v1.093 • "Old MacDonald" — Unknown — v1.095 • "Commander Tokyo, The Dancing Robot" — CV — v1.096 • "The Sailor's Hornpipe" — Unknown, Max Tundra • "St. James Trombonery Blues" — Unknown, Holy Wow Studios — v1.098 • "Danny Boy" — Unknown, Frederic Weatherly — v1.099 • "In the Hall of the Mountain King" — Edvard Grieg • "Flight of the Bumblebee" — Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov — v1.10 • "Washington Post March" — John Philip Sousa — v1.11 • "When the Saints Go Marching In" — Unknown • "The Barber of Seville" — Gioachino Rossini — v1.13 • "Down by the Riverside" — Unknown — v1.14 • "House of the Rising Sun" — Unknown — v1.15 • "Hino Nacional Brasileiro" — Francisco Manuel da Silva • "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" — Unknown — v1.16 • "Jasmine Flower (Mo Li Hua)" — Unknown • "Night on Bald Mountain" — Modest Mussorgsky — v1.17 • "Arirang" — Unknown • "O Christmas Tree" — Ernst Anschütz, Melchior Franck — v1.18 • "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" — Unknown • "Habanera (from Carmen)" — Georges Bizet — v1.19 • "Trombone Skyze (Nasty Mix)" — Holy Wow Studios • "Hello! Ma Baby" — Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson — v1.21 • "Korobeiniki" — Unknown • "Toccata and Fugue" — Johann Sebastian Bach — v1.22d • "The Four Seasons (Summer)" — Antonio Vivaldi • "Trombone Champ Medley" — Holy Wow Studios • "The Can-Can" — Jacques Offenbach — v1.23E • "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" — Franz Liszt • "Carol of the Bells" — Mykola Leontovych — v1.24B • "Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah!" — Unknown • "Puttin' On the Ritz" — Irving Berlin • "Rhapsody in Blue" — George Gershwin — v1.25E • "Vogons" — Max Tundra — v1.26 • "Item Shopping" — Holy Wow Studios • "Danse Macabre" — Camille Saint-Saëns — v1.28 • "The Skeleton Rag" — The American Quartet • "Hungarian Dance No. 5" — Johannes Brahms