Trombone Champ News

Update v1.11 just went live, which adds a lot of features that probably should have been in the game since launch!

This update adds some new elements to the gameplay scene, so if you're using very old mods, you will probably need to update those. Or, you can right-click Trombone Champ in Steam, click "Betas," and choose the "previous_version" branch, which will opt you into an older version of Trombone Champ.

Here's a rundown of what's new, with context:

• Two new tracks: "Washington Post March" and "When the Saints Go Marching In!" "When the Saints Go Marching In" is the first track to have a dedicated solo improvisation section. Future tracks may include these as well! You can play whatever you want during those sections and it will not affect your score.
  
  
• You can now pause and unpause during gameplay. Please note that, if you're playing a custom track with a complex background, unpausing may break or de-sync them until those mods get updated.
  
  
• Tracks now play previews in the "Track Select" screen. This will likely only work with tracks from the base game for the moment, as each track has a custom sound file.
  
  This should have been in the game since launch, but it was slightly trickier than it seems. We couldn't simply play the backing track, since that usually doesn't feature the melody... for example: "Taps" would just be total silence. Additionally, if we loaded the backing tracks as you scrolled, that potentially lead to lots and lots of loading, especially if you scroll quickly down the list.
  
  
• Note statuses ("Perfecto," "Nice," "OK," etc) are more attractive + informative during gameplay. When you reach 10x, you now see a little "Max" star, rather than having the word "Max" in giant ugly text. Additionally, the game now tells you when you miss a "gap" between notes. Previously, missing a gap would cause you to lose your combo, but the game didn't communicate this in any way. Functionally, nothing should have changed, except you can now see the status.
  
  
• You can now "engoldenate" cards after beating the game. If you have ten copies of a card, you can convert the card into a golden card. We have more plans for this in the future, but for the moment it gives seasoned players another goal to work towards...
  
  
• Trombone Champ now saves your character, trombone, vibe, and soundpack choices. Additionally, if you mute the menu music using the button in the corner, that should be saved as well.
  
  
• The volume faders in Settings screen now work more naturally. Previously, audio would be effectively muted at the halfway point - now when the sliders are at 50%, the sound should be at roughly 50%. Please note that the game may initially sound louder or quieter than you're used to when you launch this update!
  
  
• Various buttons now have more visible selected states.
  
  
• The title screen looks better, and the sound effect that plays when exiting the title screen is less grating.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where hovering over cards could cause small visual problems in "fast buy" mode.
  
  
• The card graphics have been optimized and the scene may load faster.
  
  
• In the card scene, you can now cancel when turding multiple duplicates.
  

Overall, pausing and the track previews are the most obvious changes here, but we're happy to see the game gradually feel more & more polished.

On another note: these new tracks apparently bring the base game's track total to 48. When the game launched, we had around 25, so this is a pretty significant jump We have a great idea of something special to do for track #50!

We have a lot more stuff planned - we're working on more updates, fixes, and some secret stuff we're excited to announce later this year. Thank you for your continued patience!

-Holy Wow Studios

Trombone Champ, the fast-paced rhythm music game filled with nasty toots, just got even nastier by adding Flight of the Bumblebee to its roster of hits. That means as of today's update 2022's best comedy game is even funnier, because the famously difficult piece of music is absolute hell to play on a mouse-controlled trombone...
Read more.

v1.10 is live! This one adds lots of fun stuff. Apologies for the slowdown in updates - we have lots of "secret stuff" we're working on, which we're excited to share at some point this year.

As a reminder, if this update breaks things that you need (e.g., mods), or simply annoys you for some reason, you can right click Trombone Champ in Steam and switch to the "previous version" branch in the Betas tab.

Without further ado:

UPDATES:

• New song: "Flight of the Bumblebee!" This track is as difficult as you might imagine...
  
• Redesigned and dramatically simplified the Character Select screen.
  
  • In general, the new design is a lot easier to understand and simply looks better.
    
  • The new design makes it much easier to add more cosmetic content in the future. The previous design was extremely difficult to add to, and there was no more screen space available...
    
  • We made a short tweet thread about the changes here: https://twitter.com/HolyWowStudios/status/1650878478676287488
    
• Added "Practice Mode," allowing users to play songs at slower speeds.
  
  • When Practice Mode is active, you earn less toots.
    
  • Scores earned during Practice Mode are not saved locally or uploaded to leaderboards.
    
  • At some point we'd like to add the ability to fast forward to a specific point of the song in Practice Mode. However, that's slightly more challenging than it should be, due to background events and the way the game tracks notes.
    
• Added ability to open multiple packs of cards quickly.
  
  • This option only appears after you've opened a few packs.
    
• Completing songs now grants slightly less toots.
  
  • This is mostly due to the size of the tracklist, which is much larger than when the game launched. A smaller tracklist required a higher toot value, to prevent users from having to play a small number of songs millions of times.
    
• The "timing adjustment" setting is now much easier to use and contains a slider that lets you quickly adjust the value.
  

APRIL FOOL'S CONTENT:

• "Hat" has been removed from the game... but it shall return.
  
• "Turbo Mode" now appears after playing a large number of tracks, rather than appearing for all users from the start.
  

BUGFIXES:

• For users with high latency adjustments (200ms+), the last note of some songs should register.
  
• Rankings in leaderboards should no longer be cut off.
  
• Very high leaderboard scores for "Danny Boy" should no longer be reported as a "1."
  
• The accessibility menu should display correctly after switching to 16:10.
  

We have much more in the works! Stay tuned, and thank you for your continued patience!

-Holy Wow

We've pushed a Trombone Champ update for April 1st! This is a good one, which adds some critical features that enhance your Tromboning experience.

• Turbo Mode: For the Trombone Champ pros. You can now play any song at double speed! How many tracks can you S rank while Turbo Mode is active? Please note that this mode is experimental: it may cause some background events to act funky!
  
• Hat: In the Character Select screen, you can select "Hat." This will cause Hat to appear during gameplay. This is a purely cosmetic feature.
  

Oh yeah - this update also adds two new tracks: "Danny Boy" and "In The Hall of the Mountain King."

Enjoy, and have a happy April!

-Dan of Holy Wow

We just pushed a tiny patch, which basically does nothing except fix / improve a handful of issues surrounding the recently-added "automatic toot" accessibility option:

• Using the automatic toot accessibility option no longer causes Free Improvisation mode to bug out. This was the biggest issue and the primary purpose of this patch.
  
• Automatic toot accessibility option now handles slides nicely, without starting and stopping throughout.
  
• Automatic toot accessibility option slightly renamed for clarity & to prevent confusion with a popular mod with the same name.
  

Hope to share more updates soon! Thank you for your patience!

-Dan of Holy Wow