Great news! Trombone Champ now uses different math to scroll the tracks during gameplay, which should lead to significantly smoother movement for most users. Apologies for not doing this sooner... This is really something we should have explored further before launching the game 35 years ago...
Previously, the game would read the "timestamp" of the song every single frame and move the track accordingly. In theory, this should work perfectly, but in practice it sometimes lead to jerky movement, most likely due to the game's framerate not perfectly syncing up with the elapsed time of the audio.
Now, the game moves the track at a smooth, constant rate, based on elapsed time since the last frame (delta time). Additionally, to make sure the track doesn't gradually de-sync for any reason, the game checks the audio timestamp each measure and re-syncs the track if it's more than 4 pixels off. In our experience, this smooth scrolling is much more precise than anticipated. It works really well and almost never needs to re-sync at all!
On the primary PC where we develop and test the game, scrolling feels significantly smoother. It's a very noticeable difference!
However, on the Macbook Pro we use for Mac testing, the game already scrolled extremely smoothly. We're not really sure why this is the case, but you may not notice a big difference if you're playing on a newer Mac laptop at 120fps. If you're playing on an older Mac at 60fps, you will probably feel the difference.
Please note: This new smooth scrolling is now the default. If, for some reason, you prefer the old scrolling, you can select it in the Settings menu, under "Gameplay."
Smooth scrolling is the biggest improvement in this update, but there's additional stuff:
You can now disable the song previews that play in the Track Select screen by using the option in Settings if they annoy you for some reason.
Visual appearance of settings has been cleaned up.
Chosen character, trombone, and sound pack is now more visible in Character Select.
Sound effects when unpausing are dramatically improved.
Restarting a track is slightly faster.
Control Testing Zone easier to find, looks slightly better, and displays current control choices.
When paused, the player model no longer rotates in the background.
Various code adjustments to catch potential bugs with custom tracks.
BUGFIX: If your master volume is below 100, the game should no longer get quieter during gameplay / music sequences.
We hope this new scrolling makes the game more enjoyable for everyone! It really does change the feel of gameplay.
Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for your patience!
-Holy Wow
When The Saints Go Marching In Solo Contest!
We're holding a contest to see who can perform the best trombone solo in "When the Saints Go Marching In," the newest track in Trombone Champ!
One winner will receive a Trombone Champ t-shirt from iam8bit, an award certificate, stickers, and whatever other swag we can dig up! Two runners-up will receive stickers and runner-up certificates.
After we receive your solos, we'll hold the judging and announce the winners via a video with Christopher Bill, the classical trombonist and "most-subscribed brass musician on YouTube."
In order of importance, solos will be judged on:
Musicality: Does it sound good? Is it melodically and rhythmically interesting?
Creativity: Is it original?
Accuracy & Skill: Are the notes hit accurately? Did the performance require skill?
To submit your solo:
(preferred) Upload a video to Youtube or Twitch and email a link to us at contact@holywowstudios.com.
Please make sure your email is titled "Trombone Champ Solo Contest."
In the email, let us know under what name you'd like to be credited if your solo ends up being featured on our video. We don't want to read out your email address!
Please do not send us actual video files - linking to a hosted video is preferred!
Or, upload a video to YouTube or Twitch, and post it on Twitter with the hashtag #trombonechampsolocontest (make sure you spell it right so we can find it!)
Please note that whatever videos you send may be shared on social media.
Contest Rules:
Only one solo may be submitted per user.
Submissions must be received by 12:00PM EST on June 28th, 2023.
The solo must be performed by the user in Trombone Champ, without using tools to assist in playing the trombone.
The solo must be original; not a copy of a pre-existing solo from another recording of "When the Saints go Marching In," or any similar jazz tune.
Is anyone able to make Trombone Champ sound good? We're excited to hear your performances! Good luck and have fun!
Mods & Game Updates
Hello! Often, when we release Trombone Champ updates that add new functionality, we receive a bunch of technical support emails about the game not loading songs, displaying a black screen, etc. 99% of the time, these issues are caused by having old versions of mods that need to be updated.
Thankfully, we've been working closely with the modding community to make sure that mod updates are available when Trombone Champ updates go live. And recently, modders have started recommending user-friendly mod managers, which make it much easier to install mods and receive critical updates for them.
We sometimes say "update your mods" when we push updates, but thought it might be a good idea to talk about mods in more detail!
Mods & Trombone Champ Compatibility
Let's start with the basics: talking about how Trombone Champ's mods work. In short, they work by injecting code into the game's scripts, and sometimes replacing blocks of code in the game's scripts. Generally, the oldest mods for Trombone Champ would replace very large chunks of the game's code, while newer mods replace less code. Because of this, newer mods are less likely to cause game-breaking issues than older mods.
Because of how Trombone Champ mods work, any change to the base game - even very, very small ones - can result in the game locking up or crashing if mods are running.
On the dev side, we do all we can to prevent this from happening: to give a specific example, we've adjusted where we sometimes add new code in the Gameplay scene in order to lessen mod conflicts. Code that we would have normally added to one function might get dropped into another, if we know that the first function is heavily modified by mods.
Even with these precautions, any new elements or functionality—for example, in the newest update, the little "Max" star that now appears next to your combo multiplier when you reach 10x, the timer that appears when you unpause the game, etc—can sometimes require mods to be updated. It doesn't matter how small the change is: even a single new line of code can cause the game to lock up if, by chance, a mod references or changes the block of code where that line appears.
"Well," you may ask, "why didn't you include some sort of mod browser in the base game, that would allow the base game to support mods in a way that doesn't affect the standard code?" If we had any idea the game would be actually become popular, we would have! The game's success took us by surprise, to say the least... and by the time we started to think seriously about stuff like building out a level editor and allowing users to create and load custom tracks, the amazing community surrounding the game had already created thousands of tracks with technical capabilities far beyond what we'd ever imagined...
Working with the Modding Community
For quite a while, we've been working closely with the modding community: we try our best to share Trombone Champ updates with mod makers a week or more in advance, so the modders can test the game's updates and see if any changes in the base game require their mods to be updated.
Because of this, modders usually have mod updates ready as soon as the updates go live. For example, when we updated the game from v1.10 to v1.11, modders knew exactly when we would push the update to Steam (3:00pm EST) and had their mod updates ready minutes later! Amazing!
However, having mod updates available is only one piece of the puzzle; users need to actually get the updated mods! Luckily, the mod users now have a nice solution in the form of mod managers.
Using Mod Managers
It's a pain having to update mods by hand, so most of the modding community highly recommends using a third party mod manager application to download, use, and update mods. There are lots of benefits to using a mod manager application rather than installing them manually:
Mod updates get pushed automatically, so you should never need to worry about mods breaking when the game gets updated.
You can easily see which mods are installed, which are available, and add/remove them with just a click.
It's safer: you don't need to worry about breaking the game by installing mods wrong, or downloading malicious content by accident.
To get started using a mod manager, we generally recommend following the instructions provided by the modding community. You can find an in-depth guide at trombone.wiki. Please note that these third party tools, custom maps, and the documentation surrounding them, are all created and managed by the community.
We've made a lot of changes to Trombone Champ since launch, and we plan to make a lot more. Some of the updates we'd like to eventually make will introduce much bigger changes to the Track Select screen, Gameplay screen, and more. So, the sooner you move your mods over to some sort of mod manager that makes them easier to update, the easier things will be in the future as the game continues to evolve!
Running Previous Versions of the Game
If you have some custom mods that you absolutely need for some reason, and these mods break the game after an update, you can also choose to use an older version of Trombone Champ. This is not recommended unless absolutely necessary, as you'll miss out on the quality of life features, newest tracks, and bugfixes we're constantly patching into the game.
However, should the need arise: you can right click Trombone Champ in Steam, choose Properties, click Betas, and then choose the "previous_version" option in the dropdown. After clicking OK, Steam will redownload the previous version of the game. We generally update the previous_version branch after every large, significant update.
Make sure to check in on whatever issues you're having and opt back into the main branch as soon as fixes are available!
Deleting Old Mods
If you have old mods installed, and want to move to using a mod manager, we recommend making sure you've deleted old versions of mods first.
Please note that, if you want to delete mods, uninstalling and reinstalling Trombone Champ through Steam probably won't do the trick. This is because Steam only manages files that are shipped with the base game, and doesn't touch files that have been added to a game's install folder. So, if you uninstall a game through Steam, all of the old mod files will probably still remain in the install folder.
If you want to completely clean an old Trombone Champ install, we recommend right clicking the game in Steam, clicking "Properties," and clicking "Browse Local Files" to see the folder where the game is installed. Uninstall the game through Steam, and then check the folder to see if anything is left over. You should be able to safely delete any files and/or subfolders left in the install folder. If you have a lot of custom tracks that you'd like to keep, make sure to copy those out of the Trombone Champ install folder before deleting everything!
Also, please note that your save files and settings are kept in a separate folder, so you don't need to worry about losing your progress when you uninstall the game or delete stuff in the install folder.
In Conclusion
Thanks for supporting Trombone Champ and reading this whole post! Wow, this was a long one! In summary:
If you installed mods in the past and your game is busted, you almost definitely need to update your mods
If you're not using a mod manager, we recommend trying one out, as it will make things easier as the game continues to be updated.
We try our best to update the game in a method that doesn't break critical mods, but large updates will probably break some mods anyways.
We'd also like to thank the modding community for their amazing work. We never expected the game to have such a robust modding scene, and it's been amazing seeing the stuff everyone's been creating!
Happy tooting!
-Dan of Holy Wow
Update v1.11 is live!
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
v1.10 is out!
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
April 1st Update!
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
Tiny Patch for 1.098
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
1.098 is live!
A new Trombone Champ update has dropped! This one adds some fun stuff. Apologies for the delay: we're doing a ton of work on stuff behind-the-scenes, which slowed down our progress on pushing PC updates.
Here's what's new:
New song: "St. James Trombonery Blues!" It's a parody of the classic "St. James Infirmary." Really happy with this one!
Tracks that may get muted on streaming services now have a small icon in the Track Select screen.
Added "Long Trombone" option after achieving "Trombone Champ" status.
Your chosen character now appears in the Points screen and reacts to your score.
During gameplay, you can how hold R to quickly restart a track. No need to press escape and then click the menu.
Added an "Autotoot" accessibility option, which removes the need to click or press buttons. This is intended as a true accessibility option, to allow people who can't click or press buttons rapidly to still enjoy the game! To prevent people from using this to get higher scores on leaderboards, enabling this option halves your score. It also halves the maximum potential score, so you can still achieve S ranks and progress the story if you need this option enabled.
This update has a lot of code changes "under the hood." If this breaks any mods that you really rely on, we recommend right clicking Trombone Champ in Steam, choosing "Betas," and opting into the "Previous Version" branch. This will download the last version: v1.096, which has been out for a while and should be pretty stable!
Thank you for your patience, and happy tooting!
-Dan of Holy Wow
v1.096 is live!
Version 1.096 is live! This update mainly adds two ultra-challenging tracks. Even if you've been playing Trombone Champ since launch, these will make you sweat!
"Commander Tokyo," by guest artist CV, contains an intensely difficult fast section that repeats twice. However, this is nicely balanced out by some slower sections. Hence, its 9/10 difficulty rating.
"The Sailor's Hornpipe," the third contribution by legendary producer Max Tundra, is fast and challenging from beginning to end, with absolutely no time to rest. It's slightly slower than the fast parts of "Commander Tokyo," but the unrelenting onslaught makes this track very strenuous! We've given it a 10/10, the only track to receive this rating (except for one you unlock after beating the story).
Here's a fuller changelog:
UPDATES:
Added two new challenging songs: "Commander Tokyo, The Dancing Robot" and "The Sailor's Hornpipe!"
Adjusted code to prevent invisible "ghost notes" from appearing in custom tracks.
Adjusted code to make staccato notes display accurately and cause less visual issues.
BUGS:
Added code to prevent the game from softlocking if the external parameters json file is completely blank for any reason. A very small number of users were encountering errors due to the json file, and this should fix that.
Added code to prevent a tweening library from occasionally throwing errors when canceling tweens.
More coming soon! Thank you for your continued patience!
-Dan of Holy Wow
Update v1.095 is live!
Version 1.095 of Trombone Champ is now live! This one does a bunch of stuff...
Tech:
Trombone Champ is now compiled using Unity 2019.4.40f. This is the reason this update is a larger download than usual (most updates are around 50mb, but this one is ~300mb). We will likely use 2019.4.40f for the rest of the game's lifespan.
We've tested 2019.4.40f with a bunch of user-created content and mods, and it doesn't seem to cause any issues that we could find!
Fixes:
On MacOS, the Wireframe character + Trombone should now display correctly. Turns out the "Metal" graphics API doesn't support the geometry shaders that were used by the Wireframe skin. We've replaced the shader with a simple texture that works cross-platform, uses less system resources, and also looks a little better!
Adjusted the secret rainbow particle effect on Hot Dog card. It should no longer "flash" when first displayed.
Updates & Improvements:
Added new song: "Old MacDonald!"
Added the option to turn off the rainbow effect you unlock at a certain point in the storyline. You can find it in the character select screen, once you reach that point.
You can now press any letter key to search for songs in the Track Select screen (e.g., press "T" to go through all songs that begin with "T"). At the moment this searches the long name and short name of each track, because some tracks have significantly different short and long names. For example, "Also Sprach Zarathustra" starts with an A, but it appears in the sidebar as "Zarathustra," which starts with a Z. So, it will turn up if you press A or Z. Please note that this may require updating mods that accomplish the same thing.
Added graphical setting for antialiasing. This makes the trombone slide look a lot smoother during gameplay. Please note that this setting doesn't affect any 2d content, such as menus.
External Parameters
We've added an external parameters file, which appears in the same folder as your saves and settings. This contains a handful of flags that can adjust the game. Basically, these are extra settings that we didn't want to have easily accessible in the Settings menu.
We originally implemented these as launch parameters (e.g., "trombonechamp.exe -classroommode"), but launch parameters are a bit tricky on MacOS. For the moment, an external file was the easiest cross-platform solution.
To find this file, go to the folder with your saves. On Windows, you can paste this into the Start menu and press enter:
%APPDATA%\..\LocalLow\Holy Wow\TromboneChamp
On Macs, the folder is hidden by default. Select Go > Go To Folder and try the following:
In that folder, look for the parameters json file and open it with any plain text editor. At the moment, all you can do is toggle an option to skip the title screen and toggle a few options to launch the game in "classroom mode." You can change these by changing "false" to "true" and saving the file. We will almost definitely add more parameters over time!
Classroom Mode Details
By editing the external parameters file, you can open Trombone Champ in "Classroom Mode." This limits the game's content so that the game could theoretically be left out in a classroom setting. Basically, it makes the game slightly more kid-friendly by adjusting a few things and locking a bunch of content.
PLEASE NOTE: Classroom Mode has NOT been formally evaluated as an educational tool, and Trombone Champ has not been formally classified as a children's product. Use this setting at your own risk!
That being said, here's everything Classroom Mode does...
"Choose Yer Tromboner" text changes to "Choose Your Character."
Cosmetic options are fixed to specific set: the standard human characters, the first 6 trombone colors, and the first three sound sets. No fart sounds, baboon characters, etc.
The Baboon / Tootvessel screens are locked.
In the cards screen, the "turd" and "build" buttons are hidden, as is the "turd" counter. No mention of "turds" anywhere! You can still purchase sacks of cards and view the cards, since some of the cards do contain historical figures. However, the cards still contain jokes, so if you're extremely concerned about exposing an audience to weird jokes, you can lock the card screen entirely by setting the "lockcardscreen" parameter in the external settings file to true.
In the card screen, the NPC demon character never appears.
The spooky title screen is always skipped.
If you create a new save, the opening cinematic is skipped.
If you create a new save, all songs are unlocked - you're not forced to start with "Warm-Up."
Leaderboard buttons are hidden.
The shortcuts to the Card Screen and Tootvessel Screen are hidden in the Points screen.
We have so much more coming soon... Thank you for your continued patience!
