It Won't Be the Last Time Baboons are Mentioned, Either.

September 23, 2022 7:26 AM

Trombones. Hot dogs. Baboons. Collectible cards. Lore. Trombone Champ has it all. [PC Gamer]

‘Terrible music and absurdity’: introducing Trombone Champ, the internet’s new favourite video game [Grauniad]
Trombone Champ’s developers want to take the game ‘farther than we originally planned’ [The Verge]
A selection of videos [PC Gamer's Twitter]

posted by chavenet (39 comments total)

I'm not a changing-my-avatar kind of guy (I'm on two high-traffic Slacks, and I've had three different avatars ever between them), but I grabbed a screencap from that first link where it looks like Beethoven is saying "NASTY" and made it my avatar immediately.
posted by Etrigan at 7:35 AM on September 23, 2022 [8 favorites]

I would really really like to see the slide move appropriately.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:50 AM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Also after the song ends, lets open the spit valve and maybe as much water comes out as you sucked playing, and maybe some fish come out, and maybe some of them are rare, and can be used for upgrades.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:51 AM on September 23, 2022 [18 favorites]

When I first saw a video for this, I didn't know what it was. Frankly, I was moved to tears.
I really wish I could play it, but I know that gameplay won't work with my RSI. I am just enjoying other people's videos. Real Portsmouth Sinfonia vibes.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:54 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

The only thing that’s missing is a plastic trombone-shaped controller, à la Guitar Hero.
posted by btfreek at 7:55 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

a plastic trombone-shaped controller

If only for the inevitable videos of someone winning Call of Duty using only a trombone
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:03 AM on September 23, 2022 [17 favorites]

I first heard about Trombone Hero from foone retweeting this Twitter thread.

Suddenly the idea of putting an accelerometer on a fleshlight is interesting again.

posted by zamboni at 8:13 AM on September 23, 2022 [4 favorites]

In my music history class yesterday, we were talking about more populist turns of opera style in the later 19th c., and so of course I opened class with Trombone Champ clips.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:43 AM on September 23, 2022 [4 favorites]

I have been watching Holy Wow with Interest ever since their debut game, a little Flash number called Icarus Produbottom Teaches Typing!, which rapidly spirals out of control and piles on the absurdity as you're, theoretically, learning to type. (In truth, it's not a very good typing tutor, in part because it's more interested in getting you to type exceptionally silly things, and that's hard to do with just the home row keys.)
posted by Merus at 9:08 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

If only for the inevitable videos of someone winning Call of Duty Elden Ring using only a trombone.

I so want this.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:10 AM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Eagerly awaiting the vuvuzela mod!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:13 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

So I open the video fullscreen and stop it before it plays, walk into my 15 year old's room with the computer closed, saying, "Hey, I just found our new favorite game," and he answers, "Is it Trombone Champ?"
So what I mean is it's been a good run, MetaFilter, but your services are no longer required.
posted by signal at 9:15 AM on September 23, 2022 [18 favorites]

Metafilter: hard to do with just the home row keys
posted by genpfault at 9:24 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

When I first saw clips of this game show up on TikTok a few days ago, I thought that people were making the trombone sounds themselves. Like, y'know, by going "brrr brr brr" with their mouths kinda like this. More like Karaoke Revolution than Guitar Hero. This is fun too, though.
posted by mhum at 9:26 AM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

One could probably take MIDI inputs and convert them into Mouse/Keyboard/Gamepad controls. I didn't search too hard to find this MIDI to Joystick option. The harder part would be getting a trombone to MIDI. You might be able to use Silent Brass to get a line out and then convert that to MIDI. Alternatively, you could make something like the Trom or Digibone

So I think it is possible to play CoD or Elden Ring with a trombone or trombone-like instrument, but you'd have to really want it to jump through all of the technical hoops. Then there might be latency problems, not to mention how impossible it probably is to actually control something this way.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 9:31 AM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Is this Frog Fractions ℵ₀?
posted by genpfault at 9:39 AM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

My brother made this game! This is the proudest I've ever been, with a close 2nd being the time he trolled Alex Trebek into reading an incorrect clue about Tetris blocks. FWIW, he's also the owner of Business Cat (real name Emilio, still alive and living happily in Brooklyn).

In all seriousness, Dan has been making hilarious things since he was a kid -- and making hilarious video games for over a decade - and I couldn't be more pleased that the world finally noticed. This success has been a long time coming.
posted by rachelv at 9:45 AM on September 23, 2022 [55 favorites]

This is also another music themed game that deserves its own article:
Sword of Symphony
SLYT
posted by garbhoch at 9:57 AM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

I bought the game and it's so much fun! Tell your brother thanks.
posted by mogget at 10:08 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

the time he trolled Alex Trebek into reading an incorrect clue about Tetris blocks

Your brother is a hero.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:26 AM on September 23, 2022 [9 favorites]

The only thing that’s missing is a plastic trombone-shaped controller, à la Guitar Hero.

I actually own a plastic trombone, and it probably wouldn't be too hard to add a rotary encoder to the slide to let it control the mouse portion of the game, at least. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to put a sensor just south of the mouthpiece to function as a button.

Also this game looks like a real hoot, and honestly, very much like my experience trying to play the trombone (that is to say: loud, obnoxious, frustrating, and occasionally funny).
posted by uncleozzy at 10:29 AM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

This game is extremely humbling for a musician who's played fretless bass, violin, and theremin and you'd think would be able to handle this no problem.

But it's also hilarious and brings me joy.
posted by Foosnark at 10:32 AM on September 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

I think I can argue for a family purchase of a Steam Deck if Trombone Champ is playable on the device. Fingers crossed.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 10:40 AM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Theremin Champ. Boom. Must-have DLC.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 10:43 AM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Any one of those Tetris block names would make for a fine username.

Signed, Rhode Island Z
posted by chavenet at 10:45 AM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

I was thinking the same thing, chavenet!
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 10:50 AM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Guybrush has an excellent idea.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:33 AM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

> And then there's just the act of trying to competently play fast-paced songs on a damn trombone, which is genuinely tricky...

In the composted parts of my mind is some imagery (with soundtrack) of people with trombones displaying astonishing virtuosity. Probably I was thinking of this. But this also works.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 2:22 PM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Not available for Mac.

There’s my weekend ruined.
posted by nickmark at 3:35 PM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am a terrible trombonist and I cannot wait for this to be available for Mac.
posted by queensissy at 4:40 PM on September 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

i adore this twitter exchange where the game's creator is in awe of a modder's tools. later in the thread... "Check your messages please! :–)"
posted by bruceo at 5:07 PM on September 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

wow, no wonder it took 4 years to make
posted by Merus at 6:12 AM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

If only for the inevitable videos of someone winning Call of Duty using only a trombone

Or Wolfenstein: New Order.

"What's the trombone for?"

"Killing Nazis."

Theremin Champ. Boom. Must-have DLC.

Bagpipe Menace would also be a good DLC.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:22 AM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

i adore this twitter exchange where the game's creator is in awe of a modder's tools. later in the thread... "Check your messages please! :–)"

That's really fascinating--looks like the developer of the game has been creating the trombone parts by ear (vid in thread), which is really slow. Someone got the game, thought 'hey, I want to import some other tunes for fun,' and wrote a short script to convert MIDI info from original audio files into charts, which are then used for graphical presentation in the game. Like, just completely automated what had clearly taken the original developer(s) months to create by hand/ear.

So I expect that Trombone Champ is going to have a whole bunch of new tracks pretty soon.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:35 AM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

If there's a Will Riker avatar skin, I'm in.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:32 AM on September 24, 2022 [3 favorites]

Now i need a video of Jonathan Frakes playing this, stat. (With a Riker avatar)
posted by emjaybee at 10:47 AM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

If there's a Will Riker avatar skin, I'm in.

Now i need a video of Jonathan Frakes playing this, stat. (With a Riker avatar)

With a trombone or a fleshlight?
posted by Etrigan at 9:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Evan Minsker at Pitchfork: “Trombone Champ Is the Class Clown of Musical Video Games”

[Dan] Vecchitto, 38, and his wife Jackie have made free computer games for fun during nights and weekends over the past decade—they otherwise work as full-time web designers—but Trombone Champ is the first one they have ever put up for sale. “I’m getting older and I can’t just release goofy web games forever,” he says. “I figured I should try to make something legitimate.”

posted by Going To Maine at 1:04 PM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

> One living artist with his own card is the maximalist electronic producer Max Tundra, who provided a rare original song for Trombone Champ called “Long-Tail Limbo.”

got me listening to lysine: "Sunny-day synth stabs maintain a syncopated three-note pattern almost constantly throughout the song, while sweet daytime-radio female vocals (courtesy of his sister Becky) deliver a witty tribute to the benefits of the eponymous amino acid." :P
posted by kliuless at 12:21 AM on September 30, 2022 [1 favorite]