‘Holy wow!’ is probably what you would say if a single tweet sent your weird and wacky video game into the gaming stratosphere overnight. Holy Wow is also the name of the studio behind it Trombone Champa game that has recently received this treatment.
When PC Gamer released a clip of this musical rhythm game, it probably wasn’t expecting instant virality – but that’s exactly what happened. At the time of writing, the tweet Presentation of gameplay for Trombone Champ has now reached 91,400 likes and 24,100 retweets. It’s sparked a veritable trumpet revolution, with avid gamers flocking to Steam for a piece of the musical pie.
Trombone Champ was not only popular on Twitter on Thursday, but also made it rocket climbed the Steam charts and grew 452.5% overnight. As of this writing, the current player base stands at 973, and it’s growing with a big upward trend – so much so that it’s listed as one of the top trending games on the Steam Charts website.
So what exactly is Trombone Champ? In this game, you play as an avid trombonist, clicking your mouse to the rhythm of royalty-free music tracks. Sometimes a note requires a click and hold. Sometimes you need to wiggle your mouse around or hit frantic notes in a quick session. Think guitar hero or Tap Revenge tapbut each key click delivers a glorious trombone note that may or may not be on pitch.
For those who want to create their own tracks, there’s also a freeform mode where you can output your own music. It’s a bit ridiculous, and that’s what makes it so funny.
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The original post going viral was likely due to a number of factors — including Trombone Champ Borrowing from modern memes and an absurd vaporware aesthetic. The clip posted by PC Gamer showed a highly marketable, hilarious Gameplay snippet – a player yelling at Beethoven while phrases like NASTY and PERFECTO blared on screen while Beethoven looked on in disgust.
The clip is short, snappy, and perfectly underscores the absurdity of Trombone Champ – the pure and unfiltered, meme-worthy value of rhythm play. It certainly helped the game find its core audience online, as many players are now sharing clips and tunes in similarly viral tweets and shares.
The game’s overwhelming success came as a major shock to Holy Wow, who took to Twitter to discuss more about the game’s development and how it was a secondary focus for a team that worked on “silly” mini-games in their spare time worked time.
“We are blown away by Trombone Champ’s recent success! Thank you to all our supporters!’ Said Holy Wow. “Based on the past few days, of course we plan to push the game further than we originally planned. However, we should be clear that Holy Wow is primarily a one-person operation at the moment. And it’s not even our main concert! We work full time jobs (!!!) and we built this whole game nights, weekends and holidays.’
“It will take us a few weeks to get our lives in order and deal with the huge demand this game has generated! Please be patient and thank you again for your support.’
Although Holy Wow may not have expected success Trombone Champ, the viral clip has now cemented this crazy rhythm game as Video Game Flavor of the Month. While that interest is fleeting, as memes are so often found on the modern internet, Holy Wow will likely walk away with lessons well learned and a renewed focus on whatever comes next from the studio.
Trombone Champ is now available for Windows PC via Steam.
