The Trombone Champ championships are a wellspring of community creativity whether or not you bone the ‘trom

Brass-blasting rhythm game Trombone Champ honked its way into our hearts when it released in 2022. Since then, it’s garnered a dedicated fanbase that have kept its spit-valve full to bursting with creations like this Final Fantasy 7 mod. Trombone Champ mods are special among rhythm games for consisting of two elements: the button-tapping composition of the song itself, and the background visuals. You honk-tap away while unicorns or giant close-ups of full English breakfasts cavort in the background. Although, if your breakfast is cavorting, you probably want to cook it a bit longer.

One community member, Gloomhonk, has risen to legend status for their creative and hilarious clips, like this take on Don’t Stop Believin’ where you enrage the guitarist by bogarting all the solos. Or more recently, their version of the Helldivers 2 main theme. Now, they’ve set their talents to creating custom backdrops for new tracks for players to go bell-to-bumper against each other in this year’s TootTally community championship.

The championship – which is soon entering its finals – sees players compete for a crowdsourced prize pool. It’s currently sitting at 1000 USD – enough to buy five of the cheapest trombones I could find and declare sonic armageddon on your unsuspecting neighbours. Or maybe not, maybe they’re cool. Maybe they also own five trombones. Maybe they’ll join in. Maybe you could start the world’s most trombone-heavy ska band. Actually, don’t do that. Just play Trombone Champ instead.

It’s even better if you’re bad at it, reckoned Alice 0 (RPS in peace). “In games like Guitar Hero, fumbling a note can cause a wince-inducing stringslap or feedback shriek…it’s great in Trombone Champ when I fumble a note then the game makes a silly noise and pushes me to tootle on without worry.”