Trombone Champ is the funniest PC game of 2022. Now, it's getting a VR version. It's designed to immerse players in the world's most comical musical instrument.
Trombone champ: Unflattened is a VR version that puts players on a virtual platform in front of an "live" audience. You can slide the trombone with two hands and try to play classic musical pieces. According to the announcement trailer (viewed above), the VR version will feature surrealist humor and a card-collecting game, allowing you to exchange cards for novelty trombones that you can use in order wow/further frustrate your audience.
Unflattened was not developed by Holy Wow Studios who created the original, which was a brilliantly stupid game. Flat2VRStudios is handling the design, along with a VR version of Flatout and a retro shooter Wrath: Aeon of Ruin.
Chris Livingston's delightfully awful rendition of Beethoven's Fifth, sold approximately 265,000 copies via Steam. Chris Livingston wrote in 2022 that Beethoven was not rolling over in his grave because he had already screamed, staggered, and vomited. "In Trombone champ, playing the trombone poorly is just as fun as playing it properly, which is one of the reasons why I love it."
Trombone Champ gave me abdominal cramps when it was released. I can see the appeal of VR version. The trombone may be the perfect VR instrument. It is pleasingly physical, yet functionally simple, allowing it to adapt well to VR control (unlike the piano or guitar, for example). The VR version is a bit of a joke, but I wonder if it will be too much. Trombone Champ is a game that is rough and ready, with garish backgrounds often resembling a lost ytmnd. Your tooted tunes are played against these garish backgrounds. I'm worried that putting on a VR head-set to play a bad trombone in a virtual theatre is too much effort for a game that is so disposable.
Maybe I'm being a curmudgeon. Unflattened will not make the world any less. Trombone Champ will be released on Quest and Steam in the autumn, so we'll soon find out how it adapts to three-dimensionality.
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