It’s wonderful to see that Holy Wow’s amusing games are now enjoying the widespread popularity they so richly deserve.
Trombone Champ, a completely absurd and hilarious trombone sim-cum-Guitar Hero game from one of the funniest developers in the business, is currently one of the top 10 selling titles on Steam. But given the absurd obscurity of the game’s concepts, it’s also astounding.
I’ve been following Holy Wow, the company that made Trombone Champ, for more than a decade. The independent developer’s games have been making me laugh for many years, all the way from the ground-breaking Icarus Proudbottom In: The Curse Of The Chocolate Fountain, in which a man flies through the air using only the force of his own poop, to the endlessly entertaining multiplayer mini-game collection, Icarus Proudbottom’s Typing Party. Which I say essentially as a brag about how I knew them before they became popular. Wow, Dan Vecchitto and Jackie Lalli, a husband and wife combination, are now cool.
When I ask Vecchitto if any past Holy Wow games had experienced this kind of popularity and if he was anticipating it this time, he responds, “No and no!” The earlier games were a little shabby, with Vecchitto admitting that he is a self-taught programmer, but they stood out from their contemporaries because they were so incredibly humorous. Trombone Champ represents yet another advancement in technology; its stunning user interface and Nintendo Mii-like graphics hide the game’s utter idiocy.
In Trombone Champ, you have to try to play the trombone through a Guitar Hero-like interface, moving your mouse up and down to match the impending lines, holding a button down to “toot” as they pass the left side of the screen. However, the mouse movement is backwards (you can change this, but should you?) and abominably shaky, and the entire process is purposefully slow. which results in amusing times. Fun times that clearly deserve mainstream success, publicity on all major gaming websites that typically neglect such odd indie games, and a top 10 spot on Steam’s new charts—but surely nobody expected it?
Vecchitto via Twitter DMs: “I always thought the concept was humorous. I assumed that different video clips of the game may become viral, but I didn’t really expect the game itself to take off like it did. Why does he believe it might have, then? It seems to appeal to a wide range of people, including casual gamers, true music game fanatics, brass players in real life, and ska lovers (of whom there are a lot!). Even yet, I’m still perplexed as to why this one gained such traction.
I wonder whether this indicates that, now that the rest of the world is aware of Holy Wow, he might wish to republish his previous library of games. Release them perhaps in boxes made of gold. I really want to create an HD version of “Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing.” Vecchitto gets excited right away. Quite well, really. Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing is fantastic, as Nathan Grayson, a former member of this church, once wrote. In spite of having been released in 2013, it really is, if somewhat dated-looking.
Vecchitto continues, “I’d also really like to improve Typing Party and produce more arcade cabinets. The only Typing Party cabinet that we presently have is at Wonderville in Brooklyn, but it would be tempting to create more and try to sell them to independent arcades across the nation.
But given the success of Trombone Champ, Dan continues, “I think we’re going to work on this one for a while.” Not bad for a game created by him in his own time on the weekends and after work. Trombone Champ was more of a solo endeavour than previous Holy Wow games, which were more evenly balanced amongst the married development team. Vecchitto explains, “I’m happy squandering my own nights and weekends on a silly game like this, but I didn’t want to also squander my one and only spouse’s spare time on this.”
The previous Holy Wow games are available on Itch, and you should do it without a doubt since they’re bloody fantastic. After that, you can claim that you were hip too before all of this recent success on Steam.
