Valley Peaks

Valley Peaks is a cross between Jusant and A Short Hike, fitting into the cosy, wholesome genre very nicely. With its wonderful visual presentation, the inclusion of the newly popular climbing mechanic, and the brave choice to fix the viewpoint as first person, I was taken with the game as soon as I was introduced to it through the games PR company. 

In Valley Peaks, you have been sent by your corporation to complete the work that your sadly deceased father had started, which was to install radio towers on each of the eleven mountain summits. This will bring a new world to the valley and give your corporation the chance to earn more money from the residents. This is not the first time your unnamed protagonist has been here, as they have visited the valley many times as a child with their father to explore and climb the numerous challenging mountain ranges. The world of Valley Peaks has been lovingly created by Glasgow-based developers, Tub Club, with each mountain having a unique character and the world itself full of things to explore and do. You’ll meet interesting characters all over and discover many collectibles and items to acquire to make your climbing life a tad easier. 

Exploring Valley Peaks is a breeze as your frog moves at a good pace. This and the first-person view point make exploring the land so much more fun, and because of the small circumference of the valley, it doesn’t take long to get from one end to another. With so much to see and do, it was the right call, though if you do get close to the valley border, the game has no problem telling you that, which I found took me out of the moment and made me feel like it was an unnecessary message.

Climbing the mountains was enjoyable, challenging, and sometimes frustrating. The mountains range from easy to difficult, and the game will tell you this as you approach one. Each mountain also has three routes for you to climb, labelled from easy to hard. As you start climbing the more challenging mountains, you’ll start to come across crumbly stones, spikes, and other obstacles to slow you down or knock you off the mountain. Some include traffic light stones where you can only hold onto one when it is green, and some mountains have moving carts. In some cases, you’ll find floating balls that give you an extra jump, which are useful when you have to cross a large gap or cross to the other side of the mountain. 

I found the designs well thought out, with rocks and stones in the places I would of expected them to be and in various sizes and lengths. The fantastical elements like the jump balls and traffic light stones work well, and it was a lot of fun using them. The more difficult climbs threw some frustration at me, as I fell off many times and tried the different routes with no success for some time. It got especially frustrating to fall off when I had made quite some headway, as using ropes and clips is not a thing here, and having to start all over was disheartening. Having some save points along the climb or an accessibility option would have gone down well for this. But when I did reach the summit, it was such a fantastic feeling, with a strong punch in the air in celebration and a big smile on my face.

There are times when you are climbing that it really feels like you are high up or dangling off a perilous edge. Many times I felt my heart beating faster as things were getting tense or realising how clammy my hands had become through the danger of it all. Of course, if you do fall, there’s no repercussion at all, as the frog will land on his feet and be ready to go again. This did make for some fun descents from the summits, as you can literally walk off the edge, fall all the way down, and then just carry on with your day! 

At the start of the game, it is explained that when you complete a climb, you receive a stamp on a card. But to receive that stamp, you have to touch a certain number of numbered wooden posts that are found along the climbs. If you touch them all in sequence, the stamp is yours. Conquer three mountains to fill up a card, and you can then swap it at a help point for useful items. These range from goggles that help you locate the mountains easier, a slow button to slow down time when your falling, a sleigh for descending the mountains on, a glider, and a drone. The more stamp cards you complete and hand in, the more you’ll get. Each item can also be upgraded in the same manner, making them use less fuel or gaining other helpful improvements. 

One item you will receive is a spanner, which will give you the power to fix the many broken things scattered around the valley. With the nuts and bolts that you collect as you explore, you can put them back together, which will aid you in many ways. Most will give you more fuel for your glider and sleigh, but there are other things to fix, like a bridge that will give you access to other parts of the valley, broken bikes, or my favourite, the slingshots. These will fire you in the direction it’s facing, and they will fling you so far into the air that it’s insane. It’s your aim to reach an inaccessible area with these, but you’ll just end up doing it just for fun! 

Other collectables you’ll find include mushrooms, which you can trade for completed stamp cards in various places; Polaroid photos that show a memory of when you were here with your dad; charms for your phone; and what look like drink cartons, of which I am unsure of what they do. These collectibles never felt overwhelming like they can in other games, and the majority serve a purpose in the gameplay. It was yet another fun mechanic to interact with, and it was also nice to get some backstory through the pictures you find.

Along the way, you’ll meet other frogs, and some will have tasks for you to complete. These are nothing too strenuous, with delivering a letter or pizza, finding lost earrings, or helping to fix a hot air balloon being some examples of what you’ll find. Completing the tasks doesn’t give you any rewards, as far as I could tell, just the satisfaction of helping others, and it broke up the gameplay, giving you a break from climbing, which was especially nice if you were attempting a challenging mountain. I really appreciated that the team gave me other things to do apart from climb; otherwise, the game would of become very tedious very quickly. And it’s important to stress how much there is to see and do, as it’s very impressive. Even near the end, I was still discovering new places and areas, which took me by surprise, especially with the smallness of the valley.

One important aspect of any type of game like this is its map. It’s a contentious aspect of many games, as most do not get it right, which can spoil a game, and some hit it spot on, increasing the enjoyment immensely. I found the map here useful and detailed, giving me clues to areas I needed to visit and mapping items I had missed. Each mountain was clearly labelled, as were the different town’s, and it even showed me which direction I was facing. All in all, I had a positive experience with the map, and it came in handy many times.

The music in Valley Peaks is on the level of what you would expect for this type of game. Joyful pieces of music that contain high-energy sections, and all the music complements the game perfectly. I also need to give you an advanced warning that there are a couple of proper ear worms here, as I caught myself humming the tunes while I was away from the game many times.

Sadly, I have to now squash most of this positivity, as once you have completed the last mountain, you have to do them all over again because the plot demands this, and you now have to disrupt all the radios you’ve previously activated. I don’t think I’ve made such a quick U-turn on a game as I did here. Not only do you have to reclimb all the mountains, but they have also been made more difficult for various reasons, and I couldn’t even manage to climb the easiest mountain on the easiest route. There’s a section there that seems impassable, and I kept hitting the spikes and being sent to the bottom over and over. To be honest, reader, I bounced hard here, and I was so deflated. Weirdly, in this second section, I also encountered a ton of bugs, with me falling into the scenery and getting trapped, and somehow being able to fly around the town and up to the highest mountain! This really is a game of two halves. 

This second section, to me, felt like it should have appeared in a post-game section, something to stretch out the game for the people who want as much as they can get from the game. But I didn’t hit any end credits, so this must be part of the main game. I don’t have a problem with the content; I think it’s great to have this as a post-game bonus area, but to ask the player to basically do it all over again with much more difficult climbing to properly complete the game is a bit too much of an ask. It took me quite some time to finish the first section, and I did baulk at realising I had to do it all over again. It does serve a purpose, plot-wise, and without this, the story would feel incomplete. I would of been much more welcome to the game letting me scale the mountains with an easier mechanic or telling us the story in a cutscene with the option to do the climbing ourselves. It did dampen my enthusiasm considerably for Valley Peaks, as it will for others. Tub Hub Games, you were so close, so, so close.