Having watched my daughter play Valley Peaks, I opted to begin with the cosy mode rather than normal at the start of play. While compared to Frog Detective and A Short Hike (both of which she completed independently), it looked mildly challenging, even though she didn’t appear to get frustrated.
Tub Club’s game chugged a little of the Steam Deck, so in fear of spoiling anything, I waited my turn and jumped on the desktop instead. You play as corporate fodder following their father’s legacy by placing radio masts on top of mountains. With scarce expenses, you must manually ascend each place using your go-go-gadget arms. Erm…
Climbing points are pre-defined, as if in a rock climbing club. Pressing either the left or right mouse button will send out the respective appendage, pushing up to climb, or a cheeky jump will get you there faster. Eventually, alternating between left and right becomes a reality, like the monkey areas in Astro’s Playroom, albeit in a first-person perspective and a funny-looking filter.
Valley Peaks Review: Great Heights
In Valley Peaks, you’ll locate these vertical spaces and climb accordingly, meeting the locals. Regrettably, you can’t hit them with your arms, though they’re charming nonetheless, and perhaps you’d have regretted giving them a mouthful of teeth. That said, they’re frogs: no teeth. Anyhoo, let’s skip the biology lesson and focus on the tech: radio masts.
Despite that initial reservation, climbing is intuitive and has a certain finesse—meaning you look more like a spider than a frog. Climbing works well in both modes; before you know it, you’re a parkour master.
Comparable to A Short Hike, a climbing club rewards you if you complete challenges scattered throughout where you have to attach yourself to a series of markers in ascending order. Completed stamps, in turn, unlock new gadgets that help you with climbing, fixing locations, and essentially completing the initial job you set out to do.
Love In The Community
However, there’s an underlying story about community in Valley Peaks. After so many side quests and trips to uncover collectable mushrooms and nuts and bolts, you become more attached to the locals than you do with the terrain, or in some of the later cases: rocky terrain that breaks under your grip.
The cosy element in the game is the lack of death or reduction of health. With all this climbing, there’s bound to be a fall here and there, and thankfully, you don’t suffer any damage. However, you have to start again if you are ascending a mountain, which can be mildly frustrating. That’s not a design fault – frustrating can be fun as you soon begin to develop a line of travel similar to one in a racing game – an invisible line that offers the best path.
Each mountain will have a star rating based on difficulty but can be tackled in any order. Considering the volume of extras on offer here, including the gadgets and whatnot, it’s easy to get lost in this world. The visuals in Valley Peaks are nice, and the music is duly suited for a (mostly) relaxing experience.
Valley Peaks Review Summary
The marketing nailed the comparisons of Frog Detective and A Short Hike. While it doesn’t capture the humour of the former, it encapsulates fun, relaxing gameplay and does wonders for frogs in the process. They’re ugly blighters, but in this game, I just want to hug them all. A lovely experience for you and your family. Of frogs.
