Valley Peaks trades Getting Over It's frustration for cozy frog vibes, but keeps you climbing

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Valley Peaks, which released on Steam this week, is a cozy first-person platformer where you play as a frog tasked with climbing mountains and installing radio transmitters on them. It's on sale for the first two weeks, 10% off until August 7.

I had a delightful time in the Valley Peaks demo. It opens with your friendly frog protagonist driving his old truck down the road before getting an important message from Corporate. The frogs in the valley need your help connecting with the outside world, and you've got to get those transmitters up pronto. I did wonder what a bunch of happy frogs living in an idyllic valley really need with technological connection to all the hustle and bustle that's making the rest of us crazy, but that's neither here nor there.

Gameplay consists almost entirely of climbing, and it's got a neat little system to let you do it. Each mouse button is connected to one of your froggy paws, and you can shimmy a little bit to the left and right, or jump. With this simple foundation, you'll scamper up mountains and perform tasks for your froggy friends.

Things get more complicated pretty quickly, as the solid rock holds become shale that falls off after a few seconds, moving minecarts, cactus lookin' spiky things, and all manner of nonsense. Complete three climbs and you'll fill up a punch card which you can turn in for upgrades, including things like a glider or a super sticky tongue you can use to grab onto things way above you.

The game kinda gave me Getting Over It vibes, but with cozy froggitude instead of all the screaming frustration. There are also some minigames in the full version, like a boat race and pumpkin hunting. There are also other things to collect in the semi-open world of the valley, including some mushrooms you can turn in for punch cards. Pet some geese, climb some mountains, plant some radios. The frog life is the good life.

There's something intensely satisfying about climbing, and Scottish indie devs Tub Club have bottled that up in Valley Peaks. It's available now on Steam, and coming soon to Switch.

Russ has been playing PC games since the top of the line graphics were in ASCII and has been obsessed with them just about as long. After a coordinated influence campaign to bamboozle his parents into getting a high speed internet connection to play EverQuest, his fate was well and truly sealed. When he's not writing about videogames, he's teaching karate, cooking an overly complicated dish, or attempting to raise his daughter with a well rounded classical education (Civilization, Doom, and Baldur's Gate, of course). He's probably mapping in Path of Exile right now.