Valley Peaks

Valley Peaks is just the kind of game you need to pass some time and wind down a bit. The climbing is pretty tight, mechanics aren't overly complex, and if you find yourself stuck in a specific trail, no worries, just look for an easier one on the same mountain! It's super atmospheric and charming. Loved every second of it.

Solid climbing mechanics. Not for relaxation. Very butt-clenchy. Can recommend. (It does give you tools over time to overcome the more annoying climbing obstacles. So going to another mountain and collecting routes there if you can't get any route on your current one finished is a viable thing to do.)

While the music and chatting with NPCs make this feel like a slow paced cozy game, the climbing mechanic is what I were here for. While not too complex to be troublesome it still manages to present a challenge, especially in the latter part of the game where a couple of badly planned out climbs could see you starting over several times if not careful. Control wise, with mouse/keyboard, this feels good. Look around with the mouse, use left/right arm to grab by clicking and holding the corresponding mouse button. Move or try to stretch a direction with WSAD. That's about it. There are a couple of different types of handhold to make the climb more difficult, and there are a few gadgets you can collect to hopefully make things easier for you, should you need it. And yet, even being simple like this, climbing one of the trickier routes still gave a great rewarding feeling when finally you reached the top. I climbed every route available, engaged with a few of the side-quests and gave up the time trials rather quickly, I got around 8 hours of laid back but rewarding gameplay from this game. If you are intrigued by the art style. Or would like a climbing game without too much at stake, this game is very worth trying. Just don't expect the game to reinvent a genre.