I wasn't sure what to expect with Valley. In all honesty, it was an impulse buy in the same PSN sale in which I acquired last week's Hyper Light Drifter (and a third game to be revealed later). Giant Bomb had yet to cover it, and so I only had two points of reference: that the studio's previous and only other project was a professional remake of Slender: The Eight Pages named Slender: The Arrival, based on that one meme guy who was very white and didn't blink much at all, and that YouTuber Jim Sterling decided to check it out presumably so he could lampoon the new game from the Slenderman guys. However, he ended up enjoying what he played in the brief video he uploaded, and after playing through more than half the game myself I can definitely relate.

Valley is a first-person action-adventure game with a distinct platforming flair. The player character washes up in a remote area of the Rockies, the titular valley, and discovers that the place is infused with "amrita": a glowing blue natural source of energy that is linked to a mythical "lifeseed" that is apparently the motherlode of modern archaeology. The player is not the first to discover the Valley and the possibilities it presents, however: the United States Army found the same locale in the 1940s and began experimenting with the amrita and the lifeseed to produce weapons of war that could rival the nuclear bomb. They mysteriously left nothing behind but ruins and wrecks and the occasional notes, however, with the sole exception of an intact LEAF suit: an exosuit that could greatly expand the user's running and leaping ability, as well as giving them the power over life and death and a limited form of immortality. Odd as it may sound, the former is actually the most interesting from a gameplay perspective: the player has a high running speed and can build momentum on slopes to increase it further, and can also use this momentum to make gigantic leaps across the landscape. The first time the game lets you do this, shortly after acquiring the suit, is nothing short of exhilarating. The player eventually acquires additional abilities to expand the suit's capabilities further, including a grapple hook and a double jump, and it's not long before the game starts to feel like a spiritual sequel to Retro's Metroid Prime trilogy. Likewise, there's a distinct sense of exploring one's surroundings for upgrades and other collectibles - as well as being able to boost one's energy reserves, necessary for most of the LEAF suit's advanced abilities, the player can also find acorns to unlock these occasional mystical doors with goodies behind, and medallions which I've yet to discover a use for. Half of the crates these items can be found in are left out in the open, while the other half are hidden very well. The only clue you get is the familiar shape - a foot locker-shaped brown crate with a "Pendulum" logo, the codename for the secret military operation - which glows just slightly enough to be identifiable from a distance or in darkness.

The slightly less explicable life and death powers of the suit tie into the game's whole "amrita/soma/samsara/karma" naming convention. The player can draw energy from blue orbs, the most common source of amrita energy, or they can draw it directly from the trees and creatures around them. Continuing to siphon the life of the valley will cause damage to the valley itself, however, as will unexpectedly dying. To resurrect, the player again draws life from the valley to shift quantum realities to one where they didn't just leap into a chasm like an idiot. It's a contrived way of ensuring that, while the player can "survive" a few mis-timed leaps, each death causes a massive deleterious effect to an area of natural wonder still recovering from the experiments of the military some 70 years prior. The only true game over state happens when the valley completely dies due to your actions: this also happens to negate a trophy, so I've been avoiding it at all costs. As well as siphoning life, you can also expend some of your energy to replenish it. Bringing trees back to life occasionally gives you acorns, the use of which is outlined above, and will slowly restore the valley back to full health if you've been taking a few too many tumbles.

Valley's been a curiously paced game so far. Half of it simply involves walking around dark environments trying to find a way out - overt shades of the studio's previous project here - while the other half is spent performing in these high speed running and leaping sequences that are the game's true strength. It's a little strange that a mostly contemplative game about wandering through an attractive forested landscape while pondering the cycle of life and death really comes alive when you're Sonic the Hedgehogging around its photogenic setting, but the combination of the game's sense of speed and the way its rousing music swells up during the exciting parts in a manner similar to thatgamecompany's Journey help those moments stand out. I kinda wish more of the game was like that, but perhaps the ratio of quiet exploration to the occasional exciting set-piece makes for a better flow. Either way, this was an unexpected and pleasant surprise for me, and exactly the sort of hidden gem I was hoping this Indie of the Week feature would yield. It's valley, valley good.

Rating: 4 out of 5.