PEAK: Thoughts as a Former Boy Scout

 

Yeah, we're talking about the game as well.

Many, many years ago, when I was a kid, my elementary school pulled our grade level into the scouting program of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP). At the time, I was really excited about the idea of being a boy scout, and at the time, a lot of that was influenced by media, specifically cartoons such as the movie Up and the Camp Lazlo cartoon. There were probably a lot of others, but you get the point. I had always wondered what it would be like to be a scout, go camping, tie knots, and so on. It was mostly from an American lens, since my only frame of reference was how the Boy Scouts of America was depicted in media; however, the enthusiasm was there!

Long story short... it was sort of meh. I was in the scouting program for only like, 2-3 years until I transferred schools for 7th grade, and we didn't do much. The days we got to don the scout uniform were rare throughout the school year, and it mostly stayed in the back of my mind until either an actual scout meeting was scheduled, or we had our annual camping trip, or someone needed to wear their scout uniform on Monday Morning to raise the flag during the Flag Ceremony. It wasn't a lot, probably due to the limitations my school had at the time; beyond knowing how to tie knots, memorizing the scout oath and law, and "camping" in a national park or in the large backyard of my principal's relatives, we didn't get to do much. I never got the full scout experience, but I enjoyed it either way since I got to be with my friends and enjoyed the activities; I just wished I got to do more. I got promoted to Boy Scout First Class in the end, so that was cool. Never really pursued the continuation route of becoming a Senior and Rover Scout when I was in high school, since I was busy with other extracurriculars, and also the BSP Club didn't make that much of a presence for high schoolers; I only found out that it was available for high schoolers during the pandemic, still chose to do Model UN instead.

Okay, that's probably enough dillydallying for now. The point is, I was a former Boy Scout when I was younger. Why was this relevant? A few months ago, around August this year, one of my friends from the states gifted me a copy of the game Peak, the Coop climbing game made by the great peeps in AggroCrab and LandFall. Essentially, you play as a scout, and your troop got stranded in an isolated island after your plane crashed mid-flight. Through teamwork, friendship, and ragebaiting, you and your troop must summit to the island's PEAK to signal for rescue.

I was very much immediately obsessed with the game because it was the first time I was given a paid game, and also, I really enjoyed the experience of both ragebaiting my friends on the way to the top and being left to my thoughts when I was playing solo. That sort of sparked my love for friendslop games since it allowed me to be with friends who are far away, at least those who have the games. It was also the game that got me kick-started into live streaming on Twitch! It was a lot of fun, and I'll break all that down in the review, starting with!

ABSOLUTE PEAK: THE GOOD SHIT

Peak is, overall, a very fun game. You may say that it is a PEAK game then (haha). It was even nominated to receive Multiplayer of the Year at The Game Awards this year. It's not hard to see why!

The Island, the main setting of gameplay, changes its topography each day, and for every run, the items found on the luggage scattered throughout the island also change. This means that no two games of Peak are ever alike, so there will always be new challenges to overcome in every attempt to reach the island's peak. The multiplayer aspect of the game also adds to the chaos and uniqueness of each session of Peak.

Between your scout troop and the island's Peak are 5 levels, starting from the Shore where you were stranded, to the Caldera, where you have to make a full run straight through LAVA to the other side, and the Kiln, which is actually an erupting volcano you have to outclimb to the top to reach the Peak on top. Between the Shore and Caldera are two unique levels that always rotate between 4 Biomes: The Tropics and Roots for the second level, and the Alpine and Mesa for the 3rd level. I won't explain them because I tried earlier and it took up too much mental brain power, but needless to say, the daily map rotation and the randomized topography of the island make for a unique experience every session.

Also in the game, you encounter a green bird plush named Bing-Bong! You must always bring Bing-Bong with you to the top! He is our best friend, and you get an achievement for bringing him along with you and helping him escape the island! 

Bing Bong

It's exciting to see how Peak, a game that was never intended to have more updates and was just created simply for a Game Jam, has gone so far since its initial launch and how popular it has gotten since then. I personally love Peak's community, full of chaos and wholesome fun. They even managed to clutch putting on a BBNO$ concert last month, which was just... mystical! There are just too many fun, laughs, and goofs that come with each session of Peak to speak of, and it is a very good entry into the world of wholesome friendslop games.

PEAK BS: THE BAD AND UGLY SHIT

Okay. Games aren't perfect. As mentioned earlier, Peak was intended to be a simple Game Jam creation that wasn't supposed to get updates and stuff, but suddenly did because of how quickly popular the game became. There's obviously going to be some game design decisions or bugs that're going to yuck people's yums. Lemme ramble about them real quick.

Most annoying of all is that there are occasional, but semi-rare, instances in the game where the game suddenly makes slips more intense than they are supposed to be. Like, I would be climbing up a wall, and the game would suddenly slap me downwards and slam me hard against the ground. Other times, a small fall that would typically cause no damage or at least a very small amount would suddenly become deadly for no apparent reason. And so on and so forth. Personally, it's either that I fell on something I didn't notice, or the game's physics engine is glitching out and deciding to choose violence that day.

Roots specifically feels like Tropics on steroids, and everything's out to kill you. Although you don't have to worry about the rain making you lose your grip and making you slip anymore, it's replaced with strong winds with basically force you off to fall to your doom on the ground. There are also spiders in the game (I fucking hate spiders), that hang out from above, snatch you if you stand below it, reel you upwards and wrap you in its web, and POISONS YOU. The moment you escape, you fall to your doom if you're unlucky; scary shit. They also make weird, scary spider noises.... SPIDERS DON'T TYPICALLY MAKE NOISE. FUCK THAT SHIT. While on bugs and insects, there's a beetle there whose job is to mainly chase you, and then toss you off a cliff to fall to your death.

Roots, like Tropics, are also biologically diverse. So while in the Tropics, you can find a wide variety of fruitberries that you can eat, with special effects depending on the variety. Roots has a wide variety of Shroomberries. Red and Yellow Shroomberries heal and give positive effects, like always; Green and other colored Shroomberries are very bad. Either way, eating shroomberries will give you a spore infection status effect on your stamina bar. Eating too many shroomberries all at once would cause you to go blind, or rather, causes your stamina bar to be blocked and replaced with mushrooms. Speaking of spores, the exploding and poison cloud spore mounds from the tropics are there and effectively do the same thing. Furthermore, in certain areas of the map in Roots, there would be an area that is just covered in a red cloud of spores, which can be deadly and infectious. Every now and then in Roots, you may even encounter a fucking zombie! A scout that has been here before you and perished due to the infection from the spores. They have unlimited stamina and will chase you down throughout the map, and it is very difficult to kill them or make them stop chasing you. Fits the Halloween vibe the map was supposed to have, knowing it was released as a special Halloween map.

tldr: There are a lot of things in Roots actively set out to kill you. Like, VERY ACTIVELY set to kill you. 

Idk. It isn't that bad. The game physics thing is a rare gamble on whether it would happen, and the whole thing on Roots is a "git gud" situation. I actually like Roots; it's my favorite biome because it's super fucking pretty, and I can cheat by climbing the leaves of the pine trees and using them as platforms to reach further up the mountain much more easily. If you get bit by a zombie, there's a chance you die and become a zombie as well, and that's very funny in multiplayer, I gotta be honest lol.

PEAK SCOUT LORE???? (spoilers)

I wasn't going to mention my own history as a scout if it werent relevant to the game itself. As mentioned earlier in the beginning of Peak, you play as a scout in a stranded scout troop trying to escape the island. What I did not mention was that this isn't the first time scouts had been stranded on this island (okay, in retrospect, i did mention it once while talking about zombies, but... yeah).

Countless scout troops, including the zombies I mentioned earlier, have been stranded and have either fallen or escaped throughout the years. One of those scout troops was that of Scoutmaster Myers, the former leader of the troop our character is part of. Myers had been a scoutmaster for 40 years, writing the Scout Handbook we find immediately after the crash on the Shore.

Like us, Scoutmaster Myers and his troop were stranded on the island, and set their sights on the peak to signal for help. Myers, being specialized in mysterious islands, took the lead. He documented life on the island, from the mushrooms to the strange statues and occurrences he had experienced on the island. One of his scouts dies early on while climbing up the Shore due to a giant seaurchin, and they discover a ancient statue at the very top, which manages to revive them. Either way, Myers always makes sure to emphasize his Rule 0:

Scoutmaster Myers' Rule 0

Throughout the game, whenever we reach a campfire after accomplishing each biome, we always see a scroll written by Myers. Occasionally, there would be some helpful advise about mushrooms, campfires, huddling up, ancient statues, and chill Capybaras. However, there would also be entries that documented his demise. 

At some point while Myers and his troop were trekking up the Alpine, Myers discovers a strange moon-shaped plant, which causes him to fall into a deep sleep. When he wakes up, he discovers that his troop had left him. Abandoned him to the snow... we don't know what happened to Myers and his scout troop after that, but we do know something...

In the game, if we stray too far away from the rest of our troop or blow on the Scoutmaster's Bugle, an Undead Scoutmaster Myers appears and chases the player. When he gets his hands on ya, he will kill ya and throw you off the cliff, and leave you for dead, just as his troop left him.

Aside from the fact that everyone's a scout, why is this relevant? Well, to me personally, as a former Boy Scout, this all has to do with the Scout Oath:

On my honor, I will do my best,

To do my duty to God and my country,

The Republic of the Philippines*,

(*if you're part of the BSP)

And to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong,

Mentally awake, and morally straight. 

Both Myers and his troop violated the Scout Oath. Scoutmaster Myers, by interacting with that strange plant and falling asleep, failed to keep himself physically strong and mentally awake, and later, due to his rage, which causes him to be the undead monster he is when he discovers he had been abandoned, failed to remain morally straight. He has decayed to become a terror against scouts who have strayed behind instead of guiding them back to their troops. The rest of his troop straight up abandoned him, violating both Rule 0: "Never abandon a friend in need" and their oath to "Help other people at all times". 

I would also mention the Scout Law, but that's long, and it's 1:30AM, so I won't mention it here. Game Theory also made a video on Peak.... but it's doodoo and points out the fairly obvious, aside from the scout law thing. It just rambles about the biomes before getting to the point of the scout oath. You get the point.

The best way to beat the game, in multiplayer, is to stay close and work together to get off the Peak as one united scout troop, trying to the best of your ability to help those who may lag behind. The island will try its best to separate you one way or another, and you must resist that as much as possible. The scouts before you, even Myers, have failed to keep true to their Oath as scouts, which has unfortunately led to their demise. 

We are Scouts, always ready and prepared to face the challenges ahead of us; however, we can not face them alone. To overcome, we must always be ready to lend a helping hand to those in need and pull them with us as we reach the Peak.

Boy Scouts of the Philippines! Mabuhay!

Mabuhay! Boy Scouts of the Philippines!

-- YugiBearz

POST SCRIPT EDIT:

Here's a fun fact about the Boy Scouts of the Philippines specifically, that also aligns with the premise of Peak:

During the 11th World Scout Jamboree held from 1–11 August 1963 in Marathon, Greece, tragedy struck as the flight carrying the majority of the Philippine scout contingent delegation to Greece crashed at 1:50AM hours on 28 July 1963 in the Arabian Sea. 24 Filipino scouts died in that crash, and flags were raised half-mast during the Jamboree to mourn them. They are memorialized in what is now called "Boy Scout Circle", a rotunda with a monument in its center which depicts the 22 Scouts, 2 verteran Scouts, and 2 Chaperones who died during the crash.

The fact I used to pass by this rotunda every day going to my elementary school, and that Peak kicks off with the scouts surviving a plane crash, very much reminds me of this historical fact. Once a scout, always a scout, and although it was a very small footnote in my life, I still appreciated the time I had as a Boy Scout. If I had the chance to rewind time and change two things, I would probably have stayed in Track and Field and also asked to join my high school's Boy Scout Program.

A close up to part of the monument

The whole monument