The Inuit tribes of northern Canada and Alaska are incredibly fascinating to me. Here is a people living in the harshest of environments that managed to create a thriving society with incredible cultural works. Still, due to their remoteness we rarely see much of them aside from brief references and inaccurate stereotypes. In this light it’s always heartening to hear Inuit voices and perspectives in our culture. It is especially encouraging when those voices choose video games as their preferred medium to tell their stories. Such is the case with Never Alone, or Kisima Inŋitchuŋa, a game made by Native Alaskan developers that showcases the art and storytelling traditions of the Iñupiat people.

Never Alone is the debut project of Upper One Games, a Seattle based developer that was launched by the Native Alaskan Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Given this pedigree, it’s no surprise that the resulting game is an authentic celebration of the Iñupiat culture. The story follows a young girl named Nuna who is seeking the source of a never ending blizzard that is threatening her village. Early on in her journey she is threatened by a polar bear but is saved at the last minute by an adorably rendered arctic fox spirit. The fox becomes her companion for the rest of the game as they encounter various characters from Iñupiat lore. The game is narrated by a tribal elder entirely in the Iñupiat language (with subtitles) and follows the spoken word storytelling tradition that has been passed down for generations. As such, the game has a calm, meandering pace to it that isn’t afraid to follow the narrator’s digressions into the unique parts of his people’s culture. This is buoyed by brief interviews of tribe members as they explain the finer points of Iñupiat folklore and life on the tundra. These interstitial segments are truly fascinating and help to provide context to the unfamiliar story beats. In an unfortunate adherence to video game orthodoxy, these segments are unlocked by locating owls in the game, some of which are better hidden than others. While I managed to find the majority of these owls in my playthrough, I was unable to get them all and so missed out on hearing more cultural insights. It’s an annoying contrivance that hinders the ultimate goal of Never Alone, which is to educate outsiders. Ultimately it’s a minor annoyance that doesn’t detract from the wonderfully told story.

What really sells the story, however, is the gorgeous art and music that surrounds it. The cutscenes are told in a two dimensional style reminiscent of Inuit scrimshaw art that eschews extraneous details to emphasize the larger-than-life characters and story beats. The in-engine style merges this scrimshaw inspiration with standard polygonal rendering to create a cutesy motif that had me cooing at Nuna and the fox’s interactions. While the in-game style works well and is likely the best the developers could do with their time and resources, I would have loved to see a game made entirely in the 2D style of the cutscenes. An Inuit take on Apotheon’s Greek art would be amazing, but I digress. The music is minimalist but kicks in during the more action-heavy parts with traditional drums and wind instruments. It’s quite apparent that a lot of thought went into composing the score, as it at various times evokes the beautiful serenity, harsh isolation, and sudden danger that can arise from life in the Arctic. Combined with the art, the game creates a relaxing and dreamlike atmosphere that is wonderful to experience.

While the story, art, and music are top notch, the actual gameplay falters a bit. That’s not to say that it’s all bad. For the most part the game is all about basic 2D platforming with environmental puzzles which require some coordination between Nuna and the fox. To that end Never Alone offers couch co-op with one player taking control of Nuna and the other the fox. While that’s the preferred way to play, there’s also a single player option that allows swapping control between the two characters that works just fine. For the first three quarters of the story the gameplay is quite entertaining, with engaging platforming and puzzle segments that complement the story beats nicely. The last quarter of the game, however, quickly gets frustrating as the gameplay begins to demand a precision that the controls have not been designed for. While this did lead to more cheap deaths than I care to remember, the game does feature an excellent checkpoint system that ensured I didn’t lose too much progress in the event of failure. The lack of gameplay tuning near the end possibly speaks to a new developer still finding its footing, but it doesn’t take away all that much from the experience as a whole.

Never Alone is a testament to the benefits of democratizing game development and bringing new voices to our beloved medium. By infusing the game with the influence of actual Iñupiat people it is given a distinct voice that takes it beyond the standard 2D puzzle platformer. It also demonstrates “edutainment” done well, as in addition to playing through a satisfying game I also came out of the experience knowing a little more about the indigenous peoples of Alaska. The game has been out since 2014, and thanks to Playstation Plus many of you probably own it already. Given that the game, including the Foxtales DLC, can be completed in a few hours there’s really no excuse to not give it a shot. I give Never Alone a hearty recommendation.

Note: Given the subject and timing of this post, I thought I should mention to you Toronto based readers that the Museum of Inuit Art will be closing May 30th, 2016. If you’re interested in learning more about the art that helped to inspire Never Alone’s gorgeous aesthetic, I recommend checking out the museum before it’s shuttered for good.

Nice write-up! It's been sitting in my steam library for a while now, but reading your thoughts about the game I'm gonna give it a try!

@renz0r: I'm glad I was able to give you the push to try the game! I feel like this is one of those games that sits in people's backlog that they never get around to playing. It sure was in my PS4 library and took me several months before I had the compunction to play it. I'm happy that I did.

Nice read, man. You're right, Native American culture rarely gets much attention in the modern world and that is a shame. I always kind of presumed that was because their population had been so dramatically diminished by the arrival of Europeans in past centuries, or because so many of those that had survived had simply been assimilated or pushed to the fringes, but I guess there is also just the simple issue that we live in a media bubble that largely ignores their plight.

As for Never Alone though... I really did want to like it and I went in to it positively enough (it got 10/10 on Eurogamer I remember), but it just never really clicked with me. Like you said, the art and sound direction are fantastic (if I remember right the male narrator's voice had a really satisfyingly baritone depth to it), but the gameplay bordered on dull for me. It didn't control particularly well and the puzzle elements felt a little uninspired.

I think it is something that almost would have been better as a more passive experience. Like, why throw in gameplay contrivances? The ultimate aim of Never Alone was to give a voice to people silenced by the prevailing U.S. culture and to educate, so why not just focus on that? The interactivity of walking through the beautiful environments would be enough to engage me on its own at least. I don't need pits to fall into and co-op platforming puzzles to derive enjoyment.

But anyway, it's obviously something that has a lot of merit to it, regardless of its shortcomings as a game.

Incidentally, I don't know if on a Canadian IP you can access PBS, but if you do, you should check out one of the more recent American Experience documentaries called The Pilgrims. Although, as the title would suggest, the main focus is on the Plymouth Rock lot, it does go into a fair bit of interesting detail about their actual interactions with the Native Americans they came across. Also, in the same series there's a three-parter all about the Native Americans which I am sure you would find interesting.

But to be fair, pretty much everything in The American Experience series is brilliant. To think, I used to be a BBC snob and thought American documentaries were just Discovery Channel bullshit, but the stuff PBS produces is, on the whole, excellent! If you can't access the shows in Canada then a lot of them can be found on random sites around the internet and on YouTube, or alternatively just use a proxy.

I can see where you're coming from with regards to the gameplay, and to some extent I agree with the sentiment (especially with regards to the collectible insights). But on the other hand, I do think the puzzles and platforming were important to convey the story. The themes of Nuna and Fox's journey involved such things as the interplay between spirits and the physical world, respect for nature's power, and of the hero's journey to overcome adversity. All of these themes would be lessened in my mind had the game merely been a guided tour of the tundra. As an example, there's jumping bits where Nuna's jump wouldn't have normally cleared a gap, but by timing her jump to catch a gust of wind she makes it. In that moment, the harsh winds of the arctic that normally hindered my ability to progress becomes helpful. As such, in the gameplay we see the complex relationship the Iñupiat have with their environment without being heavy handed about it. There's other examples, like how Fox will interact with spirits to get their help or the Northern Lights being spooky and adversarial, but they all help to reinforce the game's themes.

I too am a big fan of PBS's documentary work, and have loved Ken Burns' work in particular. I'll have to give The American Experience a shot one of these days as I haven't seen it. Thanks for the recommendation!