EGX London 2014 was chock full of amazing triple-A games from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, but upon leaving one game which firmly stood out in my mind as exceptional was a small indie project from Alaskan game studio Upper One Games called Never Alone. In the demo I played, you have control over a young Iñupiat girl and her arctic fox companion and are pressing on through the harsh tundra against a torrential blizzard. As I marched forward, ensuring I braced myself against the harsh winds, I reached an impassible cliff, but thankfully my fox companion could scale it and pass down a rope for me to climb. As I reached a dead end with only the frigid ocean ahead of me, the narrator of the game explained that the girl remembered that the spirits would always come to aid her people in need, and lo and behold, a stylistic fish spirit comes out of the water, and transforms into a moving platform for me to ride. I felt scared for this little girl trapped in a storm, and awe over the majesty surrounding the harsh beauty of the world of the game, and this was only in ten minutes of gameplay.
The demo was short and sweet, but I felt moved in a way I haven’t felt since playing the co-operative fairytale game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, nor felt the same sense of mystery since I first played Limbo. The most amazing part is that the game’s legends and art style are based entirely on those of the Iñupiat people, and the game is being developed by them as well, making it a truly immersive cultural experience as much as it is a game. This humble yet ambitious co-operative puzzle-platformer, as the ambassador to a new genre which is being referred to as “world games,” stands poised to change the way people think about video games forever.
Your fox companion helps Nuna reach areas she couldn’t on her own
In Never Alone you play as a girl named Nuna and an arctic fox, braving the icy winds and torrential sleet of northern Alaska in order to help save the Nuna’s people from an endless blizzard. Throughout your journey you will be both hindered and aided by personages straight out of Iñupiat lore such as Manslayer, the Little People, Helping Spirits, Blizzard Man and more. Upper One Games is based in Anchorage Alaska, and as it was founded by the Cook Inlet Tribal Council is the first video game studio to be owned by indigenous people in the United States. For their first project, they decided to use their local legends to create what is hopefully the first of many of what they are referring to as “world games:”
We paired world-class game makers with Alaska Native storytellers and elders. This unconventional team embarked on a two year collaboration, inspired by the Iñuipaq Storytelling Tradition to create a game experience like no other.
Never Alone is the first in an exciting new genre of “World Games” that draw fully upon the voices and richness of world cultures to create complex and fascinating game worlds for a global audience.
As more and more people are becoming empowered as computer programmers, it was only a matter of time before we moved beyond bland educational software for the purposes of learning and the power of gaming was harnessed to provide meaningful insight into a culture while also providing a fun and engaging gaming experience. The demo I played was emotionally resonant, and made me truly feel for the protagonist and her plight. As the game is also narrated in the style of an oral folktale, the wonderful cadence of the original storytelling is not lost in the translation. Besides, video games work not unlike the oral tradition, in which you become fully immersed in a tale through your tangible experience with it, and it’s refreshing to know that you will also be able to unlock supplementary information on Iñupiat culture and stories as you progress:
To deepen the player’s personal connection with Alaska Native people and understanding of their way of life, the game offers special “Insights” – including interviews with elders, storytellers, hunters – that will be unlocked throughout the game and will provide additional depth and richness to the overall experience. These will be complemented online by additional content about the culture, region and making of the game.
I truly hope that this game marks a renaissance for the continued adaptation of cultural heritage into video games, as games are completely immersive and are the perfect medium to pay forward these important stories that otherwise might be forgotten. It’s inspiring to hear messages from the community support surrounding the project. In the trailer below, we get a glimpse of the some of the beautiful Iñupiat art that is making its way into the game, and Ron Brower Sr., an Iñupiat Elder and Cultural Ambassador to the Never Alone project, describes the importance he places on Never Alone in passing traditional knowledge to the next generation:
This second trailer for the game not only shows off the co-op gameplay and gorgeous visuals of the game, but also showcases Upper One Games’ mission to use the game as a teaching tool by having one of the tribe’s members outline the importance he feels this project will have in empowering Iñupiat youth:
Never Alone is scheduled to release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 18, 2014, and Gamer Headlines will be there when it does.