Developer: Upper One Games, E-Line Media
Genre: 2D, Platformer, Documentary, Educational
Gameplay Stats: 4 hours, 100% Steam Achievements
Never Alone is a pretty straightforward platformer with around 2 hours of gameplay, but what sets it apart is that you unlock around 30 mini-documentary bits as you progress through the levels. I'm of two minds about the whole experience though, so I'll jump right in!
The Game:
Visuals: The game looks very pretty! The few characters and animals that you come across look really neat, and the spirits that help you especially look very cool. The snow in particular looks very soft and granular, which I think is quite impressive.
Audio: The game also sounds very pretty! The music in particular is really great and suited to the game very well. I don't know much about Alaskan Natives, but to a lay person it seemed inspired by some of the culture and the music that I would expect to hear. The sound effects are similarly very good. I especially liked the sounds of the glaciers splitting, which you don't hear often in games. It scared my cat, it was so loud!
Gameplay: Nothing really to write home about here... The platforming is pretty straight forward, nothing too new. Jumping with a tail wind feels kind of inconsistent because there's no way to judge how much the wind will affect the distance you can cover with your jump. This game would be better played as a coop game than a single player one I think. You can switch back and forth between the two characters of the game at will, but both of them have active hitboxes the entire time. There were a few times where the AI wasn't keeping up with me very well and jumped off a cliff or was hit by a projectile that I dodged, resulting in a reset to the last checkpoint.
Story: You are playing through two short Inupiat legends for the stories here and I found it very engaging to listen to the narrator. That being said, the stories that you were playing through were children's stories and they have been passed down orally, so there isn't a whole lot of subtlety found in either story, so don't go in with unreachable expectations.
The Documentary:
I honestly thought this was the most enjoyable part of the experience. Like I said, there are about 30, 5 minute mini-documentaries that you unlock while playing the game. Each one is a short story told by a member of the Inupiat tribe about their childhood experiences or a folk story they heard when they were young. Collectively they give a short vignette about what life was like for this Native Alaskan tribe in years gone past. I would have been interested to see how they get along now with more restrictive government regulations and the changing times.
Overall: This was a pretty interesting mashup of a bland game and an interesting story. I think that the game was an unnecessary add on to the documentary, but I think by having the game as part of the package it will reach far more people. I feel bad saying this, but I probably wouldn't have watched the documentary if it hadn't been included with the game. Not saying anything about the subject matter, but that I don't spend as much time as I probably should watching documentaries. This is the kind of experience that I would recommend to others, but probably not one that I'll play again. 7/10
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