Line #65 VideoGame/NeverAlone


1	[[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/never_alone_original.jpg]]
2	''Never Alone'' (Iñupiaq: ''Kisima Ingitchuna'') is a CoOpMultiplayer / single player TwoAndAHalfD PuzzlePlatformer built on the {{UsefulNotes/Unity}} engine by Upper One Games and E-Line Media. This game is the first game in E-Line Media's series of World Games, Edutainment titles intended to expose gamers to varied world cultures. Upper One Games is based in Anchorage, Alaska, and ''Never Alone'' was created in close cooperation with elders and storytellers from the Iñupiat people of northern Alaska.
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4	The protagonist is a young Iñupiaq girl named Nuna. With the assistance of her new-found companion, an arctic fox, she sets out to find the source of the endless blizzard that has left the people of her village unable to hunt and on the verge of starvation. Along the way, they unlock Cultural Insights--video clips with discussions from Iñupiaq ambassadors reflecting primarily on their beliefs and old ways of life--by finding owls in the world. The story is an adaptation of the traditional oral story of ''Kunuuksaayuka''.
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6	''Never Alone'' is available for Platform/{{PS4}}, Platform/XBoxOne, Platform/WiiU, and PC through Platform/GOGDotCom and Platform/{{Steam}}. On July 28th, ''Never Alone: Foxtales'' DLC was also added to the game.
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9	!! ''Never Alone'' contains examples of:
10	* TheAce: Nuna is noted as being among the best hunters in her village during the opening narration.
11	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: At the finale, [[spoiler:the girl ruins the giant's adze before returning it. Yet instead of being enraged, the giant laughs and sends caribou to the village after he leaves. This is because "Give it Back" and "Chip the Blade" is a pun in Iñupiaq.]]
12	* AdvancingWallOfDoom: Fleeing home at the climax, with a wall of snow at your heels.
13	* AirAidedAcrobatics: Timing jumps according to gusts of wind is a core mechanic.
14	* AlternateContinuity: The ''Foxtales'' DLC is simply an adaptation of another oral tale, without any connection to the main single-player campaign, [[spoiler:which would explain why Fox is still in his animal form]].
15	* AmplifiedAnimalAptitude: The fox is very much just an ordinary fox that nevertheless chose to help Nuna and accompany her on her quest. A Cultural Insight reveals how the Iñupiat assign a degree of intelligence to animals that Western cultures generally don't.
16	* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
17	** If playing as single player, if you make a jump with one partner, the other partner will often make the jump correctly. This is especially useful if you are more used to the nimble fox.
18	** Fail at a puzzle enough and the game will actually show what you are supposed to do.
19	** The Manslayer boss fight gives you checkpoints mid-boss fight.
20	* ArtificialStupidity: In single player, the AI that controls whichever character you're not currently running is disturbingly prone to causing them to miss a jump and fall to their death.
21	* BattleBolas: Nuna uses bolas (Iñupiaq: ''kilauwitawinmium'') to help her and the arctic fox traverse to break ice and activate spirits to help solve the puzzles found in the game.
22	* BearsAreBadNews: Polar bears threaten the pair on a regular basis throughout the game.
23	* BigBad: The Manslayer, a "terrible man" who pursues Nuna's bolas through much of the story. [[spoiler:He is dropped through the ice to his death before the end. No, he's not the one responsible for the blizzards.]]
24	* BilingualBonus: Virtually all of the dialogue (most of it narration) of the game is in the Iñupiaq language, a language spoken by only about 9,300 people in the world and mainly in Northern Alaska. This game is something of a rarity among American-produced videogames, even independent games, as the only spoken English in the game is in the game's main menu and the unlockable cultural insight videos. This game might even possibly be the first videogame to be completely in an American Indian/Alaskan Native language. Even the game's title, "Kisima Inŋitchuŋa" is literally translated as "I am never alone."
25	* BossArenaIdiocy: Once the Manslayer finally gets Nuna cornered, he stands on a sheet of ice directly below her, throwing fireballs ''straight up'' toward very heavy and very flammable trees.
26	* BlockPuzzle: Cages can be pushed around to create platforms or to use as weights.
27	* CameBackStrong: After [[spoiler:being killed by the Manslayer]] the Fox [[spoiler:is reborn as a spirit]].
28	* ClassicVillain: Where Nuna and Fox are physically small characters who [[GuileHero accomplish things by their wits]] and by working together, the Manslayer is a big, hulking a man who works alone and depends on brute force. Nuna is also motivated by concern for her community and Fox by his friendship with Nuna, while the Manslayer is motivated by selfish greed.
29	* ColossusClimb: Up an ice-giant's body to [[spoiler:steal his adze and stop him from creating more blizzards]].
30	* CoolBoat: The ''umiaq'' (sealskin canoe) Nuna uses in the ''Foxtales'' DLC.
31	* {{Determinator}}: The Manslayer is bent on finding the bolas for unknown reasons, and destroys at least two villages looking for it. The bear is similarly unrelenting, appearing three times in pursuit of the protagonists, which is TruthInTelevision: satisfactory prey is rare enough that polar bears will chase them for as long as they feasibly can.
32	* EdutainmentGame: The Cultural Insights, a kind of ethnographic Documentary in-game, make this explicit, but the narrative of the game itself reflects Iñupiaq values and makes them accessible to outsiders.
33	* [[EndlessWinter Endless Blizzard]]: Status quo at the start of the game, and the reason Nuna set out from her village.
34	* {{Epigraph}}: Each chapter is prefaced by a paragraph of text from a translation of the original story.
35	* EskimoLand: A curious example. The game is an adaptation of a traditional oral story and is therefore set in a pre-Western arctic Alaska, and Nuna and her people subsist on hunting and wear caribou fur parkas. The developers have gone to [[ShownTheirWork great lengths]] to ensure that none of this is portrayed stereotypically, however.
36	* EverythingTryingToKillYou: The Arctic is a brutal place to make a living.
37	* FangsAreEvil: Played straight with the Manslayer. He has crocodile-like teeth in his mouth.
38	* FantasticFoxes: The fox serves the role of a spiritual guide. Spirit Helpers appear near the fox, and the fox is able to affect their movements. A Cultural Insight reflects on the way foxes can help to keep people out of trouble in the arctic.
39	* FeministFantasy: The creators decided to make the protagonist a girl, because they wanted to address [[http://neveralonegame.com/why-a-girl/ the lack of positive]] female characters in video games.
40	* {{Fireballs}}: The Manslayer's particular special ability.
41	* FissionMailed: The Manslayer [[spoiler:catches up to the pair and captures the fox. Attempting to give the bolas to the Manslayer smacks him instead and he kills the fox out of spite. Nuna falls into an abyss as the spirit helper holding her up fades with the fox's death.]]
42	* ForTheEvulz: This the reason why the Manslayer [[spoiler: kills the fox and destroys Nuna's village]].
43	* FrictionlessIce: Generally results in sliding down slopes. It's impossible to reverse direction once this sets in.
44	* GameplayAllyImmortality: [[spoiler:The fox, reborn in his spirit form after the Manslayer kills him, cannot be harmed or killed in any way - at least until the Northern Lights spirits show up.]]
45	* GenderFlip:
46	** The eponymous protagonist of ''Kunuuksaayuka'' is a man.
47	** Similarly, the ''Foxtales'' DLC is based on the oral tale “The Two Coastal Brothers”, which starred [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin two brothers]] rather than a girl and a fox.
48	* GustyGlade: Throughout most of the game there are periodic gusts of wind that must be anticipated in order to jump farther or not be impeded at an inopportune time. The Foxtales DLC uses ocean currents to a similar end.
49	* {{Hammerspace}}: According to the narrative, Nuna steals the giant's adze and runs away with it. But since the adze is shown in-game as being much, much larger than she is, this isn't really plausible. After "stealing" the adze, it never appears in gameplay again, suggesting she's carrying it in some metaphysical way.
50	* InHarmonyWithNature: A necessary virtue of a heroic figure in this tradition. Notably, however, Nuna is NOT a FriendToAllLivingThings. She is a skilled hunter, and the natural environment she inhabits is no friend to the unwary. The Cultural Insights explain that every living being should be respected and a hunt should ''only'' be for food (with one explaining how a hunter that accidentally killed a mother polar bear was forced by the tribe to then care for the cub).
51	* KidHero: A notably humble example, immersed in an environment of a scale beyond human comprehension.
52	* MacGuffin: It is never revealed in the story why the Manslayer is so desperate to obtain the bolas. This may be intentional: the reason for this is not nearly as important to the story as the petty, hard-headed, destructive avarice that he embodies.
53	* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent:
54	** In the first level, while Nuna is being chased by a bear the fox can be seen in the background running to catch up to them.
55	** In the Foxtales DLC, several times the giant mouse appears in the distance, and usually roars or chomps its teeth before disappearing again.
56	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The Manslayer.
57	* NotAlwaysEvil: The Cultural Insight on the Little People reveals that they are sometimes harmful, sometimes helpful, sometimes just mischievous. The ones you meet in the game all seem to be of the "harmful" kind, unfortunately.
58	* OurGiantsAreBigger: [[spoiler:The cause of the blizzard turns out to be a giant made of ice being reckless about where he's shoveling snow he's clearing.]]
59	* PleaseWakeUp: Nuna does this [[spoiler:after the Manslayer kills the fox. He gets better]].
60	* PluckyGirl: Nuna is a kind and cheerful girl who ventures into the wilderness, by herself, to save her village.
61	* ShownTheirWork:
62	** Quite literally, using the Cultural Insights.
63	** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]], from a certain point of view. The team set out to make a game out of the folk story only after they had done their research.
64	* SidetrackBonus: Most Cultural Insights are obtained from the general course of the level, but a few are a bit out of the way and occasionally more dangerous to get to.
65	* SlippySlideyIceWorld: As if you weren't expecting this. There's actually rather little slipping, though.
66	* SuperDrowningSkills: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] for the bulk of the game, as immersion in icy arctic waters when the air temperature is below freezing is quickly fatal.
67	* SuperNotDrowningSkills: Reserved for little girls and arctic foxes who are swallowed by giant whales made of ice. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by the narrator. Also used in most of the Foxtales DLC, where the duo can stay underwater indefinitely while they solve puzzles, here justified by the "brothers" being amazing swimmers.
68	* SuperPersistentPredator: That polar bear. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by the narrator, and at least plausible considering how scarce food can be in the Arctic.
69	* TheHerosJourney: Unsurprisingly as it's based on a folk tale, the story is a perfect representation of the hero cycle.
70	* VideoGameCaringPotential: Whenever one of the protagonists dies, the other cries in despair before the level resets. Can get annoying, however, if you're stuck and keep dying over and over.
71	* VoiceGrunting: Most characters don't speak so much as accompany narration (except for the Manslayer for whatever reason). What little voice acting exists otherwise amounts to this.
72	* WallJump: The fox is uniquely capable of this. Nuna can jump backwards off of ropes and ladders, though.
73	* WallRun: Ditto, but for short distances.

Context VideoGame / NeverAlone