As we’ve previously reported on IGM, Never Alone is an upcoming atmospheric puzzle platforming game that aims to bring Alaskan culture and stories to life. It stars a young Inupiat girl named Nuna, who must overcome the harsh and relentless Alaskan wilderness with her unlikely companion, an adorable arctic fox. The original trailer for the game was released in May and was extremely well received by the gaming world, including during its E3 campaign. It was just a few days ago that Never Alone reached its Beta stage, but has only been tested as a demo at the time of this article.
It was a cold Saturday morning in Melbourne when I sat down to interview Grant Roberts and Elizabeth Olson of E-Line media, who were kind enough to lend their time for an interview about some of the finer in-game details, and made my day significantly brighter. Grant has been playing games for over 30 years and is the lead game designer for Never Alone. He has been involved in the video game industry since 1997, and was also a writer and editor for Next Generation Magazine, eventually becoming involved in the game production side of things including level design, narrative and content design, and writing. Elizabeth is responsible for the promotion and PR of the game and has 25 years in the video games industry, beginning as the founding editor-in-chief for Game Informer. I was also able to gain some insights on the art of Never Alone from the game’s art director, Dima Veryovka, a classically trained artist with extensive experience in the video games industry, who provided me with some very detailed responses.
Indie Game Magazine: How do you pronounce Kisima Inŋitchuŋa? Does it directly translate to ‘Never Alone’ or does it mean something slightly different in Inupiaq?
Grant Roberts: Ki-si-ma ing-i-chuna (kiˈsimɑ ˈiŋitʃuŋɑ). It translates most directly as “I am not alone” but we refer to it as Never Alone. There has been a process of translating the story we’re telling with the game and we want to have this game feel like one of the stories we’ve been so inspired by over the course of making this project. We’ve got the progression of the story which is based on the story Kunuuksaayuka, one of the stories we’ve been inspired by and the one that we licensed for this game. But there hasn’t really been anything lost in translation, it’s mostly been enhanced by the translation of making it feel more like an Inupiat story along the way.
IGM: How did you decide on that title?
Grant: Some of the main themes that we’ve learned that are really close to the heart of the Inupiat people are interdependence, resilience, and intergenerational exchange. They are three of the ones that we wanted to focus on and are so core to who the Inpuiat are. Never Alone hits all of those things: It really emphasizes that you’re never alone because you need to go on your journey and you need each other to really live your life, you’re never alone because you have the support of those around you to be resilient, and you’re never alone because your family and friends from two generations ago and two generations from now are still with you. And as far as the title Kisima Inŋitchuŋa and Never Alone, it was really important for us to have both the English name Never Alone and the Inupiaq name to represent how important it’s been for us along the way to have Inupiat people in the project and to the team that’s been working on it.
IGM: Never Alone has been also described as a game that fits into the ‘world games’ genre. Can you explain what that entails?
Grant: World games really allow us to explore an enormous world of stories from different cultures. We’re focusing on the culture of the Inupiat people for this game, but there are so many cultures all over the world that have had their stories told occasionally, and some very frequently. But there are just hundreds that have never had their stories told in this medium before, from all over the world. Over the course of this project, we’ve been lucky enough to hear from Elders so many stories of the Inupiat people, and it’s been super exciting to create this new genre of world games. We’re bringing the stories of untapped cultures into the limelight, and I’m pretty excited to be a part of it.
IGM: Never Alone writer Ishmael Hope has stated he believes ‘players are hungry for this kind of thing’ (referring to Never Alone). How does Never Alone differ from current games in mainstream and non-mainstream gaming spheres?
Grant: I think the world games are a new thing, and being inspired by and retelling stories of a culture that not a lot of people have familiarity with is something that’s pretty different, and it’s something that people are hungry for. I am myself hungry for this kind of thing that’s more personal, and more rich in tradition in a lot of other stories that you encounter in games.
Elizabeth Olson: A lot of the team felt like they wanted to do something about what games could be, or games as ‘gateways’. I think they really see the game as a gateway to get people interested, and encourage them to explore another culture. Games can do that, it’s a perfect medium for that actually.
IGM: The protagonist of the game is a girl called ‘Nuna’-meaning ‘land’. Why was that name specifically chosen?
Grant: Well, she was such an important character to us that the process of choosing a name for her was a long one. We went through a bunch of different ideas-some of them ended up sounding similar to ‘Nuna’ and some of them did not. Nuna was my favorite name of the list-it sounded really right for her. It ended up being serendipity because she’s kind of the representative of her land in Never Alone. The besieging blizzard that’s been affecting her way of life for so long is affecting everyone around her-the surrounding villages, the very land itself, so it seemed very appropriate.
IGM: Nuna’s companion is a white arctic fox. Why was that animal chosen?
Grant: It was really important to us to have a companion along the way-and there were a few different ones. We had a rabbit at one point, there was a wolf-we tried a lot of different things. The fox really fit the bill for a great companion character. He’s obviously very nimble, he’s completely adorable, which always helps, and so is Nuna-they’re both very likeable characters.
IGM: Gameplay is primarily based on collaborative puzzle solving which is designed to emphasize the Inuit value of interdependence. What else can you tell us about gameplay?
Elizabeth: In this game, rather than collecting coins or points and dollars you collect these cultural insights, and the team has filmed over a hundred hours of interviews. Some of these cultural insights give you context for some of the things in the game. They’ll explain the type of boats they use and how they’re made. In the case of when you encounter the Sky people, it will tell the story of the Sky people and how that was passed down through the different generations. There are also stories that just give you insight as to what growing up in the area is like or was like. We’re still in the process of deciding which of these cultural insights will actually go into the game, some of the others will live on the website. And again, you can either take the moment at that time to watch the cultural insight for context, or you can basically can save them and watch them all at the end. It provides a good doorway to go well gosh, I wanna go find out more.
IGM: Will they be animated, or will they be shown as footage of real people?
Elizabeth: Some will be animations but they’re actual videos.
Grant: Yeah, it was really important for us to show the Inupiat people as a part of these cultural insights too. The interviews we’ve had with them and the time we spent with them has been so wonderful I think for both sides-so instructive and inspirational. It was important to feature the actual people we were talking to.
Elizabeth: I’ve been able to watch a number of them, and they’re just so engaging. And so I think people will really enjoy it and not see them as interruptions but again they can choose how they wish to view them. And there’s a nice diversity in them-the scrimshaw, which was once how stories were once told and recorded, others will talk about whaling, and why that’s important to the people, and muktuk, which is the whale meat. I think the hardest part for the team to decide is what actually goes into the game.
Grant: We’re trying to keep them in context of playing the game. I know I feel this way when I’m playing it-when I get to a part and I unlock it, it makes me wanna learn more. It’s also important along the way – because I’ve been designing games a long time – if the game at its core wasn’t fun and engaging and gorgeous-well it’s really important that the game be fun first, and that the game be a compelling experience. And if you learn things about the Inupiat along the way, that is even more wonderful.
IGM: The characters have been portrayed using 3D artwork. What made you decide on that appearance as opposed to a 2D style?
Dima Veryovka: To be honest, we never thought to make Never Alone in 2D. We’ve always wanted to create this game with a very atmospheric, soft looking feel that captures Arctic beauty. The characters, themselves, were inspired by Arctic dolls. We tried to give them a very authentic hand crafted feel to make them look like somebody sewed them using fur, skin and ivory. Creating characters in 3D and using realistic materials like fur and skin helped us very much in achieving that.
IGM: You oversaw and came up with many of the traditional black and white artworks for Never Alone. Why did you choose to restrict the color palette? Is there symbolism behind that choice and if so what is it?
Dima Veryovka: Never Alone’s visual style was deeply inspired by Alaskan Native art. Trying to embrace the Inupiaq people’s philosophy, spirituality, and mysticism of their heritage, I started to draw my initial sketches in black and white. Over time I managed to develop my own graphic style that is original, but at the same time reflects the Inupiaq artistic vision. Initially, I draw all new ideas in that style and as the design becomes clearer, we develop it further in 3D with more colors. This game was rendered using a lot of pastel, desaturated colors, which helped us create very moody, dreamlike visuals, while still portraying an authentic and believable Arctic world.
IGM: A lot of the principles of game design and gamification say that you need to hit a sweet spot so to speak, or right in the middle of easy and hard in order for a game to be fun. You need to have a balance of easy and difficult.
Grant: Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s been so important for us, and for me specifically, to try to find that sweet spot, having it be an amazing journey along the way. Hopefully you’re not going to get frustrated and you’ll want to continue along the way, but also there will be enough challenge and puzzle solving so it’s not just a complete cakewalk along the way. Finding that sweet spot is always challenging.
Elizabeth: Also it’s been really interesting watching some of our more seasoned game reviewers pick it up and play it-they have not been able to just walk through it. And they develop enough attachment to the characters in a short period of time that they get very determined to get past areas.
IGM: Some of the characters you’ve revealed so far include the Manslayer, the Blizzard Man, the Sky People, the little people and the Rolling heads. Can you shed any more light on the details of these characters? Do they act as metaphors for anything?
Grant: Well, I don’t want to get into too many details of the game because there are a lot of different twists and turns. I will say that we drew a lot of different inspiration from the incredible stories of the culture-you read about the Manslayer a lot, occasionally they’re allegorical, occasionally they’re a metaphor, but in some ways they’re very real things that the Inupiat have dealt with. The framework of the story is from Kunuuksaayuka, and that’s where the character of Blizzard man comes from originally. But that’s our version of that story-it’s a different spin on that story, but it’s directly inspired from it.
Elizabeth: I believe what Sean (Vesce) has said in interviews is that the core framework of the game is one particular tale that has been passed down for generations- Kunuuksaayuka. In the Inupiat culture, the storyteller they traced back to the first known person recorded telling the story-and they are sort of like the owner of the story.
Grant: Yes-Robert Cleveland, known as Nasruk, was the first person to be recorded telling the story of Kunuuksaayuka, and we met with Minnie Gray, his daughter.
Elizabeth: They wanted to ask her permission to do the game, to use the story, and she was actually very much for it. And something that she had told Sean was that each story teller would adapt the story as it progressed through the generations. Making adaptations to the story for the game seemed perfectly natural to her, and there were certainly some adaptations and adjustments made to the story. But then there are also other well-known stories like the Sky people, and those were woven in around the core story to create the game.
IGM: A really important aspect of game design is getting the player to feel emotionally connected to the characters in games. How have you gone about making the player feel invested what is happening to Nuna and fox?
Grant: It just happens when you play this game. Part of that is the work that Dima and the amazing art team have put together, but it was just as important to have the connection between Nuna and fox themselves. They’re relying on each other.
Elizabeth: Yeah, they’re quite empathetic with one another. It’s heart wrenching and touching at the same time when something bad happens. I think you’ll feel anxiety and stress and fear. I think you’ll feel joy. I think you’ll feel empathy for certain. I think you’ll feel frustration-I mean it isn’t all fairy-tale pretty as far as some of the stuff that happens in the story, it addresses things that are very real which are part of survival in that culture. But I also really think it opens up the opportunity to talk about it and see why interdependence is important. When Nuna and the fox first encounter each other, there’s such clear joy, it becomes one of my favorite scenes every time that I see it.
IGM: You chose to develop Never Alone as a digital game rather than say-a film. What features are unique to the digital game medium, and what factors influenced you to choose it?
Grant: Well the CEO of Upper-One games Gloria O’Neil approached E-Line a few years ago with the idea of making a video game. They formed Upper-One games to start telling their stories in this way.
Elizabeth: Yeah so basically they (Upper-One games) had some money to invest. The CITC (Cook Inlet Tribal Council) is a non-profit organization which provides education, employment and social opportunities for the Alaskan native people of the Cook Inlet area, which is a pretty harsh environment and it’s a culture that relies on whaling and things like that to survive. It’s an area where they deal with a lot of families in crisis, the graduation rate is around fifty percent, there are issues with alcoholism and suicide and they were looking for a way not only to be more sustainable because they have to rely on federal dollars, but they also wanted a way to connect with the growing youth culture. They wanted to ways to instil some pride in being Inupiat, because I don’t think that’s a way the youth sees its culture, and they wanted to do it in a medium the kids would be dealing with, and of course right now everybody’s on their screens playing games, they’re all on their phones. I think they saw an opportunity because it’s such a rich culture, under-represented, misunderstood, little known, and games are a great medium for providing a gateway and exposing people to what their culture is like.
IGM: Academic Koichi Iwabuchi has spoken extensively about ‘cultural odour’ and how Japanese digital media such as anime and games were so successful across the world because they lack a distinct cultural odour. What challenges lie in tailoring a game to a global audience? Has Never Alone lost some of its ‘cultural odour’?
Grant: Well for me at least, and the team, tailoring a game to a global audience is a primary goal we have. And like I said, I don’t think it’s lost any of its cultural odour along the way because it’s taking a game genre that people are familiar with – a beloved genre that’s evolved over the years – and making it even stronger with the direct involvement we have of the Inupiat people of this culture. There are always challenges that we’re faithfully representing this culture because it’s incredibly important to us, and also to the people we’ve talked to. But it’s been all great opportunities.
IGM: We know the game will have checkpoints, and has 8 chapters, and you’ll be at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany next week. Also that the Beta is ready. (Congratulations!) Will you be revealing any more details at Gamescom?
Elizabeth: We showed a few more levels than we did at E3 while we were in New York, so the same levels will be shown as well as some of the first cultural insight videos which we have not shown before, and we will be releasing a new trailer in conjunction with Gamescom. The game will be playable on the floor at Gamescom, but that’s all we can say. I’ve been fortunate enough to be with the game when it was at E3 and New York and I still get a little emotional at how caught up everyone gets with it. It seems to really affect everybody who plays it. It’s sort of a gift for me when I get to go out and see that.
IGM: The voiceovers in the game are Inupiaq, provided by Inupiat elder and cultural ambassador to the Never Alone project, Ron Brower. How many people roughly are speakers of Inupiaq today?*
Grant: It’s in the thousands. It’s certainly not a language spoken by millions of people; it’s a smaller region of northern Alaska.
Elizabeth: I know it is a language that is in danger of disappearing as so many of them are. I think that’s another part of the attraction, is it gives us a way to preserve. It really is a great story to listen to when narrated by a great storyteller.
IGM: Many games (Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, The Sims, Shiness, Ico) feature the audio of fictitious or invented languages. What are the challenges of incorporating a real language into a game?
Grant: Well for us, it hasn’t really been a challenge, it’s been nothing but opportunities. It’s (Never Alone) the first game that’s been fully voiced in Inupiaq, and it’s been part of adapting the stories and not watering it down, not changing it for a global audience. It’s more taking an existing genre that people are comfortable with, and fusing it with this language and this culture.
IGM: Will players be able to walk away from Never Alone having picked up some Inupiaq? How effective do you think digital games are in assisting with language learning and acquisition?
Grant: Well I’ll be honest, it’s a pretty difficult language. It’s really unique, and it’s really amazing to listen to when especially you’re hearing the stories being told by the Inupiat people and you almost enter this state, you feel like you’re there hearing them for the first time. It depends. If you play through the entire game- it’s voiced in Inupiaq with English subtitles-and you’re really paying attention to what the storyteller is saying, you might pick up a few words
Elizabeth: It is set up so you learn a lot about the Inupiat culture and what it’s like to live in a place like that. It’s definitely set up to provide insights of that nature.
IGM: Will Never Alone make the transition (eventually) to other platforms, such as Wii U, 3DS, Mac, or Linux?
Elizabeth: We’re certainly open, but we’re open to other platforms and looking at doing other adaptations with the idea to suit other platforms. So if it were to come to mobile it may come to mobile in a slightly different way. People are already asking if we’re going to do a sequel. But we don’t want to put the cart before the horse, we’re focused on the three platforms for launch.
Grant: And that’s one of the good things about developing the game with a Unity engine. If we’re lucky enough to be that successful, then Unity makes it easy so we don’t have to build something new from the ground up to get it on a different platform. But like Elizabeth said, right now we’re focused on making sure that these three platforms are as strong as they can be.
IGM: Will there be a sequel to Never Alone? (Please say yes).
Elizabeth: Certainly there’s enough material and with all luck willing, if people respond really well. I know the team likes this world and this culture and once we released the trailer, there were many other cultures also that came out of the woodwork, and that ranges from Celtic to Amazonian. They received boxes of cultural folk tales, but I think what they spent a lot of time doing is coming up with a method or process for inclusive development that involved the community. They learned a great deal from the community, and the community learned a great deal about games culture. I think they’ve come up with a great process that other teams could learn from and take to do more games-based cultural storytelling with.
IGM: What can we expect from the partnership of E-line media and the Cook Inlet Tribal Council in the future?
Elizabeth: Well E-line’s been around for a while and they do a games-based curriculum. They’re actually currently working with a number of schools outside the project we’ve been doing with the CITC. The nice thing is that we also just did a press release about two weeka ago that announced that Upper-One games (created jointly by CITC and E-line media) has been merged into E-line media and is now a segment to explore world games. And the CITC remains one of the largest investors in E-line media, and it just sort of worked out well, this marriage between these two companies, because E-line brought with it not only gameplay expertise, but also a lot of stuff around games curriculum in schools and games that are both gateways and learning games.
IGM: Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?
Elizabeth: We’re going to be at PAX Prime and Gamescom, but mostly the team is just heads down trying to finish. We aren’t announcing the release date quite yet, but we will be in our press release next week.
A huge thank you goes out to Grant, Elizabeth and Dima for their time-without them this interview would not be possible. For those who are interested-you can keep up to date with the latest education and entertainment updates from E-line media’s website. For the art enthusiasts of us out there, Dima’s website showcases an eclectic arrangement of his artworks. And for more information on Never Alone, be sure to check out the Never Alone website and follow the game on Twitter.
Never Alone is due for release this fall on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC for $14.99.
Update: You can view the trailer released at Gamescom here. The official release date has been set for November 4, which coincides with Native American Heritage Month.
*According to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska Native Language Center: “Alaska is home to about 13,500 Iñupiat, of whom 3,000 – mostly over age 40, speak the language (Iñupiat).”
Originally published on The Indie Game Magazine.
