Never Alone

Basic Information:

Never Alone is an adventure and education game that teaches the player the core of Alaska Native cultures. It was designed by Upper One Games, and E-Line Media and was released on most of the mainstream game platforms, for example, IOS, Android, PC, PS4, etc. By collaborating with the Iñupiat, this game is not a pure fictional exploration game experience rather it tries to reveal all the important cultural aspects of Alaska Native group.

Brief Description:

The story of the game started from the journey of one little girl called Nuna and her white fox. With the question of what causes the forever going storm that always threatens the living condition for her village, Nuna and her fox started their exploration journey. Similar with the traditional platformer game, the goal for this game is to control the two characters Nuna and the fox to run, jump, and climb between different platforms while at the same time avoiding or getting rid of the obstacles. In this game, most of the platforms are disconnected with each other that Nuna needs to take help from the spiritual helper to continue their journey.

One of the most important features of this game is the two character controlling system. The player is able to control both Nuna and the fox individually or collaboratively with another player. Other than the main storyline, Never Alone also has the DLC content which is based on the foxtale. In the foxtale storyline Nuna and her white fox explore the world of the ocean only with the willow paddles and a single boat.

Prior Knowledge:

• As a game that targets the players from all age group, there is not much-requested knowledge when playing. The game is designed to be an exploration game and all the educational elements are like the environmental setting, character design, graphic style, and etc.weaved into the game in very spontaneous ways. Thus, even by simply watching the game graphics the player will be able to get the fundamental knowledge about the Iñupiat culture.
• The game assumes the player to have the fundamental ability to understand English or have basic reading ability of the text. Although a lot of the cultural elements are displayed in animation, the audio storytelling is in the native Iñupiat language with the subtitle(multiple languages). Also, the cultural insights videos are in English with other language subtitles.Thus, in order to get more direct and detailed information about the game content and Iñupiat culture the player needs to understand the text.
• The game is a puzzle platformer game which requires the player to have a fundamental ability of puzzle solving. Although most of the puzzles are pretty straight forwards for gamers who are familiar with the platform game, they can be discouraging sometimes for new players who can not solve the puzzle or cannot recognize what is the puzzle.

Learning Objectives:

• Understanding the unique living culture of Iñupiat people: According to the game developers, Never Alone is their first attempt in creating a new genre of “ ‘World Games’ which draw fully upon the richness of unique cultures to create complex and fascinating game worlds for a global audience.” By introducing the unique culture of the minority group, the rest of the world will be able to notice the core and essence of these people. In this way, the mutual understanding will be built on the world scale.
• Understanding the oral and painting tradition of passing through culture and history: Storytelling and scrimshaw style animation are used to introduce the storyline and the key information about the game. By using these forms to display the information rather than using the direct text, the player will learn oral and painting tradition of documenting and passing through cultural information.
• Understanding the special relationship between Iñupiat people and arctic fox: Throughout the whole game, the role of the arctic fox is not only the pet or helper for Nuna, rather it plays the role of partner. The goal of the game is to finish the journey by both Nuna and her fox, they need to solve all the puzzles together.
• Understanding the Iñupiat people’s caribou skin clothing tradition: Living in an extremely cold environment, the special clothing tradition plays a vital role in the survival of Iñupiat people. The caribou skin will prevent the storm and keep them warm even in the temperature that below fifty.
• Understanding the Iñupiat people’s relation with the environment: The natural environment plays an important part in the Iñupiat culture. Although the extreme climate causes the harshest living condition in the world, it also provides the opportunity for the special living style. For example, the Storm in the game function both as the resistance and helping force for the character's traveling. This game conveys love and respect for nature.
• Understanding the spirituality of everything in Iñupiat culture: Everything is alive and that everything has its spirit. This is a very important idea in Alaskan Native Culture. Many other cultures in the world believe that all the “living”
• Understanding the sense of community: Different from the dominant culture of individualism in the US, the Iñupiat people value their community over each individual. The drumbeat in the game represent the heartbeat of the community and also symbolizes the community’s vitality. The drumbeat forms a sense of connectivity between each community members. Their hunting tradition is also around the community that most of their hunted subsistence will be taken to the elders and separated for the entire community. The major driven force for Nuna to begin her journey is searching for ways to bring better living condition for the village. She is not doing so for herself, she is doing it for the well-being of the entire community.

Mechanics:

• The single player will control the two character by switching from one and another.
• The pair of players will be able to control two characters at the same time.
• Nuna (human character)can throw the Bola to destroy the obstacles and activate the spiritual guide. Fox can guide the spiritual helper to the different positions.
• The pieces of cultural insight can be collected if Nuna or fox find the owl in the game.
• The storm is a great influence factor of the navigation in the game. Depending on the direction of the wind, the storm will change the moving speed of the character.
• Nuna and her fox need to get to the destination together. If one of the two characters fall from the “platform” the game will be reset to the closes saving point.
• The spiritual helper can be regarded as the invisible platform that can only be activated in certain ways.

Dynamic:

• As the foxtale part will only be activated after the completion of the basic never alone storyline, the puzzle solving challenge this part seems to be much harder.
• Although the basic mechanics of the game is relatively easy, in each different sections, the tricks for puzzles are set differently which promote the player’s motivation to keep exploring.
• The seemingly random storm create a lively playing atmosphere for the game.
• The information collection system of cultural insights adds more dynamic to the game. The cultural insights are the explanatory information about the Iñupiat culture. The information collection will encourage the player to explore more hidden information in the game, other than just experiencing the main storyline.

Aesthetics:

• The scrimshaw style animation and the old male voice of storytelling at the beginning of the game settled a very compelling overall atmosphere of the historical game. Considering the fact that a lot of ancient cultures are orally passed down to the next generation, the storytelling is very important for the Iñupiat people. It not only created a sense of community but also function as a way to pass the wisdom to the next generation.
• The documentary style cultural insights really take this game from an entertainment product to an educational platform with social concern. The authoritative explanation of the culture sublimates the concept of this game.
• Subtle changes in color balance in the different section of the game for providing the visual refreshing for the player and ensure a better performance of the game’s dynamics.
• The rendering of the environment in the game, the storm and all kinds of creatures like the polar bears are more detail depiction of Iñupiat people’s harsh living condition. It is such a unique natural living condition that makes their culture so different and so intriguing.

Learning Principles:

• Scaffolding: The player will learn new ways to find the tools and other tricks to solve the platform puzzle in each section. The sequential learning system of the game shapes a good structure for the player in learning all the required skill and knowledge for the final challenge. The way of how the cultural insights are collected also reflect the scaffolding principle. Each of the 24 cultural insights videos introduces one cultural element and that the player can easily study and understanding after watching it. After collecting and watching all of them the player will spontaneously learn a comprehensive cultural system.
• Pretraining: Before Nuna started her exploration journey there is one pretraining session which allows the player to get familiar with the major mechanics. This session is set in the scenario that Nuna is chased by a polar bear. After the player gets used to controlling the character of Nuna, the fox will appear to help her and at that time player is able to switch to learn how to control the fox. The player needs to be able to comfortably control the two characters to pass the training session. Texts and icons are provided when learning the new skills of the game.
• Application: The player will need to unlock the new section and new cultural insight by finishing the previous challenges. By completing each section in the game, the player is able to gain new knowledge of puzzle solving, tricks and functionality of different spiritual helpers while at the same time practice the previous knowledge iteratively.
• Signaling: Since this is a puzzle platformer game, it is very likely that the player might be stuck at some point and don’t know how to continue. At that moment there will be the flashing symbol that function as a cue to led the player solving the problem. The owl’s sound is also the cue for the player to find the hidden information.

Synthesis and Critique:

From all the analysis above I think the design method of Never Alone well fit into the EDGE framework. Especially the aesthetics of environmental rendering in the game greatly contribute to the learning principles and objectives. As the primary learning objective is to understand the essence of Iñupiat culture, the design of Never Alone well contributes to the essence of culture. As a relatively common genre of platformer game, the game designer highlights the mechanics that mimic reality. For example, as there is not aiming system in the game, throwing the Bola to attack the target is very difficult which well mimicking the real-life hunting experience.

Cultures are the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. They are generated from a long history of the living style of a certain social group. Culture is a too broad topic for the educational game with specific goals. It is impossible to cover all aspects of the culture for a certain group in a single game. In order to design the effective culture-related educational game, the specific entry point for the topic needs to be chosen carefully. As Iñupiat people lived in an extreme natural condition, in this game the environment related cultural features and their related practices are highlighted. The selective cultural highlights effectively integrated into the game design and inspire a lot of MDA elements’ development.

All the 24 culture insights documentaries are well composed, I think it will be more effective to automatically play the insight video after connecting them to the real-time feedback will be provided and it will have a better educational effect in terms on connecting the game content with reality facts.

After finishing playing this game by myself I actually feel it will be better to play this with my other friends. Although the game system is designed to support both single player and multiplayer, I still feel it will be more convincing to play it with another one. The single-player mode is more like a quiz-solving challenge that the player needs to find the effective movement connection between the girl and the fox. While the multiplayer mode will provide a much more convincing sense of the partnership with the real-time collaboration of two players.