Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)

Simplistic gameplay with run and jump options only and regularly interrupted by some video notifications. Also still pretty buggy game.

This is definitely one of those times where I wish Steam had a neutral response for recommendation. I say that because the game itself isn't all that enjoyable and feels like it's getting in the way of what I actually want to be doing - learning about another culture. First thing - if you're having problems with 'Never Alone' automatically switching back to Co-Op controls even when you're trying to play single player, do yourself a favor and create a small text file named "autoexec.cfg" in the game's root folder ("/steamapps/common/NeverAlone/") and fill it with the following two lines: wait 20 inputmode 2 This should fix some of the problems that a lot of people are experiencing with the controls. Otherwise, you're basically forced to find another human being to play with. Remote Play Together is your friend. OK, let me first talk about what I love about this game - the "Insights". These are short little films mostly featuring interviews and stories from native Iñupiaq people. The majority of these are directly related to what's going on in the main story (itself an adaptation of an Iñupiaq tale) in some fashion. This gives a fairly bland puzzle-platformer a whole lot of depth. I ADORE this as a way to teach about culture. Just one problem: the way to get these cinematics is to find owls scattered throughout the game. These are either so obvious as to be impossible to miss, or else kind of a pain in the butt to find without a lot of middle ground. Having to back-track through a pretty big chapter to grab one of these collectables doesn't feel good. And I say that not because I have a particular disdain for backtracking for collectibles, but because 'Never Alone' itself isn't particularly fun to play. There's a bit of clunk to the movement that feels really unrefined. Things like the characters not wanting to turn as a jump is being executed resulting in the occasional awkward backwards hop when a direction and jump are pressed almost simultaneously, but the jump is registered first. These are the sorts of little things that wreck a game like this. However the issue that frustrated me most (beyond the control scheme swapping thing I mentioned at the beginning) were some of the chase sequences at the end of the game. This game's mechanics are NOT built for reflexes. It's a co-op puzzle solving game and when it sticks to that it's OK. Not great, not even particularly challenging, but OK. But when it gets to the chases there are times where it feels like it wants the players to do things faster than it's allowing us to. Particularly in single player, it felt like running a race with weights on and was neither fun nor fair. While I did eventually succeed, it was largely in spite of a game that until that point seemed built to help me and not hinder me. And this is why I can't [i]really[/i] recommend 'Never Alone'. It's a good experience for learning about a culture that most of us would otherwise barely know exists. But it's just not a very good [u]game[/u] and having to play it often feels more like it's getting in the way of the learning... which stinks because it's set up so well to have the two complement each other perfectly.

Finished in 6 hours (Steam not keeping track of time spent when offline). Well, what to say about this one... Disappointing. The intentions of the team behind to show us their interesting culture are clearly there, and it looks nice ; but the gameplay is catastrophic. Clipping through walls, freezing in the air, interesting puzzles but sometimes very tight with stiff control, awkward back jump, one time broken camera, narrative during action phases, white font with very thin black border in snow clips. All of this make the player not enjoying the game itself, and since we discover their culture by unlocking them during the game, and sometimes owls to unlock them are really hidden, it gives an awkward taste in the mouth during the game. It really feels not polished, and make us thinking about the better idea of giving money to an association and watch video footages online rather than having this clunky impression of an unfinished project with an unfinished video game. Sigh... disappointing.

I wasn't able to enjoy the story because of the gameplay issues. The controls are very wonky and random while the game physics are inconsistent. With how unexpected and choppy the gameplay was, the crying characters got very annoying. The fox controlling platforms was slow and not explained well. The bola was not intuitive to throw, even on controller. The gameplay is very simple but most of the puzzles being invisible or not easily understood was confusing. For some of the puzzles, you had to know what to do beforehand or else the correct timing wouldn't come back and you have to start over. I wanted to like the game because it looked like a cute co-op with a good story, but I ended up getting rage-baited by the gameplay. *SPOILER* Fox died too soon. :(

Review about shared screen experience. Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) is a really specific title. It feels more like a promotional material of Inuit culture rather than a game. That said - I did enjoy insights which gave me more knowledge about said culture and in-game characters/events. However the game itself was pretty bland. The story could be interesting, but the execution wasn't too good. It's quite buggy. Half the game your shared screen partner has nothing to do. Controls on pads are pretty bad. You mostly just walk straight, there is a bit of platforming. It's also a short game (don't be misguided by my in-game time, I spent about 2 hours on pause). Achievements are unmissable however if you are a completionist you need a DLC which is even shorter than the main game. Base game went smooth, just some bugs, but DLC, oh boy, it lagged so much. I do have a better PC than recommended one. Finishing this game was quite tiring. I really wanted to like this title - I love platformers, I love great stories, I love learning about new things (like Inuits culture). However as a game itself is just not too good. I would recommend it if you just want to obtain easly memorable knowledge about Inuit culture but if you don't care than this game is rather tiring then enjoyable, at least as a shared screen experience.

Mediocre platformer. Mediocre controls, mediocre graphics, your characters get stuck from time to time. The story is nice and the documentary part is great. My rating 5/10 for the platformer and 8,5/10 for the documentary part.

If it were just an animated short story or documentary, this would be an amazing work of art. Instead, it's a clunky 2D side-scrolling platform game. Sadly, beautiful cut scenes and informative video clips can't hide that the game play meanders between simple, boring, and frustrating.