Never Alone is the tale of Nuna, a young Iñupiat girl whose village and family are at risk of starvation due to a strange and ongoing blizzard. Rather than taking to shelter like the others, she decides to set out on a journey to discover the source of the blizzard and end it. In the process, she befriends a fox, outsmarts several polar bears, is chased by an evil man, helped by a friendly one, runs into little people, finds a giant, and all-around has an incredible adventure - one that the player gets to take part in. Easily the best part of the game are the Insights, documentary-style clips that you unlock during Nuna's travels (by locating the owls) and which introduce you to various aspects of the Iñupiat life. They were interesting, educational, and directly tied to the storyline, and I feel like I came out of the game with more knowledge than I had going in. That isn't something that you can traditionally say about games.
Game-play wise, Never Alone is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer, and it can be played single-player or multi-player. Nuna and Fox have different skill sets - the former can pick things up, push things around, and use a bola (entanglement weapon), while the latter is fast, can scale walls, and can jump farther. In single-player mode, the player has to control BOTH characters which can get confusing and stressful, especially in situations where the characters are auto-following each other. Many times I sent one out to do something and the other, in an attempt to catch up, walked off a cliff or into the water. The controls for single-player aren't as well set up as they could be and the overall effect is that the characters' actions are inconsistent. Sometimes one or both will stay put when you need them to, other times they won't. It was a learning curve, one that involved some frustration, but it wasn't game-breaking in any way. I haven't played multi-player yet, but I hope to at some point. I think it would be a lot of fun.
In single-player, on a keyboard with a mouse, Nuna and Fox are controlled by:
- W-A-S-D for movement
- SPACE bar for jumping and selecting (in game and in menus)
- E to allow Fox to drop a rope down to Nuna (if there is a coiled rope there)
- Q / Right mouse button to swap between characters
- Left mouse button to let loose Nuna's bola
- Shift to grab and push/pull something
- Ctrl to row (or go back in menus)
Controlling both characters at once can also get hectic when there are two chains of events going on at once, and each character is responsible for one of them (ex: Fox is trying to move a spirit around, while Nuna is attempting to evade a boss and drop a rock - and both of these chains are interdependent so they MUST be completed at the same time). Switching between them without getting completely confused takes practice, and I will admit that some puzzles were way harder than others and involved some swearing on my part. The DLC especially had a lot of these kinds of puzzles, and I found myself getting annoyed rather than just stressed. It felt at times like the game was assuming you would be playing multi-player when in fact... no, it was just me. I enjoyed the main game way more than Foxtales (though Foxtales had its own set of Insights, so I still don't regret playing it).
The artwork in the game is pretty well done as well. Most of the panels that explain what is or will be happening are Alaskan Native-style art (if that's even a proper way of describing it) while the rest of the game is done in 2D animation. Sprinkle in the Insights and you have a nice mix of aesthetics going on as you progress through your storyline. The entire thing is super visually appealing:
Scene from an Insight
I would touch on menus but there isn't much to say - they're pretty straightforward. The only thing I would suggest (unless you like playing on complete Hard mode) is that you make sure Gameplay Hints are toggled On. They won't immediately give you a solution, but if you're stuck somewhere for a long enough time they'll gently nudge you in the right direction with pictograms on the screen. I found it helpful at times when I really didn't know how I was supposed to proceed.
And that's about it. The game was mostly fun, sometimes frustrating, and it taught me about a people I didn't really know anything about. All in all, it was a positive experience. Though it wasn't the best game I've ever played, it was good - and most importantly, it was different. It did something I hadn't seen before by introducing an educational element to the game-play and I appreciated that. I would definitely suggest that people try it, especially those who are fans of puzzle games. I don't have a whole lot of experience with them so I'm not going to go and say that this is a super amazing wonderful fantastic astounding puzzle game, but it was certainly fun and challenging in it's own way. So, if you like learning and you like puzzles - here's a game to add to your list. Cheers!
