Upper One Games on bringing PS4 gem Never Alone to Nvidia Shield

Last month I played a very early build of Never Alone on the Nvidia Shield. It was only a few minutes long, but it felt like a breath of fresh air for the platform.

Never Alone is a tale of an Iñupiaq girl called Nuna and her companion, an arctic fox. Together, Nuna and Fox journey across stark lands, running from danger, and meeting helpful spirits and the mischievous Little People.

The game is a platform puzzler interspersed with cultural insight documentary clips. The two combine to give us a fascinating glimpse into just what Iñupiat life is like.

I met up with the game's art director Dima Veryovka and Alaskan native storyteller Ishmael Hope to find out more about Never Alone and its rich source material.

Iñupiat people use word of mouth and scrimshaw to tell stories. What do you think about using games as a canvas for storytelling? Ishmael: I think it's a way to reach out to young people; all kinds of people. It's a way to reflect the spirit and character of the stories, and of the elders. Stories are an essential nutrient for people - we need stories - and they can be conveyed very richly through games.

I know a lot of games don't emphasise a story, but I think what's neat about this game is that it does. The gameplay mechanics are closely integrated with the story, so they feed off each other.

Dima: Games are already storytelling in a way - you see them and listen to them, but you're also part of the story. You're playing the story and that's the kind of unique experience that only games can provide as interactive media. You're playing the character and making decisions, so that's a unique experience you can achieve with games. Why did you choose to go for the platform puzzler genre with Never Alone? Dima: We didn't really think about what kind of a genre we wanted initially. The first task was to find an idea we could expand upon that would share the wisdom of the native Alaskan people. First we really needed to understand what we were trying to say, and then come up with a genre.

As we chose to tell a linear story we felt like a platformer would be a good genre. They're also so intuitive and easy to pick up - anybody can figure out what they need to do in a couple of minutes, meaning way more people would be able to play it.

Ishmael: Early on in the process a few of the team members showed me the games that inspired them like Limbo and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

What they especially liked about Limbo was this feeling of just being in the zone... it has a meditative quality. After a long day of work it can be very pleasurable just trying to solve things.

That related to me in terms of the world that my ancestors came out of. I saw a game that could be very much like being out in the tundra, where you're trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B and navigate through the weather without getting lost.

There are so many puzzles you have to solve when you're out in the wilderness, so I really think they're very similar. Meanwhile, your mind is filled with the visions of the storytellers, so everything just kinda just connected very neatly.

Is Nuna and Fox's story based on anything in particular, or is it an all-new tale? Ishmael: Well, the team decided on the characters first and then we figured out what kind of story world we'd surround them with. Having a female lead character really resonated with everybody; telling the story of empowering young women.

With the arctic fox we wanted to convey the idea of interdependence. When you're out in the wild, even if you're alone you still have the wisdom that your elders taught you in the community house; the basic survival skills you need to be out there. You're not alone - we're never alone.

To touch on this key theme, Nuna and Fox have to rely on each other to get through the game. Later on we figured out what we wanted the story to be. We read hundreds of stories, heard many directly from the voices of the elders, reread them aloud to each other, and studied them.

I tried to provide the team with the best stories; the stories that the elders admire other elders for. We found what resonated with everybody, and from my perspective it was really amazing to bring out one of the greatest storytellers of all time, Robert Nasruk Cleveland and his story of Kunuuksaayuka, the tale of an endless blizzard that had to be stopped.

How did you capture the feeling of being in deep Alaska? Dima: We wanted to make a beautiful game that stands out from the slew of games coming out each year. As this game is about Iñupiat people, we needed to find a way to reflect the culture, the people, and the world in which they live.

We flew to Alaska, did a lot of research, took photos; met amazing artists, storytellers, scientists, and anthropologists; then we brought all our ideas home.

The game draws upon the inspiration from our travels. We analysed what was different - what makes Iñupiat art different from other cultures? For me it was that everything was handcrafted, creating a warm feeling that I really wanted to translate into the game so players could feel this warmth and love of these people.

We researched many different landscapes too - there are nine different landscapes in the game, from tundra to a coastal village. Every time we picked a location we needed to make it as believable as possible so that players felt like they were travelling there. Our goal was to make them feel not just the blizzard, but also the Alaskan arctic beauty.

What would you like people to take away from playing Never Alone? Ishmael: That any media can be empowering. Indigenous cultures and stories are beautiful, and you can explore that through the power of games. You can have a very fun, playable game that authentically and richly shares a non-mainstream type of world . In that way it can be very empowering to people - they can see that their community highlighted with integrity, spirit, and character. Dima: I'd like to stir up curiosity about people like the Iñupiat; their traditions, mythology, spirituality, respect, and interdependence with nature. How they see the world all around us, and how to be true to it.

This kind of more peaceful game is the perfect way to convey Iñupiat culture, as well as introduce the beauty of Iñupiat art. Most people are unfamiliar with its beauty, so I hope Never Alone will inspire people to research and find out more about Iñupiat people. Their world is a beautiful world worth sharing with everyone.

Never Alone will be coming to the Nvidia Shield at some point in the future. iOS and other Android versions have not been announced, so don't hold your breath.