Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)

[h3]When you have an idea for a game, but no talent[/h3] [b]Rating ★☆☆☆☆[/b] An absolute buggy mess. Checked the store page- 'Steam Deck Verified'. Okay great! Downloaded. Spent the next hour trying to get the game to start. Searched the forums, discovered that there have been serious issues with Steam input since 2015, and it hasn't been addressed. Also read that there are issues with controller support, achievements are not always popping, [strike] client crashes, stuttering, [/strike]characters falling through the world etc. From my time spent in the menu, I can say that the music is well done. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3515317148 Seems like its a roll of the dice if you can get this to even start, and a few more dice rolls to see if you can play without any issues. Maybe you will be luckier than me. Just don't let the refund window pass by like I did. Good luck! ⠀

Simple yet impactful gameplay, rich an informative cultural knowledge.

[i]Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)[/i] interprets a classic Inupiat fairy tale as a puzzle-platformer that may be mechanically simple, but wonderfully piqued my curiosity with its cultural depictions of the nomadic tribes of arctic Alaska. Especially with its cohesion between mechanics and story, it feels so much more than a typical platformer that replaces pre-existing enemy, platforms, and items with a culture's specificities. Yet it also never feels too down-your-throat with its explanations, only providing optional cultural insight videos on the subjects if want to learn more. They're great videos too! Only ever a couple minutes long and well directed to tie with personal stories of the Inupiat interviewees. I definitely recommend it for those seeking a casual narrative-driven experience, especially if you're looking to be drawn into a unique setting that probably hadn't seen or thought of before.

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.

Sadly I can't recommend this game for solo play. I haven't played it with someone else so I can't say anything about that. I keep having issues with the game giving me control over both characters at once instead of only one character. You should be able to switch between characters, the character you're not playing being controlled by the game. When I get control of both characters the game is unplayable because one of them will easily fall to their death of drown. A hard quit out of the game and restarting will solve the issue for a little while so I tried to power through it. After having to hard quit for the 3rd time at the same point I gave up. It's just not playable for me. As this is not a new game I don't think they'll ever be able to fix this issue. I'm sad that I could't play the rest of the game as it looks really nice, the characters are cute and the story is interesting.

Honestly not that great, the story is okay but the game is really buggy and is a pain to play by yourself. In general when you don't control a character it doesn't do anything, which can restrict camera movement and make chase scenes difficult when you need both characters to do something within seconds, also the death sounds get old really quickly because it's the exact same every time. I hope the second game is better when/if it comes out

PLEASE PLAY THIS GAME ITS SOOOO BEAUTIFULLY MADE