Video Game Harmony

Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa)

Released: November 18, 2014

Developer: Upper One Games

Composer: Daniel L. K. Caldwell

After the 37 hours of Hogwarts Legacy I felt that it was time to play something shorter. I previously talked about AER: Memories of Old and how the Epic Games store is always giving out a free game or two. By this point I’ve accumulated over 100 so I figured I might try one of the free games I have. One that I had been wanting to play for awhile was called Never Alone (aka “Kisima Inŋitchuŋa” in the original language).

In this game you get to play as an Iñupiat girl (basically an Alaskan native) and her fox. I’ve been really into side-scrolling games and thought this game looked really chill (no pun intended).

Just from the main menu theme you can feel the coldness, but you know you’re not alone. The spirits are there to guide you, and so is the fox. This is the kind of soundtrack I was expecting from this. I was wanting music that felt nice and easy.

The fox isn’t the only one around here though. At a couple of points you get chased by a polar bear, and there’s even a big baddie called the Manslayer. The polar bear’s music has loud drum beats and a sense of needing to move fast to get away from it, while the Manslayer’s theme sounds so cold but with a deep and foreboding tone to it.

This game is a good cultural experience, and you can even unlock videos called “Cultural Insights” that teach you about the native people. I found this really cool because it’s not often that games can be educational these days. There were those “edutainment” games that I’d play as a kid, but when you get older it seems that you don’t learn things from games very much anymore. I liked getting to see these videos, and the music to go with them is also very nice and optimistic in tone.

The soundtrack may be simple but it’s effective. This is good to listen to whenever you need to de-stress (except probably not the parts where there’s a polar bear or Manslayer). I do not recommend listening to the soundtrack found on Spotify and other streaming services, except for the cultural insight tracks. It has a bunch of sound effects that I don’t want to hear when listening. I just want the music, and I don’t need to hear the polar bear also. I recommend listening to it on YouTube instead for the main game music, and there’s a pretty good playlist that I included the link to. I give the soundtrack 4 out of 5 stars.

★★★★

Sources:

https:0//www.mobygames.com/game/70260/never-alone-kisima-innitchuna/credits/windows/