Alaskan tribe and game studio team up, document folklore in enchanting game

There’s just something inspiring about a small game studio teaming up with Alaskan natives to tell Iñupiat folklore through a beautiful puzzle-platformer game. What’s more, Never Alone, coming to PC and unspecified consoles this fall, gives you a trusty little white dog sidekick. Dogs are pretty inspiring, too.

Judging from the lovely new trailer, the game seems to fall into that class of game that uses classic “gameplay” as a vehicle to explore more nuanced and high-minded, if less fun, themes: in this case, art and narrative. Specifically, it has the romanticized indigenous vibe of a game like Tengami, but also the jumping and swimming with animals in their natural habitat of say, Donkey Kong Country. But you get the sense the real star here is the spirit of folklore and magical realism.