Kids these days, eh? They’re lazy and devoid of imagination. They take no interest in learning, have short attention spans and maintain zero respect for their elders. All they do is play video games which encourage aggression, antisocial behaviour and obesity.

Never Alone, a new co-operative puzzle platformer based on native Alaskan myths and stories, is about to blow this particular tired but frequent narrative apart.

The title, which is released on 18 November, is released by Upper One Games, the world’s first indigenous-owned video game company, which was established by Cook Intel Tribal Council (CITC), a tribal nonprofit organisation based in Anchorage, Alaska.

The story of how Upper One Games came to be is almost as exciting and inspiring as the stories represented in its debut title.

CITC serves the 12,000 strong Alaskan native population, helping to tackle issues as wide-ranging as unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction, youth engagement and education. The foundation is funded by the US government, but several years ago CITC realised that to continue its work it would also have to find income from elsewhere.

“The board said: ‘we want you to make an investment, we want you to develop a double bottom line company, making money first and making impact second’,” CITC’s president and CEO Gloria O’Neill tells me.

“So, we looked at everything from traditional real estate to funeral homes. We also wanted to be bold and be courageous, so we started thinking about how CITC could become more progressive.

“How could we use technology? And we asked ourselves at the time, what is the greatest asset of our people? And we said, our culture and our stories.”

It was one thing, however, for CITC to identify that the native Alaskan community’s strongest asset was its long history of storytelling. But how to turn that in to something that made money to help support the community in the future, while also sharing it with others?

The answer, CITC decided, was to build video games.

The result is Never Alone, or Kisima Inŋitchuŋa, to give it its native title. A two person cooperative puzzle platformer, Never Alone is based around Kunuuksaayuka, a traditional Iñupiat tale in which a girl fights against a great blizzard which threatens the community’s survival.

In Never Alone’s eight-chapter version, the young girl, Nuna, is helped by her companion, an impossibly cute arctic fox. One of the game’s key themes is friendship – in particular, cooperation and codependency. To succeed in the game, Nuna and fox must work together, utilising their different skill sets.

Nuna, I learned when testing the game, is stronger, can climb and carry things. Fox is slight and quick, and can squeeze into smaller spaces. A gamer can choose to switch between characters, or two players can co-play.

“The dream would be that parents play with their children”, says Alan Gershenfeld, founder and CEO of E-Line Media, the company which published the game.

“The dialogue around the game is precious. That’s very important, in terms of inter-generational co-viewing and co-playing. Sesame Workshop have done research that says the co-viewing around the television is where the real literacy and education happens.

“Why not co-play? It’s a two player. The themes of interdependency, innovation, survival are infused throughout the whole game.”

CITC approached Gershenfeld’s E-Line media because “their values and long term goals aligned” – plus their team was willing to visit Barrow, Alaska in the deep winter.

Gershenfeld, who started as head of creative affairs at Activision, is a chairman of Games for Change, a nonprofit which brings together social entrepreneurs, government agencies and academic researchers for social change and education purposes. CITC’s proposed game appealed to him and his business partner, Sean Vesce, at E-line.

“We had looked at how indigenous were represented in media. Films like Whale Rider, for instance”, says Gershenfeld.

But in video games? “A lot of exaggeration, co-opting, sampling, but nothing that was the real voice with the involvement of an indigenous community.”

Ishmael Hope, a native Alaskan writer and storyteller, was brought on board to script the game, ensuring its authenticity in sharing the Iñupiat culture and history.

“Robert Cleveland [who wrote Kunuuksaayuka] was clearly one of the greatest storytellers ever”, he explains. “We have all read the Odyssey or the Iliad or Beowulf and written literature, we see how imaginative Shakespeare or Thomas Middleton could be.

“But there are elders who tell stories where their images evoke the range of human experience, and with native stories; they illuminate the land and the surroundings around them.”

It was important, says O’Neill, to present the community as truthfully as possible, but also the landscape and the environment.

To this end, Never Alone looks stunning. Despite being set in a blizzard, the game looks warm and inviting. The detail in the weather and terrain is stunning – especially in the depiction of King Island, a rock island in the Bering sea which has been abandoned, but has become host to a returning community. The game’s Russian art director, Dima Veryovka, was once a classical artist. Light plays on the snow like a Turner painting.

But as well being incredibly handsome; Never Alone is fun. It even has a level set inside a whale. Evoking the game play of previous popular platform puzzlers such as Mario Brothers or Limbo. The fun element is important in making a game which also aims to be educational.

“It’s a hard play balance challenge to create a game that will appeal across generations and across genders. Very few games have done that. So we’ll find out when the game comes out, but we’ve really aspired to make this a game that is accessible to anybody who wants to lean forward and play.

“If you are kind of a newbie gamer, we encourage you to play it in a two player mode with someone who is more experienced”, says Gershenfeld.

One of the loveliest things about Never Alone is its unlocks, which consist of 24 short educational films about Alaskan culture.

“We shot 40 hours of footage of elders and storytellers that provide context around the game. These films reference something you are experiencing in the game, like bola – a traditional weapon you get in the game, or something to do with the environment and the culture”, explains O’Neill.

One film, “Silla Has a Soul”, explores the atmosphere and weather, while another features Hope’s mother, explaining a traditional Iñupiat tale revolving around the Northern Lights.

Hope explains: “My mum always told me that the Northern Lights, if you’re not careful, could come down from the sky and grab your head and take it up into the sky and play football with it.”

“We were made to come inside when the Northern Lights came out, or made to put our hoods on. It was a way of keeping us safe”, adds O’Neill.

Never Alone will be released at first in ten different languages and on PS4, Xbox One and PC, with more platforms to come in the Spring. But with the creation of Upper One Games, it won’t be the first and last title to explore and share indigenous culture.

CITC and E-Line worked together so well, that they have since merged their management structures.

“People think video games have disconnected youth from their heritage, from their storytelling and their culture. But why not use this incredibly powerful medium to fire imagination and reconnect youth with other cultures, with their own cultures and with their elders?” asks Gershenfeld.

“This is the start of a worldwide games movement.”

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