by Faith Price, Assistant Director
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) is the first video game developed in collaboration with the Iñupiat Alaska Native people. Ian Gil, the lead game designer, will be at WSU March 7 and 8 to share about the game’s development.
Gil is coming to campus as part of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation’s Spring Symposium. Native American Programs is a co-sponsor. The symposium intends to explore how video and online games reflect the perspectives of their creators and how some designers are challenging and diversifying that landscape.
Never Alone is one of the games bringing broader worldviews to gamers everywhere. The game was developed in combination with Iñupiat storytellers and elders. It stars a young Iñupiat girl and her arctic fox companion as they try to stop a blizzard threatening their community. The game includes traditions, stories, and language.
There will be an hour of open play of Never Alone on March 7th from 5-6pm in Spark 10, followed by a keynote from Gil from 6-7pm in the Spark Atrium. The following day, March 8th, Gil will be a speaker in a 1:30-3:30pm workshop “Introduction to the Professional Game Creation Process” with Ed Chang at the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation’s Creativity Suite. There will be other workshops looking at gender, intersectionality, and technonormativity throughout the day.
See the full Symposium schedule.
Learn more about the game at neveralonegame.com.