This review was originally written on 02/07/2019.

Technical Information

Developer: E-Line Media
Publisher: Upper One Games / E-Line Media
Release Date: November 19, 2014

The game tells the story of Kunuuksaayuka, a traditional Inupiat tale (a nomadic people from Alaska who have existed since prehistoric times). It is about a blizzard that puts the life of an entire village at risk.

You control a girl named Nuna and a fox, and must use them strategically to progress through the stages. The game mixes puzzle and platform elements, resulting in a very unique gameplay experience.
As you advance, you encounter characters from this people’s legends and unlock videos recorded by the Inupiat community itself.

Final Thoughts – Analyzing the Game as a Whole

Graphics and UI

The game’s art is very beautiful. From the screenshots I took myself, it’s possible to see that the in-game visuals often look like cutscenes.
During level transitions, there are narrated scenes with illustrations in a very “caveman-style” aesthetic, giving everything a very rustic feel. It’s really beautiful—the atmosphere turned out great.

The only thing I didn’t like is that in sections where there is only snow, visibility is quite poor. The scenery becomes too white, the lighting is overly blown out, and some areas aren’t very clear, which ends up straining your eyes after a while.

The game’s menu is very easy to understand, and the game does not have a HUD.

Soundtrack and Sound Effects

The sounds and the narration themselves bring a lot of immersion to Inupiat culture. I personally liked it a lot and felt it was very well done.

Gameplay

The most interesting part of the game is that the entire narrative is told in the native Inupiat language, which provides a very strong sense of immersion!

I don’t know if this issue exists on other platforms, but on Xbox One the gameplay is very buggy. It’s extremely common to jump onto an area and have Nuna get stuck or fail to recognize an object she’s supposed to climb. I died several times because of this, and I admit it really annoyed me (to the point of almost uninstalling the game).

Another very common problem is having to keep the fox in a specific position for Nuna’s platform to appear, but when you switch control to Nuna and start moving her, the fox ends up walking a bit (due to the AI, so it doesn’t stay completely static). This causes the object to disappear, resulting in the girl’s death, since these objects are almost always floating over areas with no ground. This is quite frustrating, because these platforms are only visible when the fox is nearby. In co-op mode, this is completely manageable, but in single-player it makes the experience discouraging.

The game’s difficulty is very low, with most of the challenge coming from the puzzles (which also aren’t difficult).
I played a bit in cooperative mode with my boyfriend, and I really enjoyed it! It’s actually much better than playing in single-player.

Replayability and Game Retention

The gameplay bugs don’t make me want to play it again, not even to finish unlocking the achievements.
The game is very poetic—beautiful to watch and appreciate. But unfortunately, I found it quite flawed as a product.