Mindbending free multimedia adventure ENA: Dream BBQ is out now, has activated all my neurons and opened my third eye

Some days you just roll out of bed and immediately fall into another world. Exactly four years and one day from its announcement, ENA: Dream BBQ is out on Steam, free. The first chapter of it, at least. It’s the first interactive adventure of the titular chaotic cubist girl (created by Peruvian artist Joel Guerra), star of a series of deeply strange but wonderfully compelling animations, which you can watch here on YouTube. You should watch them, and then play the game, because you’re in for a one-of-a-kind experience.

The Ena animations thus far felt like a peek into the dreams of someone raised on a diet of early CD-ROM era ‘multimedia experiences’ and subtitled foreign animation. A kaleidoscopic blend of aesthetics and animation styles, from slick CGI renders to overly compressed FMV overlays, to heavily aliased low-fi 3D corridors and everything in-between.

From the hour I’ve played so far, Dream BBQ doubles down on that, but its world feels so much larger and more tangible. Its characters (existing across multiple mediums and speaking a dozen different languages) are given more opportunity to linger, ramble and get their hooks into your brain. The terribly reductive would just call this a ‘walking simulator’. An exploration heavy, mechanics-light ramble through strange environments, and while not inaccurate, that also feels like it sells the experience short.

This is a genuinely fractured, dreamlike experience that defies any attempt to make sense of it. The game opens under a blood red sky in shadowed, irregular asian streets. A giant silhouette of a person swims lazily through the air above. An inviting blue bed stands in the street. Interacting with it asks you if you wish to open the door. Of course you do. And now you’re Ena, at work. She’s looking for The Boss, with the aid of a Japanese man-frog and a masked Dracula.

For those who’ve watched the animations, this particular incarnation of Ena is more focused, aggressive and businesslike. Overbearing, almost. She’s a woman on a mission, full of useful business buzzwords. In this chapter, she’s looking for a Genie, except that every attempt to say that word becomes overwritten with ‘Bathroom’. The answer to this bathroom mystery might lie in a strange desert realm where veiny hipposnake octahedrons float through the sky. Go on then, you’ve got work to do.

The game might be free, but that’s not to say it’s underfunded work. Guerra runs an active Patreon page, Fangamer have an extensive merch page, and Dream BBQ has an optional bit of ‘supporter edition’ DLC that adds funny little collectible dogs to the game which unlock behind-the-scenes development commentary and production notes.

The rabbit hole is as deep as you want it to be, but as curious as I am about the production process, I do enjoy this stuff having an air of mystery to it. Like it’s a mysterious artifact from another plane of existence. Something to be experienced, but never fully understood.

As for whether we’ll see the other chapters anytime soon, or even at all, I wouldn’t even hazard a guess. Part of the fun of Ena’s world is not knowing what lies around the next corner. But I can’t deny that even before I’ve had a chance to fully explore this strange pocket dimension, I’m already hungry for more. But who isn’t at a good barbeque? Go grab yourself a bite.