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.
