Though I don’t bring it up often, I’m a huge fan of Joel G’s wacked out cyber-surrealist YT indie animated series ENA! All of their shorts & the unique madman’s 90’s PC/internet fever dream setting & characters are extremely charming & a sandbox ripe for derivative fanworks from fiction to art.
The series’ heavy video game influence has come full circle and “ENA: Dream BBQ”, a long awaited First-Person Adventure game set in the world of ENA & spearheaded by Joel G themselves has released the game as a 1st chapter for free on Steam. As such, I absolutely cannot recommend the game enough to anyone & everyone with a Steam account, ENA fans or otherwise.
Similar to the series itself, ENA: Dream BBQ is an absolute triumph of style with excellent animation of a myriad of styles that bolster & define the unique surreal setting & characters. It is also a marvel in terms of voice acting too with the protagonist ENA continuing to be a purposefully dual-voiced role & the multitude of wacky multilingual characters earnestly delivering the Seussian near-nonsense dialogue that the series is also well known for and all with distinct flair & personalities that make certain nearly everyone will find at least one favorite within the madcap cast.
Though (as of this post) I’m not too far in the game yet myself, by the end of my first 30 minute play session via my Steam Deck (works excellently btw), I’d already purchased the game’s Support Pack Upgrade DLC. The DLC is not only an avenue to simply financially compensate the development team & their efforts but it also unlocks a unique collectible element which, upon finding the Hourglass Dog easter eggs, grants game extras like concept art, dev commentary, pre-production assets etc.
Honestly, even if one has zero plans to actually play the game themselves, I genuinely hope that people will still reward a frankly bafflingly free, high quality indie game that IMO exemplifies why the indie scene is such a necessity as well as a boon for gaming at the levels of industry & medium alike.
