Story meaning if there is one?

[Xafron Chi]

So I played through the game, and I enjoyed it. Enough to do all the achievements (Sick Tricks almost made me stop). But I'd like some clarification on the story meaning if there is one.

In another thread, someone called the game boring and another user responded with the following:

Originally posted by Barlakopofai:

he doesn't understand what the characters are saying and he didn't find the nonsense entertaining. He complained about "modern analogies in western media" in another post and I instantly clocked him as the kind of fellow that doesn't have the narrative literacy skills to understand ENA dialogue and environments, and predictably, he doesn't like the game as a result because it seems pointless.

Does ANYONE understand this though?

Again, I liked the game. But I never really got the impression that the story, characters or environments were trying to tell some deeper narrative.

It seemed like it fell more on the "entertaining nonsense" side of things than anything else, with a loose story (finding The Boss) and great animation to tie all the randomness together.

If the creator intended there to be more meaning to it than that I'd be interested to hear what it is.

Or if that user is making more of the game's meaning than there really is.

Or if it's one of those "whatever it means to you" scenarios.

To me it just seemed like mostly nonsensical fun, so I'm not sure.

[Cacledemon]

Ens series before didn't had much of a story or world's lore about why everything is so...colorful and weird, leaving you puzzled of what you just saw. I don't know why people need for this game to have a big or serious plot for a story (except there is one - your goal to go through Genie's doors to reach the Boss) since this is basically a first chapter, a basic introduction to the characters you can meet along the way. Although as it's a game, and not a short episodes now this may give us a good look on this world, and what may caused it to be like this (Ena's flashback with bullets proves it).
About that guy - there's always a black sheep in the family where hundreds of people may find this game fun and entartaining just walking in the open area, seeing the sky, or exploring every corner of the game, and someone who...can't have fun when they don't find the sense of what's going on here. Even if i don't understand a single crap in these dialogs, and suck a$$ at 3D platforming and it's parkour it won't stop me from enjoying these beatiful and different voices or catchy designs

[Sprack]

It's too early to discern fully what is to be said by there story, but there's already a lot of symbolic imagery in both the trailer and the game, as well as themes that are worth keeping in mind as we continue forward.

The trailer starts with the text ENA: THE WORKER. Both the video series Ena and this Ena are viewed as lower class beings, and one could infer that this trait is shared by all Ena entities. The Ena in the game is focused on completing various jobs, with the red side acting more positive and the grey side more begrudging or resentful. Other than the main storyline being about finding the boss, and the various quests being referred to as jobs, notice how many interactions in the game are focused on things like employment and labor, or emphasizing the lack thereof:
1. Taski Maiden being unemployed and impressed by Ena having a job.
2. Coral Glasses talking about her job, and looking to hire someone.
3. When referring to the taxi driver having his heads stolen, Fen refers to it as a man being "forced to desist from his labors" which wouldn't be my top priority if someone was decapitated in front of me.
4. The number of characters who begin their interactions by saying "I'm the boss" which can function as a running gag while still tying in with more serious elements of the narrative.
5. In the purge event, Ena comments about how she is hardworking and "shouldn't be in a place full of morons having fun" in addition to a side NPC commenting that she is bringing down the vibes.
6. Theodora even makes a comment saying "My job here is terminated" upon realizing that her visitor is Ena, which doesn't match up with the very religious imagery and language that has been used with her prior to that, making it notable.

There are also multiple places in the game that focus on hunger and eating as well. The title is Dream BBQ, of course, but there are other major points:
1. The purge event is focused around people being transformed and eaten. For many of the attendees, being eaten is seen as a desirable result, and likely the reason someone would want to come back to the party at all based on Bunrako's dialogue.
2. The pets/babies collected could possibly be "tonight's dinner" according to their inventory description, and when turned in, Shoryo states that he is starving and can now have a good meal.
3. In the trailer, we can see the human-looking version of Ena with the hole in her abdomen, desperately crawling towards a dancing spatula. The burning hole in her gut is taking a phrase for hunger very literally, and she is chasing after a utensil used to prepare and serve food. We see hints towards this in the final portion of the chapter, including the humanized Ena and a glimpse of the dancing spatula but not the full scene.
4. Theodora's reminder that all it takes it the right place and the right food.

In general, the story is a critique of class under capitalism, with Ena being representative of the poor working class who can barely afford to put food on the table despite working hard. Characters like the receptionist, the vending machine, and the woman in the gift shop look down on her for being poor. She has a friendly, "customer service" persona but hates having to live like this, an emotion which bubbles up frequently.

However, there are certain things that lead me to believe that the story has a more specific focus. The fact that Dream BBQ, and the Ena series as a whole, uses multiple artstyles is not an arbitrary choice, but is used delibrately to invoke the atmosphere of video games and other media from the 90s and early 2000s, during the early stages of the internet. Certain cutscenes are based on old CDi games, used frequently in YTPs from the early 2000s. Some characters are in styles similar to point and click adventure games, a popular genre at the time. The low-poly 3D environments are reminiscent of LSD: Dream Emulator, a surreal exploration game from 1998 that was obscure when released but gained notoriety through online discussion.

But notice how in the ending of the chapter, the valley has been turned white and featureless, as if all the life has been sucked out of it. The land is filled with real estate agents, and people looking to make a profit. The smoke has been removed, and Frank comments that "vain pretense has met its match, and noble truth holds sway" in the aftermath. The smoke here could be another literal metaphor as in the phrase "smoke and mirrors" denoting intentional deception to redirect attention, a phrase derived from techniques used by stage magicians. Deception has been removed, and reality can plainly be seen.

I want to wait for more of the story to be released so I can evaluate more, but I believe this is a story about the commodification of art, especially on the internet.

[Eren Hinger]

I don't think ENA: Dream BBQ has some overarching thesis to make or anything, but I do think there is supposed to be some sort of message told through ENA herself, as this seems to be the case with the webseries ENA.
Now, we only have one chapter to look at, but from what I've seen I'd assume it has something to do with social anxiety.

• Under the Gameplay section of the game's description, it says you can "Live the experience of being the least popular person at any party." Strange.
  
• By looking at the behind-the-scenes content that comes with Support Edition, as well as the advertising and teasers for Chapter 1, it seems that the Purge Event and the Bathroom are likely the main routes, with the Ascension and the Lost Village serving as alternate routes. Therefore, I will assume that the Purge Event and the Bathroom are likely more thematically relevant than the alt routes.
  
• The call sprites for the distressed ENA right before entering the Purge Event are labeled as "Anxiety ENA", so I believe she is supposed to be anxious at the party. The version of her in the Core and the Bathroom with a hole in her stomach is dubbed "Hangover ENA" is the credits. It seems that ENA got anxious at a party, got drunk/high on... whatever the hell that whole "follow the whistle" segment is, and wound up seeking the Bathroom to freshen up, or perhaps for a moment of peace and quiet.
  Now I am not nearly smart enough to accurately dissect and extrapolate meaning from the Bathroom cutscene. There's definitely something there, but the stuff about ENA's thoughts conflicting with her goals will likely be a running theme across chapters, so it's easier to just wait and see here. Take all of this with a grain of salt, this is just my inexperienced two cents.
  
  EDIT: I speculate that Salesperson ENA will receive some development in future chapters, as this one had a heavy focus on Meanie ENA. Guess we'll see.

[ChaoticMentality]

Originally posted by Sprack:

There are also multiple places in the game that focus on hunger and eating as well. The title is Dream BBQ, of course, but there are other major points:
1. The purge event is focused around people being transformed and eaten. For many of the attendees, being eaten is seen as a desirable result, and likely the reason someone would want to come back to the party at all based on Bunrako's dialogue.
2. The pets/babies collected could possibly be "tonight's dinner" according to their inventory description, and when turned in, Shoryo states that he is starving and can now have a good meal.
3. In the trailer, we can see the human-looking version of Ena with the hole in her abdomen, desperately crawling towards a dancing spatula. The burning hole in her gut is taking a phrase for hunger very literally, and she is chasing after a utensil used to prepare and serve food. We see hints towards this in the final portion of the chapter, including the humanized Ena and a glimpse of the dancing spatula but not the full scene.
4. Theodora's reminder that all it takes it the right place and the right food.

In general, the story is a critique of class under capitalism, with Ena being representative of the poor working class who can barely afford to put food on the table despite working hard. Characters like the receptionist, the vending machine, and the woman in the gift shop look down on her for being poor. She has a friendly, "customer service" persona but hates having to live like this, an emotion which bubbles up frequently.

However, there are certain things that lead me to believe that the story has a more specific focus. The fact that Dream BBQ, and the Ena series as a whole, uses multiple artstyles is not an arbitrary choice, but is used delibrately to invoke the atmosphere of video games and other media from the 90s and early 2000s, during the early stages of the internet. Certain cutscenes are based on old CDi games, used frequently in YTPs from the early 2000s. Some characters are in styles similar to point and click adventure games, a popular genre at the time. The low-poly 3D environments are reminiscent of LSD: Dream Emulator, a surreal exploration game from 1998 that was obscure when released but gained notoriety through online discussion.

But notice how in the ending of the chapter, the valley has been turned white and featureless, as if all the life has been sucked out of it. The land is filled with real estate agents, and people looking to make a profit. The smoke has been removed, and Frank comments that "vain pretense has met its match, and noble truth holds sway" in the aftermath. The smoke here could be another literal metaphor as in the phrase "smoke and mirrors" denoting intentional deception to redirect attention, a phrase derived from techniques used by stage magicians. Deception has been removed, and reality can plainly be seen.

I want to wait for more of the story to be released so I can evaluate more, but I believe this is a story about the commodification of art, especially on the internet.

a classist outlook implies wealth is a barrier to needed resources if that were the case ena would have likely just spent that aspiration/wish on asking for a job under the boss of this place which is clearly a fairly profitable operation compared to her present job which has to go to such ridiculous lengths for what should be a simple appointment

much of the difference between enas sides break down to emotional masking her salesmen side is more about trying to make her actual goals palatable to those around her than being completely genuine entrepreneurs tend to get shot down by the system often enough someone just in it for the cash usually tries to get in on existing operations

entrepreneurs are usually people who want more than the system can offer at present or see little ability too actually get anything from it for whatever reason the naive idealist type would have likely tried to clarify genie rather than just given up like ena did which speaks more to thinking little enough of the people around her that clarifying would likely just get unwanted attention

similar behavior happened around crypto
crypto was something smart people did because they hate the government period the only profit its intended market saw in it was a tool to cut government interference out of production a task they were dubious enough about its actual capabilities for to have iffy adoption.

for everyone else the idea smart people hated the government was so abominable they all decided the crypto people had to be stupid or they were lying and it was about getting money the latter crypto bros becoming easy enough suckers for scams they ended up ego stroking the former despite many getting tech enough to know crypto was a huge tech breakthrough

that ena spent what was a straight up wish knowingly on her job while being tempted by other personal gain options says a lot that she either doubted a genie with a choice in the matter would have given her what she REALLY wanted or lacked certainty she both knew and could communicate what she actually needed and just considered doubling down on her job the best bet

hunger very much plays a role but for the genie in particular they likely knew they had little to offer ena and that she likewise had little reason to be there by choice and it was best to just see if she had any business before sending her off
4. Theodora's reminder that all it takes is the right place and the right food.
this was very much about ena having reached the wrong place the story goes on but ena was on the wrong route and while theo had little to offer herself if ena had much of a grasp herself she would have avoided both routes