Venba

Developer: Visai Games
Publisher: Visai Games
Release: 2023
Genre: Simulation, Puzzle
Art Style: Drawing
Platforms: Steam, PS5, Nintendo Switch, XOne, XSeries X|S

The aroma of cinnamon travels me back to my childhood, when my grandmother was preparing sweets to treat me and my sister! It even brings fleetingly their taste in my mouth! Desserts made with simple ingredients, which she had learned from her mother long before moving from a small village of Peloponnese to Athens, the capital city of Greece. She knew the recipes by heart and she was always adding those special spices which made everything delicious. Love and care!

According to the developer, homeland food connects a human being to family and cultural roots. It also has the power to awaken memories and emotions. Visai Games is based in Toronto. Abhi, the lead designer of Venba, was 12 years old when he immigrated from South India to Canada with his parents. The majority of the development team members hail from countries of South Asia. The story of the single-player Narrative Cooking game resulted to an extent from personal experiences.

The preparation of representative dishes of the Tamil cuisine works as a link between an Indian couple, who immigrated to the country of North America in the late 80s, their culture, the ancestors, but also the descendants. Venba, our character in the game, and Paavalan, her husband, are worried about their future in Canada.

They struggle earning enough money for their necessary expenses and helping their relatives in India, although they are both educated. The birth of their child intensifies their worries. Should they stay in the country with the high standard of living or return to India where they will not feel like foreigners?

During about one hour, we follow the family of three over the course of about three decades and each one of the seven chapters of the game focuses on an important event in their lives. Venba and Paavalan try hard to maintain their dignity and identity, while seeking to pass on the Tamil language and customs to Kavin, their only son. Cooking will play its part!

Venba, Paavalan and Kavin chat with each other and we sometimes have to choose the woman’s answer from the two suggested ones. Our choices don’t impact the sequence of events and the ending of the game, but this way we get more information about life before and after the migration.

The dialogues appear always in English, however the couple converse in Tamil. Whenever the characters actually speak in English, the subtitles are in yellow. This trick by the devs becomes mostly obvious when Venba talks to her son in Tamil, so that he won’t forget it. Her lines are in white. Kaven insists on answering in the language he uses at school and with his friends.

Venba is in a festive mood when she cooks for special occasions and she listens to songs from her homeland. She enjoys the whole process and her main concern is to satisfy her family with the delicacies she will serve. Venba consults her mother’s recipe book, but it is often impossible to read everything on its battered pages. She doesn’t improvise in cases like these, but she remembers her mother and her advice when they were cooking together back in India.

The gameplay is casual in the cooking sim parts of Venba. The necessary utensils and ingredients for a dish are laid out on the table. The book is almost always at hand and Venba helps us figure out how to prepare Idlis, Dosas, Biryani and more with her suggestions. By moving the mouse or rotating the left stick on a controller and with a few clicks, we add ingredients to the blender or pot, we season the rice and the fish, we turn the Dosas to cook on both sides and so on.

By concluding this review, Visai Games approaches in an intelligent and sensitive way issues that concern millions of people in the world, wherever they come from. The story is touching, the colorful graphics look beautiful and the gameplay is enjoyable. Getting to know a different culture also makes things particularly interesting!

As I mentioned before, the game is short. The exact time will depend on your cooking skills! When you’ve finished Venba once, you can revisit the chapters in any order you wish. You might want to change your choices in dialogues and cook more!