I was going to play and talk about Chasing Static this week but I had forgotten about a few games that had come out, and so I bought them. I had talked about Venba’s demo some time ago, but now, this week I am going to cook up some Indian food all the while learning about immigration and how it fares on the families who make the journey in search of a better life. This week is Venba.

Venba is a narrative cooking game from Visai Games. The game was released at the end of July 2023 for all modern consoles and PC and retails for $15.

Venba follows an Indian mother who immigrates, with her husband, to Canada in the 1980s. Cooking takes center stage as Venba tries to stitch back together her mother’s ruined cookbook as well as grappling with the woes of starting a new life in a foreign country. Cooking is much more than a way to feed her family, it is how Venba shows her affection for her family, By making Idlis for her husband and an entire feast for when her son comes home to see his family. Venba is broken into small chapters that cover a significant moment in Venba‘s life, some filled with joy and many more filled with sadness and heartbreak.

Each chapter has a correlating recipe puzzle that needs to be stitched back together. This cookbook is absolutely destroyed as it has pages missing, entire pages have been smudged and nothing can be made out, food and oil stains are everywhere and it requires Venba to remember her childhood and piece together each recipe. With the help of the cookbook and Venba‘s memories, the player has everything they need to cook the perfect dish.

Each recipe is complex and as the game progresses, it gets more complex without being unforgiving. The cooking minigames feel like you are partaking in the song-and-dance of creating some of the most beautiful-looking food I have ever seen in a video game. Hearing the sizzling sound of adding spices to a pan filled with oil or hitting the perfect flip on a fish right before it is about to burn is a feeling that cannot be replicated.

Venba wraps up somewhere between two hours, but what the players get out of it is a rough understanding of the complex nature of raising a child in a new country. One of which is when the son pushes his Tamil heritage to the side because he views it as an avenue to fit in and not be viewed as an outsider. Venba is short but never loses sight of the important aspects of the game.

As noted above, Venba is an absolutely beautiful game. The food that you prepare during the mini-games, the finished product, and the overall look of the game are so colorful and welcoming.

Venba is such a good video game. The story is the first part that gripped me with understanding the struggles of starting a new life in a new country coupled with the complex nature of children and their acceptance of their cultural heritage. The game is laser-focused on telling this story through family conversation, cooking, and memories. It lasts only under two hours but Visai Games really focused on the story and really brought it. Venba is a great narrative game with great mini-games that just adds that extra spice to the story.