Venba Review

My very first job was in a kitchen; to this day, 10+ years later, it's all I've done for work. Now, I'm not the best cook in town, but I got into it and have stayed in the field for one reason, and that's impact. Being able to help make someone's day or having something you create become a part of someone's memory or special event is a special type of serotonin hit. Meals are something most people nowadays take for granted, but almost everyone can point you back to a memory growing up or recently that food has played a part in. Maybe it was a meal from a family member that is no longer with you; maybe it was something that became a celebratory treat throughout your upbringing; or maybe you're in the vast majority of people with family recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. Venba captures these moments and explores a family's dynamic while trying to cement themselves in a country that's as culturally opposite from their norm as it can be.

Venba is a very small narrative-driven game following the lives of Venba, Paavalan, and their son Kavin. Uprooting from India to Canada leaves the family questioning what's best for their family as it grows and struggles through job searches and the general struggles of immigration. The gameplay of Venba is tied together by you creating recipes from Venba's mother's recipe book that has seen better days. These small puzzle-like sections where you're combining ingredients and trying to piece together missing sections of a recipe are really just an extra dash of flavor for a beautifully crafted story that was tugging at my heart strings halfway through. While not trying to be the next "big indie darling" in a saturated year for video games, Venba feels like it was made with a direct purpose and reasoning behind it. The developers at "Visai Studios" have turned what would otherwise be straight-to-the-point recipes into a small batch of puzzles that require attention, order, and just a little bit of trial and error to create a gameplay loop that feels rewarding and informative at the same time. While trying to decipher recipes that have been worn with age or smeared with stains, you'll find yourself placing and transferring ingredients from bowls and pots, adding spices or ingredients in the correct order, and at one point, making sure to stack your coconut and flour in the correct pattern to build a rocket. The gameplay gets intwined with the story, with you at one point taking control of Kavin, who, as an adult, has almost forgotten his Tamil language and can't make sense of a majority of recipes, piecing together steps while trying to remember individual words to help paint a picture in your mind of the final product. Thankfully, as you piece these recipes together, you are treated to a wonderfully curated selection of Tamil music. I found myself bobbing along to the beats and tunes more often than not in my roughly 3-hour playthrough.

While you're not going to go out on your own and make these dishes based on the information in the game, you get an insight into how Indian cuisine is crafted and the different mechanics and ingredients that are favored. Following an immigrant family from India, the game is full of Tamil writing and takes excellent care in properly representing that culture and showcasing it off in a fun and almost chalky art style. This is also where the main friction in the story takes place. How does Kavin, growing up, try to fit in with his white "normal" classmates while keeping his Tamil roots and learning two languages? What would a child do if kids growing up started calling them a more "white" name instead of their given name? This puts a ton of pressure on Kavin to balance his life at home, respect where he came from, and manage a normal life in the outside world. While this is something I obviously can't speak on out of experience, Paavalan, the father of the household, is where this came from. Paavalan's entire life revolves around trying to find a job to support his family, and with a baby on the way, that pressure builds up more than ever. While being an experienced and well-versed writer, sadly only in Tamil and not English, and having a Bachelor of Science in Physics. Sadly, a language barrier is enough to leave Paavalan fighting a constant uphill battle of rejection and feeling defeated. Watching him struggle and try to be the support he needed hit me harder than I was expecting, as I'm currently at the point in my life where children are up for debate and I don't feel like I'm established and settled enough to raise a child and give them the life they deserve. That constant shadow of defeat is always looming with every decision I make nowadays, it seems.

Venba isn't something I'd recommend to everybody, but to those I would, they’re in for one of this year’s most unique delights. It's definitely a game that requires your attention and an open mind to problems and issues your neighbors or whole communities of people in cities are experiencing on a daily basis purely because they're immigrants. In a time where the world feels more divided than ever, Venba feels like a breath of fresh air to close the gap between racial and cultural bias. Venba is available now on Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Windows, and is currently available through Game Pass.