REVIEW: ‘Venba’ Cooks A Thoughtful Narrative (Switch)

Developed and published by Visai Studios, Venba is a narrative cooking game set in the 1980s. It tells an earnest, heartfelt story about the challenges an Indian immigrant family faces as strangers in a new land. Time spent with Venba is short but sits wistfully in your mind for longer. Chapters act like moments, replayable like a contemplative memory in your sleepless hours. Each chapter highlights an important moment for our family members, weaved together to tell how cultural identity is held and lost. Venba is thoughtful in its execution throughout. A clever analogous color scheme creates familial comfort as chalk-like textures add the right amount of detail to its world. Furthermore, it narrows in on three symbolic audibles: writing, music, and cooking.

The sound of graphite etching onto paper voices our characters. Tonally rendered three ways, they do well complementing each’s demeanor. Quick, light, airy strokes carry warmth and life as Venba while hard-pressed and slower strokes are held by a stoic husband, Paavalan. Seeking a balance, Kavin’s medium strokes settle between the two parents.

The occasional binary dialogue tree moves the story. Additionally, so does cooking. An aged, red book with faint yellow embellishments always sits at the counter as players begin to cook. With this book, players will learn how to prepare authentic regional southern Indian dishes. Hints guide players to progress and more information is available about each meal.

Pages are worn and have seen much love over the years. Sometimes, steps for recipes are not well translated or have smudges. This aspect of Venba is light and fun to tackle as players drag and drop items to figure out the proper sequence. It feels very much like trying out a recipe for the first time as you try to make sense of the instructions. Spices crackle and hiss in the oil of a heated pot as a traditional Indian music track plays in the background. These moments while fun, display how cooking and music can hold importance in celebrating and maintaining culture.

A dial turns, and music initiates food preparation in the game. After all, it isn’t unheard of to listen to your favorite tracks while preparing meals. Venba utilizes this common behavioral concept as a way for players to engage in a culture that isn’t often well-represented in video games. In almost every chapter, you’re cooking and learning something new. Thusly, it serves as an anchoring point for our characters and is vital for development. It’s part of all our daily lives. Whether we buy it premade or cook it ourselves, there’s a story behind the food and it’s one that can be shared. Universal and borderless, often, we forget the value it once holds.

By the end of the game, I found myself wishing there were more. More recipes. More expansion on anxious situations. They were brief but served the purpose of telling the timeline of a bigger picture.  It gave me space to reflect on similar scenarios, being a child of refugee parents. Looking at lost recipes and trying to restore them, I would find myself thinking about them. I thought about meals my mother would make that were unique to our culture and how challenging it was to tackle new cultural norms and customs.

While players often reconvene in the kitchen, there is so much more Venba has for its players to experience. It speaks on social issues people can face when placed in a society that feels adverse to acceptance and understanding. Through a narration that feels reflective and personal, players slowly begin to witness how a person can feel torn between two worlds.

Venba is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation, and Xbox.