Venba review: expanding the boundaries of the cooking genre

VenbaIt is not what you would expect. Of course, food is important to games like Cooking MamaYou can also find out more about OvercookedBut in VenbaThe food It is a good idea to use a bilingual translator The game. Over the course of developer Visai Games’ upcoming release, which took me just over an hour to play, the studio deploys cooking mechanics as a way to explore the culture and unlock the memories of the titular Venba, an immigrant mother struggling to connect with her young son.

Venba’s husband and she leave Tamil Nadu for Canada to start a new life. Food, for Venba, is an act of care and a connection to her past; food is the way she shows her love, whether that’s making lunch for her husband each morning or or creating a celebratory atmosphere around each nightly dinner. Each short chapter is a vignette encapsulating a year in Venba’s life. These chapters — sometimes heartwarming, sometimes painful — progress from the early days of the family’s move to Canada, teaching moments with their young son, and conflict and heartbreak as the trio grows older.

Every chapter includes a visual novel segment and a simple cooking challenge. As Venba, you cook the recipes pulled from an old family cookbook that’s obviously well-loved — it’s battered and torn, splashed with oils and sauces. Here’s where the puzzles begin; some of the recipes lack ingredients due to blurred words and a page tear. Venba draws from her own memories to complete these missing pieces. The cookbook and Venba’s memoir will give you all the information you need. Each recipe has been beautifully rendered. Venba’s stylized, colorful art style, everything from a complex biryani to a towering puttu.

Visai Games

There is no need to worry about the difficulty of these recipes. Because in Venba, that’s not really the point. It’s not about testing dexterity, or your ability to use a controller. Instead, it’s using the physical act of cooking — the delicateness required to pinch spices into sizzling oil or dexterity to flip ingredients before they burn — to give further depth to its story.

You can find out more about this by clicking here. Venba adds up to is a short, touching story about the life of an Indian Canadian family — the beauty and joy of Tamil culture alongside the struggle of immigrant parents and their kid. It’s a complex relationship depicted between parents and a kid as their son pushes away from Tamil culture in exchange for fitting in. Food and recipes change along with the changing relationships and move the story forward in a natural and focused way.

Visai Games

It is quite impressive to see such a high level of speed in a game. Venba, which packs decades of Venba’s story into just over an hour. The story could have felt rushed or incomplete, but I was able to linger on the intense scenes and really feel them. Venba never once loses sight of its emotional core, and it’s paced expertly throughout its short but powerful run time.

Would I have liked more? VenbaVisai Games’ story is complete and focused, despite its vivid sound, moving story and delicious food.

Venba Released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on Windows PCs, Xbox Ones, Xbox Series X, Xbox Ones, Xbox Ones, and Xbox Ones. Visai Games supplied a Steam Deck pre-release code to be used in the review. Vox Media partners with affiliates. Vox Media can earn affiliate commissions, but this does not affect editorial content. This is where you can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.