Here’s a recipe for a good game: a meaty cross-cultural story, a dash of delicious food, and a dollop of fun, cosy gameplay. Those are the ingredients of Venba, and mixed together – and topped with a reference to Ratatouille – they form a wonderful narrative-led game that had us wanting seconds.
Visai Studios has dished up a title that takes you through the life of a woman named Venba, her husband Paavalan, and their son Kavin. It begins not long after Venba and Paavalan have moved from India to Canada, and charts their lives as they struggle to find work, adjust to a new country, and raise Kavin in a way that meets his desire to fit in with his friends while keeping his roots intact.
This may look like a cooking game but it’s more a story game with cooking mechanics. Comparisons will be made to Cooking Mama but they aren’t accurate. You won’t find such an emotional plot in Cooking Mama, and the gastronomy here is more puzzle-like than dextrous.
The core gameplay is looking through Venba’s mother’s cookbook and following the recipes. It’s an old book, though, and pages are sometimes torn or covered in smudges from years in the kitchen. You might have to fill in the blanks, or decipher a diagram, in order to cook the dish. The cooking method is moving a cursor to pick up and put down ingredients and utensils. It ranges from placing things in the right order, to repeating certain steps a few times, to managing temperature. Unfortunately, there’s no touchscreen capability, but the controls are sharp enough in Venba that it didn’t detract from our enjoyment.
The puzzles are fun to solve, and not difficult, with generous clues skilfully written in the characters’ voices. If you make a mistake, the game encourages you to try again, and there are no consequences for messing something up (unlike cooking outside the console). Outside the kitchen, you can also choose responses to conversations, but your decisions don’t seem to have any broader effect. Otherwise, it’s a fairly hands-off experience. That isn’t everyone’s taste, but with the engagement in the story, the gameplay doesn’t grow stale.
Venba (whose name is a form of Tamil poetry, reflecting the game’s poetic structure) and her family’s story is told with chapters set years apart. The game uses rich storytelling cues such as calendars, photos, and even text messages to show the passage of time. Each marks events big and small with a meal that you cook, because food is what brings this family together. Venba announces she’s pregnant by adding a mini idli to Paavalan’s plate. As a child, Kavin demands pizza until his mother teaches him a Tamil dish with a rocket-shaped machine: puttu. And, when a grown-up Kavin says he’s coming home for the weekend, we experience Venba’s excitement preparing her son’s favourite dishes.
The sweet and at times heartbreaking storyline is layered, too, with commentary on overt and covert racism, and on cultural appropriation for commercial gain. It’s never wholly critical, though, and always offers food for thought on the intricacies of these issues. The text on screen is often in Tamil (sometimes with English, sometimes not), which enriches the world. It even becomes part of the puzzle later in the game.
Venba is presented with a colourful loose illustration style which lends itself to the sometimes rocky events and rustic nature of cooking. The roughened edges and pencil-like textures stood out for us, especially in the food illustrations and animations. Paired with these sound effects, the cooking scenes were so vivid we could almost smell the spices popping in oil, the chicken stock simmering. We were impressed at the ability to evoke senses that aren’t usually in games. Set to background music inspired by Tamil films, all the elements immerse you in Venba’s world.
Many people see food as a connection to place, and Venba serves us heartwarming moments that cover the literal and metaphorical distance between Indian and Canadian cultures – or, broadly, East and West. For anyone who’s ever experienced such inner conflict (this writer included), those moments felt very real and lived-in. However, it’s still easily digestible, and informative, for anyone who hasn’t. Moreover, it’s decent fun no matter your background.
As for performance, there were reports of some technical issues in the game, but we didn’t experience any when we played. The frame rate may be lesser than other platforms but we found it still went down a treat on Switch.
With its engrossing storyline and uncomplicated puzzles, Venba is as relaxing and cosy as a homemade meal. The minimal gameplay isn’t for everyone, but fans of Unpacking or A Little to the Left will eat it up. This game taught us a lot about Southern Indian cuisine and made us want to learn more about it. Of course that by no means makes us experts, but we were glad to have come away from a game with a little more perspective, a rumbling belly, and a few tears. Our only major complaint is that it’s very short. Although we see a lot of the family in snippets, it might have been nice to get just a few more scenes in the middle, as Kavin matures. As it is, the two-hour runtime left us hungry for more (yes, that is a Ratatouille reference).
Conclusion
In Venba’s short play time, the narrative-led cooking game conveys so much of this family’s experience. The stirring story is presented in snackable chapters, each with an emotional tale tied to a dish. The puzzles aren’t too challenging, making for a comforting, cosy playthrough as you prepare each meal. Be warned though: this game will make you hungry. And it may also make you cry.
Comments 20
Passive gameplay won't be for everyone, but what game IS for everyone? It's the course the developers chose.
Would be great if they were actual Indian recipes, they're absolutely delicious. Maybe I'll check the game out for them and for the story, despite the commentary on "cultural appropriation", a term that I personally despise.
The story and gameplay sound great and personally the game being short is more of a plus than a negative considering all the games I'd like to play (although it seems it could've been even better if it had been even just slightly longer) so I'll eventually get it!
@Princess_Lilly The Tamil people
are from South India (and Northern Sri Lanka) so yes the recipes are found in India.
@Princess_Lilly
"Passive gameplay won't be for everyone, but what game IS for everyone? It's the course the developers chose."
yeah, this is really well said, and i too recoil at the "wont be for everyone" phraseology constantly showing up in the CON section of every review.
"Passive gameplay is perfect for many!" is an equally applicable JOY that vould have just as easily been applied. as you said, it is the path the developers chose, and its a mission accomplished, not a failure 👍
✌️
@charlieonholiday yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of "actual recipes" -> a recipe you can follow and make an edible dish. I like experimenting and making various versions of a dish to see what works well.
@-wc- yeah I really dislike the "not for everybody" trope. Strangely, current western AAA that are very niche nowadays, will never get the "not for everybody" label, it's only indie games.
I was hoping this would turn out well. Will add to the wishlist.
@Princess_Lilly I suppose you're right, but this game is very niche, I think the "not for everybody" label is necessary for a lot of indie games like this for the same reason a lot of modern art might not be for everyone. It's like this is definitely made to appeal to a specific audience, and a niche audience. It is one of those things to keep in mind when it comes to indie games like this, as they are often short experiences and not really the type of gaming most people go for.
@Princess_Lilly
"Strangely, current western AAA that are very niche nowadays, will never get the "not for everybody" label, it's only indie games."
another excellent point!
TOTK is not "for everybody," either, lol. how does that even matter at all as a metric??
Jazz isnt for everybody, 6/10. 😋
As the great video game reviewer (Yahtzee Croshaw) once said:
"First, I should say that Return of the Obra Dinn isn't for everyone. Wow, that's a... useless sentence, isn't it? Nothing's "for everyone", except maybe oxygen and Pixar films"
@Princess_Lilly @-wc- @milvus976578
I don't expect games to be passive. I mean, we PLAY video games, we don't WATCH them. I still like passive games and I'm ... mostly enjoying this one. But pointing it out is a really good idea, and it's hard to say it's not a CON: it's the thing MOST people are not going to like about this game.
Reviews are extremely subjective. For some reason we all freak out like there is a correct score and every reviewer should give every game that unbias score. That's silly!
What we SHOULD do is find a reviewer who has the same biases we have and value their reviews over other people with a different bias. This dude says it's an 8 and likes a lot of games I like, so I guess it's good. This dude says it's a 4 and I hate all the game they like, so I guess that also means it's good!
Putting "Passive gameplay is not for everyone" in the CONs of a game that has a score of 8 is the reviewer telling people that for most of the people reading this, the score of 8 is going to seem too high. They go on to point out the bias that is leading them to that higher review score: they don't mind that the game is passive.
It's to reassure the people who generally agree with them but do not agree with this review that they haven't been wrong in trusting this reviewer. There is just one aspect of this game that is particularly polarizing, and the reviewer understands exactly what it is. Almost like they are good at their job or something.
I think you'll see the line pops up pretty consistently when an unexpected, obviously polarizing aspect is present, like a wired art style or reliance on low humor.
@HeadPirate
i agree that it should be highlighted 👍 just not in the con section, in the way they do 😂 cons should be failures of the game to live up to an expectation, and this is a success.
game reviews should generally be written by people that enjoy those kinds of games. if you dont like those kinds of games, you know the reviewer isnt talking to you anyway. 😊
i mostly agree with you though! especially the part about finding reviewers that enjoy the kinds of games you like 👍👍
I'm about an hour in and really loving the story. If you have Game Pass I definitely would recommend it.
@-wc-
99% of people only read the pro/cons and score, so it's gotta go there. It's not a pro, and it's not a number ... so ...
Just a fun note; one of the reasons game are reviewed by lottery almost everywhere is that people who like a genre generally rate games in that genre much LOWER then the average. Think about it; if you like a game style and have played 100s of offerings, you're going to spot common flaws much quicker and be much less forgiving then someone who hasn't. Same with freelance. One of the reasons that freelance reviews fall out of favor is that selection bias means that freelancers only play games they are already interested in, so they review higher then the average.
Turns out the best way to get a honest review is to force some sucker to play a game they don't like for 80 hours
"people who like a genre generally rate games in that genre much LOWER then the average"
"freelancers only play games they are already interested in, so they review higher then the average"
I'm a little confused, but you seem pretty confident in what you're saying. 👍
@-wc-
Haha, I can see how that looks like a contradiction
When you are assigned a game in a genre you like, you rate it lower because you can see the flaws. There is no investment because you didn't select to review that game, you're just the FPS guy and it's an FPS game.
When you PICK a game you like, you rate it higher because you are defending your pre-formed opinions. You told people (and yourself) it was going to be good, so you are inclined to confirm it is good. That's a pretty common selection bias. It's why movie ratings from people who go see it in theaters are always MUCH higher then people who end up watching it on streaming.
@-wc- The Joy-Con section is just a handy little summary at the bottom of a review to help the reader decide whether a game is for them. It’s not necessarily a definitive indictment of the product.
Does the fact that no game is for everyone mean that no game should be awarded a 10/10? Or indeed any score, because someone (many people) will inevitably feel differently?
I’d argue no, though some would disagree. (Especially about the 10/10 thing: “No game is perfect, so no game should get a perfect score”…which means highest score you can award is a 9, which gives you a new scoring system out of 9 with a new perfect score is 9… which should never be awarded because no game is perfect… so then the highest score is now an 8… and so on and so forth until you have no scoring system at all, which is a position that quite a few websites have understandably arrived at.)
Game reviewers try to strike a balance between subjectively and objectivity (which admittedly is pretty much impossible because the latter so poorly defined as to be almost meaningless). Nevertheless, they try.
A review is ultimately just one person’s view-point, but is written to be read by many. As such, reviewers usually write with the potential viewpoints and preferences of the (typically diverse) readership in mind. And many ‘gamers’ are quite vocal about the fact that they think games ought to be ‘played’ (actively) rather than ‘experienced’ (passively). It’s not an opinion I hold, but it is undeniably a sentiment shared by many.
As such, the fact that this is a relatively ‘passive’ game should be signposted, as this is genuinely useful information for a seemingly sizeable fraction of the site’s readership.
The ‘Cons’ section seems a logical place to list what many might consider to be negatives, even if the author doesn’t necessarily feel the same.
EDIT: Just seen that HeadCannon has written the same thing in (slightly) fewer words. It doesn’t really seem that we’re in huge disagreement. I just think that the Cons section is perfect place for this information, as long as it’s interpreted as “things some people might find off-putting” rather than “objectively bad things about the game that should have been fixed”. Sometimes both points get listed in the same section which understandably rubs people up the wrong way.
@HeadPirate @JayJ I would agree if not for 2 points:
1. Before buying any game, you always at least watch a trailer of that game, and it showcases everything you need to know. You can also do a 2 minute check online about the game you buy. If you buy a game without even knowing what it is, it's on you.
2. But why should anyone limit themselves to labeling indie games with that? Modern AAA games are very niche too, and they are also made for a very specific type of gamers in mind, yet they never get labeled as niche, and their scores are never lowered because of that.
I agree on reviews being subjective, but putting a specific game's very core solution as a con just doesn't sit right with me. It's like saying I don't like Forza Motorsport because I prefer FPS games. But I'm not reviewing an FPS now, I'm reviewing Forza.
Playing games is a very broad term, and if the game is more narrative than most, it should not suffer from being labelled as "less of a game". In hide and seek it's your objective to stay put for as long as possible, but you're not "playing' it any "less" than tag, in which you just run around "actively playing". Same with the point and click games. Would anyone dare to say Myst is less of a game than CoD?
The bottom line is, games like this tend have a "strong flavor", they are "thicker" than most games. Some people like bland dishes, some prefer ones with more of and "oomph" to them. Saying that strongly following a direction instead of trying to appeal to the lowest denominator of gamers is a con is saying that the masses should dictate what is good and what is not.
So seeing it’s 2 hours long makes me say yeah I’ll pick this up on a discount sale sometime. Like if it’s 15 I’ll wait a year or something until it’s 7 sorry. It does seem genuinely interesting thi and a game I think I would like and also be quite hungry while playing hahaha.
The other thing tho and this is not aimed at Nintendo Life specifically but more just something I noticed from ALL the reviewers of this game like IGN, GameSpot and so on. For these reviews they bring out their South Asian I believe the term is reviewers and like yeah no duh it’s their culture. It’s not that that I’m upset with but rather the fact that it’s like I wish these people weren’t just trotted out because they were commenting on their connection to the culture. They deserve the spotlight beyond just this is what I’m trying to say. This reviewer should be like headlining the Mario Wonder review or something this review was top quality. Again I’m by no means making any bigoted or inflammatory comments here I guess all of this is my roundabout way of saying give this reviewer more work they’re amazing.
@karolinpoznan thank u for acknowledging my people.
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