Venba review: A sizzling dish layered with love and care

When I first came across Venba and its premise, I was instantly enamored by its premise. The developer describes it as a narrative cooking game centered around a family that immigrated to Canada from the southern parts of India. Once I dove into it, I found that the title beautifully layers the various aspects of what it feels like living away from your homeland and trying to hold on to its roots and culture.

In Venba, cooking food isn't simply a mechanic that players have to engage in from time to time. It's not a simulator where you learn various ways of preparing a meal. Rather, cooking dishes is the cynosure of Venba. The tale it tells revolves around the preparation of these dishes and navigating the emotions they hold for the family.

Venba triggers a sense of nostalgia within its sweet and savory dishes

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Without giving too much away, Venba begins with a married couple from Tamil Nadu, India, trying to survive in Canada after immigrating there. Their financial difficulties are layered through dialogs and visual elements.

Our cooking journey begins with the eponymous wife, Venba, preparing idli (a savory rice cake) for her husband and herself. She has brought with herself her mother's recipe diary, something that most of us have in our homes being passed down over the generations.

The diary is not in perfect shape, with the recipes having parts of it erased or blotted out. With the help of experimenting and rummaging through her memories, the protagonist figures it out.

For Venba, the act of cooking evokes emotions. She does it to show care for her husband or, later, her son. She prepares something celebratory when the occasion calls for it. It becomes a tether for her with her culture and the family she left behind.

This becomes especially clear when she tries to induct the same into her child. As her son clamors for pizza, she talks about a dish that will be rocket-like. The whole family gathers in the kitchen with youthful exuberance to prepare the dish.

Another moment I remember distinctly is when she prepares biriyani before her son leaves home for higher studies. As they have a serious discussion about the parent's participation in the son's life, the father is busy ruminating on how the mother has given all the pieces of meat to the son while he is left with only the rice.

Food triggers a number of our senses, and it gets intermingled with our memories. I am quickly reminded of Anton Ego, Ratatouille's stringent critic, returning to his childhood and the memory of his mother's cooking upon tasting the eponymous dish.

Culture and nostalgia (Image via Visai Games)

This is especially evident when the grown-up son returns home (now empty as the father had died earlier and the mother returned to India). Cooking her dishes and reliving the memories associated with them, the son became nostalgic over the relationship they shared and the missed opportunities.

Cooking is an art

While the recipes get complex as the game progresses, it never gets too difficult. You can choose to learn about the dishes while preparing them, seek out hints, and reset if things get too awry.

Venba doesn't test how good your culinary skills can be through inputs. Rather the food and the various dishes reflect the tone and tenor of the characters within the narrative and their interactions.

The developer has absolutely nailed the experience of cooking, the sizzling sound of the oil, how each ingredient is prepared, and how they are layered. Be it a complex preparation or one as simple as slicing the skin of a fish and frying it, the indie title provides an immersive experience.

Nevertheless, the variety that is present is delightful, with one of my fondest memories being preparing the biriyani. Given my sheer love for this particular dish, this one was a no-brainer.

In conclusion

Venba's short duration (around one to two hours long) makes it a perfect game to pick up and leisurely complete in one setting. While the basic premise of the narrative is nothing new, where it shines is how it is presented. It is packaged beautifully through colorful visual arts, succinct dialogs, and carefully layered dishes.

I do wish there was more cooking involved in the game, but that is not a deal breaker. Venba is perfectly paced and manages to neatly tie its narrative together without overstaying its welcome or meandering about.