By having something of import to say at all, Venba already aspires higher than most games. Unfortunately, in the telling I ended up feeling disappointed.

It was nothing to do with the story, mind you. Venba is beautiful within and without - a truly stunning art style and buoyant, cheerful music successfully propel a simple story from merely interesting to bordering on moving. As a first-generation immigrant (though not of the same diaspora as Venba's protagonists), there was much for me to relate to and enjoy in Venba's narrative. That said, I wouldn't say that having a similar background is even necessary to relate to Venba: The characters are realistically rendered and charming, and its difficult not to cheer for them even when they clash and act cruelly. In addition, the game's more heartfelt moments feel genuinely earned when they come about, something that is not an easy task. Paavalan, Venba, and Kavin are time and again relatable, unreasonable, courageous, difficult, and warm; insofar as game protagonists go, these are amongst the more compelling. Not only that, the central framing of the story as a series of vignettes told over and around meals is a masterstroke, inviting moments of dramatic irony and discovery as the characters and players operate off of very different time scales and sets of information. In all - its effective, in more ways than one.

Having finished it, though, I was left to wonder why it was a game, rather than some other form of media. Venba's core mechanics are lightweight to the point of near obsoletion - it's a cooking game, of sorts, though a significantly stripped down one. I would relate it closer to point-and-click adventures or Layton puzzle games than more traditional cooking games like Cooking Mama or even the more modern Overcooked.

That is not necessarily a negative, but Venba never seems interested in interrogating its core mechanics or putting them to work as major facets of the overall experience. Concepts are introduced as one-offs, then put away just as quickly, and the difficulty of the puzzles rarely rise above the merely interruptive - it often felt more akin to following an instruction manual than figuring something out on my own.

It's not that Venba doesn't have good ideas - a late puzzle where the player is invited to cook without guidance from a written recipe due to Kavin's inexperience with the Tamil language is a really good example of what Venba could be. Its a moment that is Venba at its most mechanically satisfying, and in which the game shows that it does understand how mechanics can reinforce narrative themes. Unfortunately, it lasts about five minutes, and then we are rapidly ferried on to something else.

This is what I mean when I say Venba is frustrating. Its an obvious passion project, and one that does not appear to lack for effort, but in finishing it I was left rather unsatisfied, like something was missing. That something, I think, was engagement with the better parts of videogames, of interactive media. Venba is a wonderful story, well told; it is not, however, a particularly engaging video game. Worse, it does not appear concerned with being a video game at all, and gameplay that is present feels almost token.

Look, Venba is about an hour long. You should play it. It's interesting, well-written, and full of enough love and care to more than justify its runtime. Strangely, though, it's a game that I recommend almost begrudgingly, which is perhaps more my fault than its own. I really wanted to like Venba; in a sense, I did like Venba. I just wish it had convinced me that I liked a game rather than the animated short around that game.