Venba is a beautifully told story of an Indian couple, the titular Venba and her husband Paavalan, covering their struggles starting and living far from home, as they make a new life and start a family in Canada.
The story and the struggle is one that personally I cannot completely relate to, but one I find interesting and informative - a story of holding on to tradition while trying to fit in, honouring your past while trying to create a better future.
A thing that would be difficult alone or as a couple but further widens its reach in depth when bringing a new life into this new home becomes a part of it.
As a game the story is told in two particular fashions.
First is the more obvious, conversations, with choices following great art and music as Venba discusses issues, rejections, dealing with family far and away plus more.
The second part, arguably “the game” , is looking at these links through cooking.
Venba has her mother’s old cookbook, it has personal recipes and ties the family back to traditional cuisine of India, not the Pizza and Poutine they possibly find themselves surrounded with.
With the cooking comes quite tactile little mini games that also act as puzzles, puzzles because sadly due to time this cookbook is no longer perfectly clear with its instructions.
I enjoyed the puzzles, they felt fairly tactile and the game was generous with giving hints at what to do. I enjoyed the soundtrack throughout the game but there were some especially good parts during these games.
The pacing of Venba between its story segments and cooking puzzles made the game fly by without me stopping once.
What also helped is the game is barely over an hour, something I am struggling with when I think about this title but I’ll return to that later.
My main issue with the smooth pacing however, which may sound like the stupidest thing to complain about is that I think the game avoided nearly all friction and challenge to get there.
For me the toughest cooking challenge was the first. I don’t believe all games need to have an increasing difficulty as they go on but some parts felt less like puzzles and more like very minor interactions to keep the player engaged - engaged in a way where any naysayers could say it’s not just a Visual Novel.
Unlike some of the dishes you create in Venba I found it had little bite in terms of its puzzle elements and that left me sad as it does build into some interesting moments only to tail off into repetition or extremely basic interactions that remind me of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
That strange pull of a comparison (to cooking Poffins) also made me think about how this game may have appeared if it were over a decade ago.
To me, and this is by no means and insult, Venba would’ve been a great DSiWare game, maybe even an early smartphone game between messing around with a soundboard or “drinking” an iPint.
These comparisons don’t make me dislike the game, in fact they make me find it more charming but as I referred to earlier the short length becomes a small issue when I think about the cost.
Being on GamePass if you have that service this game is a no-brainer as it’s a great time to spend an hour or so, but could I advise someone to buy it for the roughly £13 it costs on Steam or the Nintendo eShop - I do not know.
I hate to use the term “your mileage may vary” in a review because if all reviews were that simplified there would be no use in reading them.
I’ve not been in the situation where I feel like a minority, at least not day-to-day and never to the extreme of how moving from one very different country to the other must be.
I’m not married and I don’t have children.
None of these things stop me understanding the characters, the stories or the struggles but they are, as I said at the start, not things I can relate to, and due to that I don’t think the effects of these twists and turns hit me as hard as it would do others.
I look at the puzzle side more as a thing to learn from and enjoy because for me that is actually a great way to connect to a culture that is not my own but I feel this game deals in that part too softly.
The story too is great but to me felt quite basic, fairly obvious and (sometimes sadly) not surprising. I respect it for doing something new in, as far as I am aware, this particular story with these particular people has not been told but that part which would be so personal for some is not for me.
Venba is good. In much fewer words that is all I want to say.
It’s good and borders on great but sadly doesn’t cross the line for me.
The story and the struggle is one that personally I cannot completely relate to, but one I find interesting and informative - a story of holding on to tradition while trying to fit in, honouring your past while trying to create a better future.
A thing that would be difficult alone or as a couple but further widens its reach in depth when bringing a new life into this new home becomes a part of it.
As a game the story is told in two particular fashions.
First is the more obvious, conversations, with choices following great art and music as Venba discusses issues, rejections, dealing with family far and away plus more.
The second part, arguably “the game” , is looking at these links through cooking.
Venba has her mother’s old cookbook, it has personal recipes and ties the family back to traditional cuisine of India, not the Pizza and Poutine they possibly find themselves surrounded with.
With the cooking comes quite tactile little mini games that also act as puzzles, puzzles because sadly due to time this cookbook is no longer perfectly clear with its instructions.
I enjoyed the puzzles, they felt fairly tactile and the game was generous with giving hints at what to do. I enjoyed the soundtrack throughout the game but there were some especially good parts during these games.
The pacing of Venba between its story segments and cooking puzzles made the game fly by without me stopping once.
What also helped is the game is barely over an hour, something I am struggling with when I think about this title but I’ll return to that later.
My main issue with the smooth pacing however, which may sound like the stupidest thing to complain about is that I think the game avoided nearly all friction and challenge to get there.
For me the toughest cooking challenge was the first. I don’t believe all games need to have an increasing difficulty as they go on but some parts felt less like puzzles and more like very minor interactions to keep the player engaged - engaged in a way where any naysayers could say it’s not just a Visual Novel.
Unlike some of the dishes you create in Venba I found it had little bite in terms of its puzzle elements and that left me sad as it does build into some interesting moments only to tail off into repetition or extremely basic interactions that remind me of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
That strange pull of a comparison (to cooking Poffins) also made me think about how this game may have appeared if it were over a decade ago.
To me, and this is by no means and insult, Venba would’ve been a great DSiWare game, maybe even an early smartphone game between messing around with a soundboard or “drinking” an iPint.
These comparisons don’t make me dislike the game, in fact they make me find it more charming but as I referred to earlier the short length becomes a small issue when I think about the cost.
Being on GamePass if you have that service this game is a no-brainer as it’s a great time to spend an hour or so, but could I advise someone to buy it for the roughly £13 it costs on Steam or the Nintendo eShop - I do not know.
I hate to use the term “your mileage may vary” in a review because if all reviews were that simplified there would be no use in reading them.
I’ve not been in the situation where I feel like a minority, at least not day-to-day and never to the extreme of how moving from one very different country to the other must be.
I’m not married and I don’t have children.
None of these things stop me understanding the characters, the stories or the struggles but they are, as I said at the start, not things I can relate to, and due to that I don’t think the effects of these twists and turns hit me as hard as it would do others.
I look at the puzzle side more as a thing to learn from and enjoy because for me that is actually a great way to connect to a culture that is not my own but I feel this game deals in that part too softly.
The story too is great but to me felt quite basic, fairly obvious and (sometimes sadly) not surprising. I respect it for doing something new in, as far as I am aware, this particular story with these particular people has not been told but that part which would be so personal for some is not for me.
Venba is good. In much fewer words that is all I want to say.
It’s good and borders on great but sadly doesn’t cross the line for me.