In today’s day and age, there’s something really special about a video game that stands up and represents a different culture or minority group.

Venba is one of those games championing Tamil culture.

READ MORE: Interview | Venba’s cultural impact ‘Why representation matters’

Venba is a narrative-driven puzzle game that takes a visual novel with a unique art style and turns it into an emotionally enriching game, dragging you through the trials and tribulations of family challenges and cultural acceptance through the gift of cooking.

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In Venba, you play as an Indian immigrant mother, named Venba, who moves to Canada with her family in the 1980’s. Venba has her mother’s old recipe book containing recipes of Indian cuisine. The book is old and dated, with pages missing important information from recipes.

The game takes you through different stages and times in Venba’s life where significant moments are shared with the player. Each stage resorts back to the recipe book, where the player goes through different cooking puzzles to try and create meals and work out the missing recipe information using different methods and steps.

The studio behind Venba, Visai Games took inspiration for the game from Tamil films and created a cultural highlight that really showcases the importance of food bridging relationships and connecting family. The biggest conflict we see in the game is between Venba and her son, Kavin, who has a hard time accepting his Indian culture while growing up in Canada and adapting to the Western way of life. 

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Gameplay

It’s worth noting that this game is a heavy hitter for the cozy gamers out there. It’s one where you can sit back and enjoy the point and click aspect. However, my one problem with Venba is that it feels like there are not enough of the cooking puzzles. We know the story is narrative-driven, but at what point does that become too much of an imbalance between a video game and a movie? I was hoping to see more cooking moments and a higher intensity of action per recipe, and I’m glad to see that as the game progressed, each recipe got harder to make, yet it still didn’t feel like enough. It’s less interactive in its gameplay mechanics, but engaging through its storytelling – I just think it needs a better balance and player interactivity. 

Furthermore, the narrative beats in the game are a little lackluster. There aren’t many opportunities to choose different dialogue pieces which contributes to that imbalance. When one does show up, I feel like it really doesn’t add much to the conversation and could potentially be a mechanic that is better removed from the game. The problem with that, however, is if they did remove it, the only gameplay action you have is strictly cooking puzzles throughout the visual novel.

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Graphics and Sound

The graphics and soundtrack is where the game shines the most. Visually, we see such a unique art style that I can definitely say I have never seen in a video game before. The textures of the family are my highlight. I love the way the edges of their bodies are roughly sketched and outlined. The colour of their skin tone, hair and clothing are perfectly represented and the way they are drawn clearly shows the culture they come from, without turning them into a caricature. 

I love the way the designer has separated the characters and main objects in a scene from the background scenery. It creates a nice depth of field and really helps with keeping you focussed on each chapter’s storytelling.

The game includes some really fun music, especially when you reach the cooking puzzles. As you enter the kitchen to begin, the character you’re playing as, turns on a radio and out comes Indian tunes that make you want to bop along while you’re playing. This again, adds a nice touch. 

Why does representation matter?

As a player who is not of Indian culture, I wanted to shine some light on the cultural importance of the game. What better way to do this than by speaking to my fellow Quest Daily writer, and dear friend, Dhayana Sena (MissDeusGeek) who is Indian, specifically Tamilian.

Read my full interview with Dhayana by following the link below:

“Seeing my Tamilian culture represented in a video game that is globally available means a great deal. It shows that the culture in which I was raised and come from, matters, even beyond South Indian borders. It allows for people like me to see ourselves depicted in stories that we can truly identify with and allows us to feel seen and heard.”

Venba clearly is something pretty special.

It draws on the important societal issues that arise in our world and gives so many people globally, the opportunity to be seen and heard in the gaming world. Although the storytelling is bold, emotionally attaching and engaging, the gameplay itself might deter a player from finishing the game.

Venba left me a lot more knowledgeable about a culture I’d never really experienced before, and that’s never a bad thing in this world.

Quest Daily scores Venba:

7.5/10

Quest Daily was provided early access to Venba with thanks to the publisher.