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Venba
Released On: Jul 31, 2023
79
6.5
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
79
58% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
26% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
79
58% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
26% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Venba could have been my story. Or your story, if you know what means to be the son (or the daughter) of a couple who moved to give you a better future at the cost of giving up to pass on their roots. And it’s awesome a video game could tell this very thing in about two hours of gameplay and stay in your memories forever.
Venba is a must-play experience, an enthralling tale of immigrants across multiple generations, all backed by a brilliantly absorbing puzzle game in the form of cooking.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 37 User Ratings
6.5
35% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
51% Mixed
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
14% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 37 User Ratings
6.5
35% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
51% Mixed
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
14% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
It’s easy to finish Venba in one sitting, but the game’s complicated narrative, it’s exploration of family relationships, identity, and hardship, will linger in my mind for so much longer than it took me to play through it.
While the specificities of lead developer Abhi's lived experience give Venba its distinctive flavour, they serve a story with which anyone can identify. [Issue#387, p.123]
Venba is an exercise in brevity. I greatly enjoyed my peek into the lives of strangers who exposed me to a culture different than mine. I just wish I could have got a longer look at it.
Pretty colours, smell of spice, they couldn’t dull my senses enough to not notice all of Venba’s imperfections. The characters aren’t very nice, the conversations tend to say nothing of substance, the story never reaches the required depths. But it’s short enough for it to be a cute visit of Indian culture and cuisine.
Lovely visual novel with cooking puzzles, all its parts fit together perfectly, making it entertaining from beginning to end. A solid 10/10 and must-play experience.
Report
PC
In terms of gameplay, this is a basic point-and-click, the complexity of which lies in the correct sequence of actions and the ingredients, and if you don`t know English at the conversational level, then it will be very difficult to understand, especially at the last levels, there are quite a few dishes in the game, lless than 10, and the main timing is occupied by animated cutscenes telling a rather everyday story about moving and lack of money, as well as about the importance of maintaining communication with parents, and we often have timeskeeps, hop and now Venba is already a grandmother, hop and the son is already at the age of the father, we don`t even have time to feel the characters in 1-2 hours of timing. IIndian songs annoyed me in culinary episodes, so the "cultural" bias in the game is clearly not for everyone, isn`t suitable for everyone, but you can learn some interesting facts about food if, again, you know English.
Nevertheless, I cannot but note the pleasant visual part of the game, it’s impossible to hate the game for “average”, probably suitable for fans of cooking or simple cute games, but I would also recommend you to try the "Assemble with Care" game, although the story there is also weak.
Subscribe on my Steam`s Curator`s page: ****/curator/41977550/
Report
PC
Don't mistake a negative review for saying that you shouldn't play it but we really need to drop expectations here. It is a very short (takes about an hour to beat) game in which you explore a short story of a couple that immigrates from India to Canada from the pregnancy of their son to his adult life. The story is fine but predictable and cliche at times. Gameplay mechanics are simple (just dragging ingredients together) as you work through a cookbook that has been passed down from generation to generation.
All in all, It's fine but it's nothing we haven't experienced before.
Report
PC
Summary Cook delicious South-Indian food and experience the journey of an immigrant family in Venba! Venba is a narrative cooking game where you play as an Indian mom who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s. Players will cook various dishes and restore lost recipes, hold branching conversations and explore in this story about famil...
Platforms:
- PC
- Nintendo Switch
- Xbox Series X
- PlayStation 5
- Xbox One
Initial Release Date: Jul 31, 2023
Developer:
- Visai Games
Publisher: Visai Games
Genres:
