Venba is a game which explores cooking and eating as rituals used to form and access our memories.
A 90-minute cooking game about Tamil identity and memory. Each recipe connects a mother's culinary tradition to her son's cultural displacement. The cooking mechanics teach by feel rather than instruction. The story delivers more emotional weight per minute than games ten times its length. Small, precise, unforgettable.
TechRaptor writes, "We're talking about our favorite games of 2023, and in this list, Don Parsons shares his favorite games from small games you never heard of to one of the best games ever!"
VGChartz's Lee Mehr: "In the end, Venba is a special case of over-relying on flavorful spices – music, art design, etc. – to compensate for paltry servings. Which is a shame to say because so much modern media likes to overindulge us with content slop for its own sake. But this complaint extends beyond a consumerist mindset for me; here, it's more about how undercooking limits the impact of otherwise well-meaning themes while exacerbating what some may consider design naan-issues. Since the overarching immigrant tale only has time for familiar tropes, it winds up feeling – ironically – a touch too stale when the credits roll. An easy way to curry favor with any chef is loudly hankering for seconds; in Visai Games' case, I'm still left pleading for firsts."
