Venba
This narrative cooking game has a runtime of under two hours, but it packs an emotional punch. Venba focuses on the story of an immigrant family from India trying to make a life for themselves in Toronto. That includes a father who works a boring office job he hates, a young boy born in Toronto who is ashamed of his culture, and a mother who can’t quite figure out how to fit in and holds on to her past through cooking.
The mother is the titular Venba, and you spend the game playing a series of cooking minigames that produce delicious-looking traditional Tamil cuisine. It all made my mouth water. Through these interactive sections and dialogue-heavy cutscenes, Venba paints a deeply emotional story about the struggle of an immigrant family, and how food acts as a representation of culture that we can hold on to and pass on to the next generation. Be warned, you’ll probably want to buy some Indian take-out after playing this.
