The sizzle. The steam. The aromas. The anticipation. A home-cooked meal that is made with love by someone you care about can make you feel safe, cared for and blissful. Venba is a short, narrative-focussed, casual cooking game where the protagonist cooks to show love for her family, and their Tamil culture. The main storyline focuses on Venba, the game’s namesake, who with her husband, moved from India to Canada in the 1980s. Though they have left all their family behind, Venba has brought her mother’s recipe book that contains the regional Southern Indian cooking that symbolises her Tamil heritage. However, due to its age, most of the recipes are unreadable, meaning that Venba must rely on her memory to piece together exactly how to make each dish.

The first recipe is cooked by Venba for her husband, just before she realises that she is pregnant. This is the only meal that she will make that isn’t for her son and really highlights how the game’s main focus is on keeping traditions, such as certain meals, alive within a family. Every meal from then is made with her son, Kavin, in mind. However, Kavin isn’t as proud of his culture as his parents are and sees Southern Indian cuisine as a barrier between himself and his Canadian friends. There is a constant aversion from Kavin that extinguishes some of the pride that his parents have for their identity.

The story is engrossing and heart-wrenching at moments. Watching as the son slips further and further away from his culture, even though there is a constant presence of it within the household, proved to be a moving storyline. As I cooked meals for Kavin, I hoped that this would finally be the meal that would make him see how important and rich his culture is and how it is up to him, as the next generation, to make sure these traditions aren’t lost.

Venba’s narrative runs alongside its gameplay, which works as a combination of cooking sim and puzzle game. When the game kicks into cooking gear, it turns from a third-person narrative perspective to the first person, with all the ingredients and equipment in front of you, ready to piece together. Usually, you will have Venba’s mother’s cookbook that provides clues in ways of cooking instructions, but also diagrams as a number of the meals need to be made using special cooking equipment. The food has largely been prepped for you, leaving you to piece together the final steps of the process.

One of the ways the game makes the cooking experience wonderfully immersive is through its atmospheric sound design. Whether you are frying, slicing, or pouring, the inclusion of these soundbites makes the sim part of the game more enhanced. I wasn’t surprised to read that the game’s sound designer, Neha Patel, actually cooked the dishes and recorded the sounds that make up the soundtrack for each meal. Not only that, but the soundtrack is all original songs inspired by Tamil movies, that include Tamil lyrics, which obviously adds to the atmosphere of celebrating Venba and her family’s culture. It’s all lovingly and beautifully implemented.

Venba’s gameplay is also very easy to master. The game is generous with its instructions and offers hints if you find yourself stuck. Playing on the Switch, it was mainly point-and-click actions to pick items up and combine or fry them with other foods. One small problem I did encounter was whenever I had to stir anything with the Switch’s joystick, the actions lagged quite a bit. I had to press down pretty hard for the wooden spoon to continue to stir, with moments where I couldn’t stir at all and thought it was a gameplay decision.