I think this afternoon might have been the first time I’ve really regretted shutting down my YouTube channel, as I played through the entirety of Venba while my son was at camp this afternoon, and I think this would have been a fun little game to livestream. I played it through Game Pass on the Xbox Series X, where it is currently free, and I believe it’s $14.99 on the PS5. I’ll cut to the chase and say that if you have Game Pass access you should absolutely download this delightful little game and give it a chunk of your afternoon, and $15 is fair in a “reward the developers for making something cool” way as opposed to a pure price-for-playtime thing.

Anyway. Venba, which I have just now learned is the word for a form of classical Tamil poetry, is the story of a Tamil immigrant family that has moved to Canada. It’s very story-based, and for a lot of it you’re watching conversations between family members and occasionally choosing a dialogue option from two or three available choices, and this isn’t the kind of game that lets you go back and change your mind if you want to. Having only played it once, I’m not sure if the game changes based on your decisions or not, so that might be a reason to go back through it tomorrow just for the hell of it.

The gameplay comes in during– wait for it– the cooking sections, where you’re attempting to recreate old family recipes based on a poorly preserved recipe book that has pieces missing. Based on the instructions you’re given along with some verbal suggestions and occasional flashback memories, you’re expected to prepare the recipes properly. This sounds absolutely wonderful and for the first time I found myself wishing smell-o-vision was a thing; I’ve also got a serious yen for Indian food right now. If you can already cook, you’ll sail through it; if you don’t know a thing about Indian cuisine specifically or cooking in general there’s probably going to be some fairly simple trial-and-error involved. I’m … in the middle, I suppose? There were a couple things I sailed through on the first try, at least one where my stupid fingers kept messing me up, and another that took me some actual thinking to figure out what the game wanted me to do.

Is it fun? Yeah, but I don’t feel like fun is necessarily the goal here. This game has a story to tell, and something to say about the immigrant experience, and it’s one of the most unique experiences I’ve had with a controller in my hand in a long time. Even just the simple interactivity of being able to choose a dialogue response during a conversation now and again brings you inside the characters in a unique way that you don’t get with novels or television. The generational aspect of the game– at the beginning, it’s just the parents, and it ends with their son as a grown man, trying to read the Tamil in his grandmother’s cookbook– is really neat as well, and it’s really cool how much emotion the game is able to elicit over, again, a very short runtime.

Venba isn’t going to be Game of the Year or anything like that, but it deserves some attention and it’s a great use of the short time you’ll spend with it.