#venba

[midautumngame]

If you're looking for more narrative indie games by Asian devs and exploring Asian diaspora experiences check out 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 family, love, loss and more.

It just came out recently and is available on all major platforms, including Steam and console!

#Venba #venba game #asian diaspora #indie game #indie dev #game dev #indiedev #gamedev #indie games #video games #support indie games

[hollytanaka]

VENBA (2023), dev. Visai Games

#venba 2023 #venba #venbaedit #indiegamesource #videogamepoc #videogameedit #indiegameedit #gamingedit #gamingnetwork #dailygaming #userkayluh #usertravelllar #visai games #cozy gaming #indie games #*venba #** #this game deserves more love

[starlightshadowsworld]

There's a cosy game being made called Venba about a south Indian couple moving to Canada.

And a way Venba cope with the new environment and missing home is cooking south Indian dishes.

Dishes she finds in her mother's cookbook, and just 🥺it sounds so wholesome and sweet.

The fact these recipes are real too like sweet.

#Venba #cosy games #South Indian #Indian #Indie games #Desi

[videogamepoc]

VENBA (2023) dev. Visai Games

#venba game #venba #paavalan #visai games #indiegamesource #indiegameedit #gamingedit #videogameedit #dailygaming #gamingnetwork #gameplaydaily #dailyvideogames #*by mari #*by videogamepoc #our gifs #gifs

[tobiasrieper]

Venba (2023) | Visai Games

#venba #venba game #gamingedit #venba spoilers #venba game spoilers #eye strain tw #this is going in my goty list. love love love it #indies #sorry for the really small text bubbles btw i put the dialogue in the alt text

[zombiepillar]

Venba was such a masterpiece yall-

#venba #indie games #fanart #my fanart #venba game #digital art #seriously #everyone should play this game rn #tamil stories #tamil #game fanart #games of 2023

[joyland2022]

if you're a first or second gen immigrant, pleaaaase play venba. this cooking game about a tamil family it is one of the most incisive and honest depictions of a south asian diaspora family dynamic i've ever seen.

#i wept like a baby #venba

[emahriel]

Venba's speech after winning the BAFTA Game Award for Debut Game

#MVP - truly #venba #bafta 2024 #free palestine

[cryptidinthetheatrecellar]

Somtimes life means you gotta just sit there and play through the entirety of Venba on your switch in one sitting and just. Feel the shrimp emotions

#Venba #Switch Venba #Venba 2023 #Venba game #im biracial indian #and while not Tamil #SO much of this game made me think of both my Indian parent and their relation to their parents #and as someone who does not know what feels like should be one of my mother tongues #it leads me to feeling so often like an imposter in my identity #almost feeling as though I have nothing to show for being Indian other than some features and my parent #and as someone who is admittedly white passing #it leaves such a gap #and I remember awhile ago someone asked why I cant just learn the language for myself #and I had to describe it like #planting a dead seed; while you are still planting it and learning the languge #it does not have room to grow #it cannot flourish #you can learn the words and languge but it will never grow with you instead it will feel almost tacked on #and I also have a learning disability #which heavily impacts my ability in learning new languages #so learning a language is neigh impossible for me #so its safe to say I was crying and just sitting #thinking #after finishing Venba lol

[neoyi]

I have a free three-month trial for Gamepass, found out Venba took roughly 90 minutes to complete, and decided, fuck it, why not? I've long struggled with stories of generational trauma with Asian backgrounds because I've lived through it and seeing Yet Another Plot about it tires me, but Venba hit me in a different way and I liked what the game ultimately did.

Venba isn't necessarily cozy, but it maintains a lowkey tone that the emotional struggles and pains between Venba/Paavalan and their son - being a born Canadian - when it comes to their heritage is often presented as genuine concerns without the drain I often feel from Asian immigrants and the kids they can't seem to understand (and vice versa) stories.

It still talks about isolation, with loneliness a key feature from the perspective of the mother, Venba, living in a new country and all the obstacles that prevent you and your family from thriving. It still has Venba arguing with her son when the latter refuses to engage with his heritage. It still involves Kavin's embarrassment of his culture that he'd hide and downplay it in front of his western friends, to the point where he can barely speak Tamil once he reaches adulthood.

But for me, the part of the game that stuck with me the most is Venba and Paavalan's battle to thrive in another country that did not want them. Both of them constantly worry about their financial issue because no one was willing to hire Indian immigrants, lest of all in the 80s. They talk about moving back, but resisting as they want better job and educational opportunities for Kavin when he is born. Venba is regularly rejected from a teaching position while Paavalan has to sacrifice his dreams of being a writer to take up a completely different job just to make ends meet. Paavalan and Venba regularly talk about the lack of connections they've made because of their disadvantages, forcing them to scrap onto whatever would pay the bills. There's a small scene where Kavin has to talk with his father's co-worker to ask where he is because Venba's English isn't as good. Which my sister and I have done countless times.

Venba never tells you directly the system has failed them, but you can tell. The scene where Venba and Kavin find their husband/father dejected, sitting on a bench, with a beaten up face, says a lot. Someone attacked him and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was racially-motivated.

I also grew up poor with Asian immigrant parents, and I saw this everyday growing up. Like Kavin's parents, I was often kept in the dark because what parents want to explain their situation to their kids, especially Asian parents? I don't always know what mom and dad went through, but retrospect as I got older made it clear they withheld a lot of their sorrows and pain from Little Kid Me. No matter how many times we moved for better job opportunities (eight. I've moved eight times before I hit adulthood, including at one point, overseas where I didn't reunite with my parents for three years), Dad going to night school to better his English, mom taking care of two daughters when dad had to stay out-of-state most days per week... yeah, I get it.

And Venba gets that, too.

#venba #neoyi talks

[satoshi-mochida]

Venba releases today digitally for the PS5, Xbox Series, Xbox One, Switch and Steam.

#Venba #Visai Games #Cooking game #PS5 #Xbox Series #Xbox One #Nintendo Switch #Steam

[sirtotallynotatimetraveler]

Hello! I didn't even know COCOON won the Game Awards and only found out while checking out your blog after seeing that you liked one of my stimboards.

I'm still in shock about that... but congratulations to all the games that were nominated, but didn't win!

~ Random COCOON fan who's also interested in Hi-Fi Rush, another game that didn't win.

Oh hi! I wasn't expecting an inbox message from someone after liking their post. I was really interested in the game after it was won against Pizza Tower so I wanted to see some fan post of it on here to see how much of a following it has, and your post was first to show up on the results for the game haha.

I'm glad to know that there are some fans for this game, as not many people have heard of Cocoon until the Game Awards, and I feel glad for all of the Cocoon fans who have been following the game since its release and seeing it win an award unexpectedly. I'm sorry for all the flak Cocoon gets just because it won against Pizza Tower dude. The game doesn't deserve the hate it gets. But I hope to play when I get the chance.

I've been a fan of both games Limbo and Inside for a while and I was shocked to find out that one of the people who worked on those games worked on Cocoon, so that already has piqued my interest.

I hope in the end that more people realize that the awards don't determine whether one game is better and worth playing than the other. All of the games nominated in the indie category and beyond have their own good qualities and fun gameplay, and an award doesn't add to or take that away.

-Sincerely, a Pizza Tower fan who is also a Hi-Fi rush enjoyer heyooo. (They Won for best audio at least!)

Anyways, here's some art of all the nominees and the bug protag themself.

#my art #pizza tower #cocoon game #viewfinder #dredge #venba #peppino spaghetti #doodle answers #i tried drawing all the characters in their art style haha #I don't know what gender the protag is for Cocoon so they have a skirt and top hat as formal wear #viewfinder doesn't even have a character as the protag so they are just a sentient floating camera haha and are also gender neutral dressed #long reads

[wormdramafever]

Goodbye Volcano High among NPR's best video games of 2023!!

An impending meteor is racing toward Pangea, but Fang, a nonbinary anthropomorphic pterodactyl, has more pressing issues. Their best friend is showing more interest in entomology than the band they started as kids. A shy would-be paramour has started sending Fang anonymous texts. And their brother is trying to hold the family together as their parents struggle to connect with Fang. Meanwhile, news of the coming meteor rolls out slowly: It’s met first with a shrug and then with social media memes and despair — not unlike our own experiences with COVID-19 and climate change. The imminent apocalypse amplifies tensions among Fang’s gang of dorky dinosaur friends, all of whom are also dealing with the sudden cancellation of plans and aspirations. But aided by a brilliant dialogue system and Rock Band-style rhythm challenges, Goodbye Volcano High still manages to be wholesome and hopeful, even in the face of potential extinction. — James Mastromarino, NPR Gaming lead and Here & Now producer

#goodbye volcano high #npr #2023 video games #9 years of shadows #viewfinder #the cosmic wheel sisterhood #a space for the unbound #el paso elsewhere #fae farm #tchia #wild heart #misericorde #sea of stars #story of seasons a wonderful life #hi fi rush #little goody two shoes #chants of sennaar #venba #the talos principle #no more rainbows #dave the diver #alan wake 2 #mineko's night market #dredge #witchy life story #my friendly neighborhood #world of horror #video games

[starlightshadowsworld]

Venba my beloved

What you expect: Cooking game based on South Indian dishes.

What you get: The story of a couple moving from India to Canada. The struggles they face and the company they find in each other and home cooking.

From Venba's mother's cookbook.

And their son on distancing yourself from your culture, having an identity crisis when your older.

And falling in love with your culture and wishing you'd embraced it more as a kid.

Going to the mother land and feeling like a tourist.

Venba holding a hand out to comfort her now grown up so.

Hesitating.

And him just resting his head on her lap and 😭🥺my heart.

The team really put their hearts into this game. My only wish it was longer but God I'm so happy this game exists.

The art style is so sweet.

The music reminds me of tunes my uncle would play on the radio in Pakistan.

The sounds of cooking sound just like when my mum is cooking.

The way it's mostly just eyeballing the recepies because that's how we cook lol.

In a way it's like coming home.

Highly recommend, show it some love.

#Venba #South asian #Desi #Cosy games

[runningpsychic]

Why Venba resonated with me so much

First of all, I want to preface this article with who I am. I am not Indian nor Tamil, but I am an Taiwanese immigrant living in the Netherlands, and I also spent some of my childhood in the US.

Using food as the through line for the story is genius. Food really represents so much about a culture. By moving abroad, I feel I am broken from that lineage. My grandmother worked as a chef, and my mother learned from her too. But now that I am abroad, I don't have access to the same ingredients, and often it is just easier to cook the same way as the locals do. There's a very limited number of dishes I remember how to cook, and it's hard to even get inspiration. I only wish I could've learned more from my mom, or have a cookbook passed down from my grandmother. Seeing Venba and Kavin try to remember their home dishes reminds me of trying to recreate a flavor I had in my childhood, with nothing but a blurry memory, and my general knowledge of Chinese cooking principles.

When I was born, my parents felt that Taiwan didn't offer enough chances, and they want me to be a global citizen, so they taught me English, by only showing me English TV shows, and later on, we got to live in the US for a couple years. But when I returned, I no longer fit in. Even though I spent most of my childhood in my own country, I felt like a foreigner. I related to internet culture more than my home culture. 

I cried a lot when Kavin said he felt like a fraud, because he tried not to be Tamil when it was inconvenient. I also wished that I was born in western europe. I thought it would make things much easier. I'd already know the culture, the language, the way of life, and have citizenship. I do not blame Kavin for wanting to distance himself from that culture. If anything, the fault lies in the locals not being accepting of foreign cultures.

This game reminded me that there is something unique in having a foot in both doors. I have a unique perspective on cultures that most people don't have. And that is why it's so important to tell these stories in games. Like Rosa's trans immigrant story from Goodbye Volcano High, it helps others understand my experience, and it helps me understand and accept myself.

#venba #venba game #indie games #immigrants #foreigner #taiwan #chinese

[tobiasrieper]

Venba + meals

#venba #venba game #gamingedit #food tw #food cw #all the meals in this game looked so yummy #indies