Venba: revision #24

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**Venba** is a short narrative cooking game by Toronto-based Visai Games, in which the player is an Indian mother who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s.[^1][^2] Players cook South Indian dishes, restore recipes from a tattered recipe book, and follow branching conversations in a story about family, love and loss.[^1] It released on 31 July 2023 across PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox — day one on Xbox Game Pass.[^2][^3]

## Gameplay

Cooking doubles as puzzle-solving: the old recipe book is damaged, and reconstructing each dish means reasoning about what the missing steps must have been. The game is designed as a cinematic experience playable in a one-to-two-hour sitting, with an original soundtrack inspired by Tamil music and an in-game cookbook of the real dishes.[^1]

## Development and release

Visai Games self-published Venba at $14.99, with availability including Steam, GOG and the Mac App Store alongside consoles.[^2]

## Awards

Venba's awards run was remarkable for a debut. It won the **Seumas McNally Grand Prize** at the 26th Independent Games Festival Awards in March 2024, where it was also a finalist for Excellence in Audio, Narrative and Visual Art.[^4] The same week it took two Game Developers Choice Awards: **Best Debut** and the **Social Impact Award**.[^5] At the 20th BAFTA Games Awards in April 2024 it won **Debut Game**.[^6] Earlier, at The Game Awards 2023, it had been nominated for Best Debut Indie Game and Games for Impact.[^7]

## External links

- [Official website](http://venbagame.com/)
- [Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/)

[^1]: Valve. ["Venba"](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/) — Steam store data. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^2]: Visai Games. ["Venba — Presskit"](https://venbagame.com/press/) — venbagame.com. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^3]: Xbox Wire. ["Coming to Xbox Game Pass: Venba, The Wandering Village, Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem, and More"](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/07/18/game-pass-july-2023-wave-2-announce/) — Microsoft, 18 July 2023. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^4]: GDC. ["'Venba' Wins Grand Prize at the 2024 Independent Games Festival Awards"](https://gdconf.com/news/venba-wins-grand-prize-2024-independent-games-festival-awards) — gdconf.com, March 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^5]: Worthplaying. ["2024 Game Developers Choice/Independent Games Festival Awards Winners Announced"](https://worthplaying.com/article/2024/3/20/news/141279-2024-game-developers-choiceindependent-games-festival-awards-winners-announced/) — Worthplaying, 20 March 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^6]: Forbes. ["2024 BAFTA Games Awards Winners: 'Baldur's Gate 3' Takes Best Game"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattgardner1/2024/04/11/2024-bafta-games-awards-winners-baldurs-gate-3-takes-best-game/) — Forbes, 11 April 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^7]: VGChartz. ["The Game Awards 2023 Nominees Revealed"](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459017/the-game-awards-2023-nominees-revealed/) — VGChartz, 2023. Retrieved 9 July 2026.