My Playtime: 2.5h (100% achievement, finished the game and replayed some chapters)
My First Playthrough: 1.6h
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (8 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Venba is part story-rich, part cooking simulator game with a little bit of puzzle elements in it. You'll traverse through seven chapters, going through the life journey of an Indian family that migrates to Canada while making dishes in all but one chapter.

Pros:
- Various dishes with different ways to make
- Hint in case you stuck

Cons:
- Dialogue can't be fast-forwarded for second replays

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

Not only you'll learn various Indian dishes, but the story relates a lot if you are someone who is away from home.

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The design was made into crayon-like drawings without any outline. The design looks simple at a glance, although a lot of details are still preserved in it. The food also looks great even in this art style.

Venba tells the story of an Indian family living in Canada. It's a story about adapting to a foreign country and preserving your roots. Despite not going through the same predicament, the events in this feels close to home to me. It touches on a lot of realistic aspects and uncertainties that people have when moving to a new place. Venba's story might be short, but the length and pacing are enough to tell the whole story without feeling it that way.

The story spans several years, telling how the family grows up and adapts. This is important since it makes you feel more attached to the characters and see their turning points in life. It works well; my heart feels shattered when the characters feel sad at the end, although luckily, it still manages to give you that heartwarming ending.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3399928562

Gameplay
You can take it as a puzzle game disguised as a simplified cooking simulator. The game has seven chapters in total and all but one chapter will force you to cook food. There is an old recipe book that you can follow, but this recipe book is so worn out that parts of it are missing. Your job is to guess what they are supposed to mean and cook the food without any mistakes.

It can be hard to figure out what the game wants from the missing instructions, though. I'm no Indian, so I don't know what these foods are let alone how to make them. Luckily, the game offers some hints if you are stuck, although that usually straight out gives the answer to you. That being said, I like how the game doesn't just make you cook the food, but explains their relation with other foods and the variations that other people usually make.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3461402782

I enjoy how all foods are different from each other. Sure, there are some chapters where you make a lot of the same food with different variations, but different chapters usually mean different food, and that also means different utensils, ingredients, and how to cook them. Plus, it seems as if you can make the food yourself based on the instructions given in the game since they are so real. And if it's not, you can just check the recipe book to get the actual recipe.

Length and Difficulty
The game is short. 1.6h is all it took for me to finish the game. Achievement hunters will need to replay some chapters more than once since you need to finish all chapters without making any mistakes. I mostly played the game blind, so I made a lot of mistakes and had to redo them a lot, and since the game doesn't offer a fast-forward button, I had to deal with the story which can take a while to finish.

The game itself isn't hard. You can just brute force the solution if you don't know what to do, or even use a hint to get what you are supposed to do. The latter won't retract your experience from playing the game since it won't punish you at all.

The presentation looks good, but what really hits me is the story. Even though it's made short, it still manages to tug your heartstrings and will relate a lot to those who are going through the same predicament. I had a really good time playing it.