Like Indian food, do you? Well, there’s a video game for that! Venba is by indie studio Visai Games in Toronto of Canada.

It’s a narrative about immigration. A family moves from India to Canada and brings with them their cooking culture, which is plenty good opportunity to offer an educational cooking experience for gamers.

Embrace the Spices in Venba

Starting in 1988, players indulge in the lives of a young Indian family as they settle down and get used to life in the west.

The mother (Venba) is nauseous as she’s pregnant and she gives birth to a son.

Throughout the gameplay she refers to a family cookbook in which there are details of recipes for classic Indian recipes. The idea is to cook up a storm in a kind of Assemble With Care object manipulation way.

The gameplay elements are very minimalistic and it’s more of a narrative game than anything else, but the cooking sections are very educational and we enjoyed all that. Here’s how it all works.

Visually the game is very striking, with a cartoony and vibrant vibe going on. It really suits the experience, especially for the food sections.

The food makes you bloody hungry. No denying you want a curry after this one.

And those cooking bits are done really well, we mean look at this thing simmering away. You feel like a proper chef taking this thing on.

As that all plays out, there’s a heart-warming family story as the son grows older and Venba passing on her culinary skills to him.

Lots of Tamil culture and South Indian cuisine is on full display during this time, which is a welcome addition to the gaming world.

You don’t see much representation for the Indian culture in gaming. About time something like this turned up, frankly, as it’s a charming little game.

There’s even an authentic Indian soundtrack to go with proceedings, featuring tracks belted out with much enthusiasm by Deva here.

Obviously, it’s not a full on gameplay experience. There’s minimal input from players as you go along, it’s more the didactic experience. We found out about:

• Idlis
• Dosas
• Puttu
• Chicken Rasam
• Arambikalama dinner spread
• Oothappam

We learned a great deal about Indian food thanks to Venba, for which we thank it and now we want to buy more spices.

Downsides? It can be a fiddly on the cooking sections. Occasional frustrations grow from that. Arguably, it works best with a mouse rather than a controller. So maybe pick this one up on Steam (although it is available on all consoles as well).

But yeah, it’s also short. You get about 90 minutes of game time here, so it’s a sure but sweet and satisfying time.

But we just think it’s a fine celebration of a different culture, completed in vibrant form (albeit in concise fashion).