A standout session at IGDC 2024 (India Game Developer Conference) was “Incomplete Recipes for Success: A Venba Post Mortem” presented by Visai Games founder and creative director Abhijeeth Swaminathan. In this session, Swaminathan explained the factors that led to the indie game’s groundbreaking success.
The session was held at IGDC, India’s most significant game developer conference which explores the latest trends, challenges and innovations that are shaping the future of gaming In India as well as on a global scale. The conference took place at HICC, Hyderabad from 13 to 15 November. In his talk at IGDC, Swaminathan focused on blending culture with Venba’s story, and spending bare minimum on marketing it.
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, face challenges that arise from day to day life, and explore in this story about family, love, loss and more. The game was released in 2023, and is now available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series/Xbox One and Playstation 5.
Swaminathan detailed the challenges he faced in getting the game published, as well as the creative design decisions made during its development. “We spent almost nothing on marketing; instead, we promoted the game largely through social media and word of mouth,” he explained. The game’s visibility grew through the #PostYaGame hashtag on X (formerly Twitter), where users were captivated by the game’s art style and premise. Eventually, the game was picked up by the big three of console gaming–PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo. Venba also received a Day 1 Xbox Game Pass release which provided a financial boost to Visai Games due to the Game Pass deal. In addition, well-known game curator Wholesome Games reached out to Visai Games to highlight the game.
Swaminathan spoke about some of the game’s creative decisions, like the ink splashes that covered the recipes. “These splashes served as puzzles that the mother and the son needed to solve in order to restore and craft recipes,” he shared. He noted that while Venba is a simplified cooking simulator, all the recipes in the game are authentic Tamil dishes. “We have added minute but meaningful details to the game, such as the son’s hesitant approach to cooking compared to his mother’s confident execution, the semi-solid consistency of ghee in Canada, compared to the liquid consistency in India.” He added that Venba’s art style is inspired by the well-known Cartoon Network animated series Samurai Jack, while still maintaining the game’s authenticity.
Swaminathan highlighted the positive reception of the game from both critics and the gaming community upon its release. The game even won a BAFTA award for Best Debut Indie Game. He pointed out that word of mouth was particularly strong among the Southeast Asian communities. The game evoked emotional reactions from players and even inspired some to try cooking the featured Tamil recipes in real life. For many players, Venba was their introduction to Indian cuisine.
Visai Games has partnered with the US-based publisher Outersloth, a subsidiary of Innersloth (creators of Among Us and The Henry Stickmin Collection) to develop another Tamil culture-based game set in the ancient Sangam era. This game is currently in development.
Visai’s Venba proves that as long as developers focus on building emotional connection with players, their games can achieve success, regardless of their scope and scale.
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