Why Venba is so short — and confidently so
“We did everything we wanted to with Venba,” Visai Games designer Abhi told Polygon. “Even if the team was given an additional budget to make more Venba content, I’m not sure if we would necessarily want to make more levels as we are really happy with the story we have told.”
Venba, a narrative cooking game that tells the story of an Indian Canadian family, is a short game — under two hours. Its length is a strong point; there’s a concise throughline that lets the emotional core really hit. There are plenty of games that are dozens of hours longer and have much less of an impact, and yet, there’s also a dialogue around short games — is the value there?
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Most of the time, the answer is yes, and that’s doubly true in Venba’s case.
“A game’s price, like its story, mechanics and everything else is subject to a lot of factors and most importantly changes throughout development,” Abhi said in an email interview with Polygon. “For Venba, the game has grown and changed significantly every year. As we got access to more funding, we put all of it back into the game to deliver as high quality of an experience as possible. A good example is the music in Venba which is recorded with live music, real instruments and even famous Tamil artists around the world. These things wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t decide to spend more on Venba. But of course, a bigger budget has to reflect in the price eventually.”
Neha Patel, Venba’s sound designer, wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), that the game was made ethically, with contract workers and employees “paid in full at industry rates.”
Some developers have expressed concern in the past over Valve’s refund policy on Steam with regard to game length. The refund policy
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