Venba - #1 - And now I'm hungry
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2023
- I'm in a short game mood, let's learn to make food!
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Edited by Carrie Floyd
Thumbnail art by Dan Jones
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♫ “Gone Shoppin'” by Dj CUTMAN
• LoFi Hip Hop ~ Dj CUTM...
#PlayFrame #Venba - Ігри
*insert pointing at screen meme here* Finally someone talking about Tamil people / language. I have been asking this from media for years. As a native speaker I hope I can add additional context to some of the neat things mentioned here.
Also I have to stress this - Dan, really don't worry about pronunciations (your about 90-95% right), its hard especially for a English speaker. Heck even I don't pronounce things well sometimes.
Some context before we start -
Tamils are a distinct ethnic people originating from South India. Our language Tamil, is distinct from the main languages in india - Hindi/Urdu , and are quite incomprehensible to a Tamil person unless they learn Hindi, from scratch. And Tamil is not the only language here in south India, we have 5 Main languages - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Tulu, and many other languages with smaller populations, are together known as Dravidian languages. Our history though influenced by other kingdoms in India, but they are distinct and we went on our own path till both (initially) French and British rule. We are also the largest ethnic group without a de-facto Country (Heck the indian state in which majority of Tamils live is literally called 'tamil state'). Mostly in southern India, Sri lanka, Malaysia and Singapore.
0:31 - Ahh yes, the Thirukkural, bane of all Tamil students everywhere. Thirukkural (or simply Kural, meaning verses) are a collection of 1,330 poems concerning about morality (quite similar to Confucius in that manner). We don't know when exactly it was written down, or if its even written by a single person, but we can assume its around 1st-5th Century AD. This collection of poems are considered one of the corner stones of the Tamil people. And usually a Tamil family will have one of the poems somewhere in their houses (in this case a calendar). They only consist of 2 lines but they usually contain so much information in it. They are divided into 3 parts - Virtue/Wisdom (aram), Polity/State (porul - technically direct translation is "things" but polity fits better) and Love (Inbam) and are further divided into chapters, each consisting of 10 poems. And yes some of us had to memorize many of them during our education, its quite hard :(
This specific one is from Polity part and specifically under "Acting after due consideration" Chapter (Kural 467)
0:42 - The guy with the beard in the calendar is the one (and the most popular) depictions of the author of Thirukkural, called Thiruvalluar (or just Valluar). Not much is known about them unfortunately. All we have is their works. Also there is a big rock statue of them in the southern most part of India. facing the sea.
1:01 - the first Tamil expression "Aiyo". Its very versatile expression. you can show from "oops my bad" to "why am I doing this" depending on tone and context.
1:54 - This used, and prevalent still is a thing, men usually never learn to cook, and even if they learn, its only during extreme cases, whereas women are required to learn cooking from a young age. This is slowly changing though, hopefully it does get better in the future. (When I started learning to cook, everyone in my family were supportive, except some from an older generation who still view kitchen as 'girl's area'). This is prevalent throughout India. I do not know about other Tamil Diaspora communities unfortunately.
3:28 - Ahh the nostalgia hits so hard! Usually all kitchens will have a radio so that we can pass time during cooking (as cooking can take a long, long time, sometimes over 2 hrs or more depending on dish).
3:31 - Food recipes are usually passed orally from mother to child, or sometimes from grandmother to child. Written recipes are not that rare though. People regularly buy cookbooks during this time.
5:44 - Ahh yes, so simple... If you have the right utensils as shown here. Although Idlis are the easiest ones to make out of all the south indian dishes (with an exception of maybe dosa depending on what utensil you have).
6:10 - She is reading my mind, That's my favorite way of eating idlis. And yes its highly versatile, you can eat it with almost anything savory or spicy, some people eat it with just plain sugar mixed with milk.
8:11 - I wish I could make such good decorations with idlis :( .
10:19 - Ahh yes the health care system.... Technically here in India we do have a public health care so not as bad as US, but its severely underfunded and most people use private hospitals as many believe standard of care is higher.
13:03 - Your doing great Dan, as I said - your 90% there which is more than fine.
13:31 - Kural 67 - Wisdom - "Obtaining of children" Chapter. And I forgot to mention, these English translations are quite good. I need to find out where the developers took these translations from.
14:01 - Yup this is a recurring occurrence during my childhood. Everyone does this., almost like a rite of passage.
15:05 - Another Tamil expression, this time not only "Aiyo/Ayo", as we have seen earlier, now we have an actual Tamil word - "da". The a word we attach to at the end of a sentence in casual conversations, and it literally means 'man' - it specifically refers to listener and not men in general (there is a female version "di", but its mostly used only between women of same age or close friends.) so loosely meaning 'you'.
15:08 - "Kanna" can be loosely translated to 'small boy/girl' its usage is similar to "name-chan" in Japanese, though children themselves wont use it. (Dan's pronunciation is technically wrong.... it should be pronounced with a shorter 'ka' and a longer 'n', but don't worry too much about it Tamil is hard)
16:41 - Yup that's how I improved my English - playing a lot of Pokemon. and some reading too... but Pokemon mainly XD
18:56 - Nope your on point so far Dan, don't worry
19:06 - I like how dad is so into different varieties of Dosa. I think dosa comes up as a recipe so i will refrain from talking about it. TLDR for now - fermented idly batter (intact you can use dosa batter for making idlis) but made different.
19:43 - Yup not only because of its shape, its also because of the sound it makes, It makes a high pitch whistle when its steaming.
20:17 - "Amma" - means mother, usually shortened to just "ma" because we are lazy. And for father its "Appa" ^* and usually shortend to "pa".
* Depending on where your from, and your religion you will be calling your father in many ways, but 'appa' is the standard.
24:46 - You could put cheese, it will be bad... but hey our boy is learning.
Puttu while not as versatile as idli, it is quite versatile. You can mix it it with milk and some fruits like pomegranate or Banana, and viola - you have a breakfast cereal. And it can be made savory also as venba mentioned with eraichi puttu (i need to try that... haven't tried it).
25:46 - I love how the background radio is synchronized with their disappointment. The lyrics at the end says "ennappa ithu" which means "what is this"
27:17 - Nice choice of side dish - its chikpea curry, goes well with puttu.
Also on special occasions (or even if there is a big feast), food is served in banana leaves instead of just plates. It is said to improve taste. (I don't know if its actually true though)
31:45 - Kural 964 - Polity - "Honor" Chapter. I literally cannot add anything more as the English translations are so good and on point. So i will give some recommendations here. For more "recent" Tamil literature there is a widely popular historical fiction novel called "Ponniyin Selvan" (Son of Ponni) it was written in 1950s, and is set during classical Tamil period - around 950 CE. There is even quite good 2 part movie adaptation - I believe its in Amazon prime. If you like political drama this movie and the book are quite good. Be warned - the names are sometimes quite hard to remember as the number of syllables per name can get big.
32:33 - Its really cool how they have done this code switching, without even switching languages. And yes its sad.
36:24 - Venba (technically venpa but I will side with developers this times we don't differentiate between pa and ba) is a poetry device. In fact Thirukkural we have been seeing every chapter is a Venba. Although it can get longer than a haiku, depending on what type of venba your using.
38:10 - Aah yes, the caste system (which is what I'm assuming is being mentioned, but it could be something else). Its still highly prevalent in northern parts of India, and gets less prevalent the further south you go. But its still prevalent enough in south for people to kick out their own family members if they were known to be either marrying even in love with, someone who is not in your caste. During the time in which Venba, the game is set - it was much more popular in the south.
40:08 - Kural 961 - Polity - "Honor" Chapter. Okay its time for fun fact from language itself - Tamil, the language has 5 grammatical genders. They are broadly split into 2 genders - "Rational" (referring to humans and deities) and "Irrational" (referring to animals and other things). The 5 genders are as follows - "Rational Male" "Rational Female" "Rational Collective" (Although you should also use rational collective for your elders and for deities), "Irrational Singular" and "Irrational Plural". And the categories are quite strict and systematic. Unlike some languages, all things are irrational (unless you want to use plural for a group of things) or one of the rationals. And it accommodates many trans communities (you just use the gender which they prefer). It doesn't accommodate all (One strategy I use is to use Rational plural if you don't know their gender or if they want to be distinctly identified as trans) but its better than 2 way gender system.
Again Dan, your pronunciations are very good, don't loose sleep over it :)
Thank you so much for sharing this! I loved this game, and I really appreciate you sharing the additional cultural context, particularly about Tamil literature and poetry!
Thank you for that wonderful breakdown 😁
Thank you so much for all of this info and detail!! I don't know much at all about Tamil culture or language, it's really neat to be learning this, ESPECIALLY from an actual Tamil person, not filtered through the lense of a Western person. 😊
@PlayFrame - also - thank you for pinning this comment so more people could learn!
Thank you for all those cultural insights! This definitely made this episode even more enjoyable!
Venba - it'll make you hungry, then make you cry, then make you call your mum.
I loved this game. This last weekend, I actually got my mum to play it when she visited. She's Malaysian, from an Indian Sikh family. So she grew up with not Tamil food, quite, but definitely there was overlap with the food in the game. She really enjoyed it too. And the next day, she went out locally and found a place that sold idli and biryani and vadai, along with sauces and other favourites like puris. We had a little feast. I'm still eating the leftovers!
Thanks so much for sharing it on the channel, Dan.
32:32: Slice-of-life narratives about mundane lives so removed from my personal experience are always so interesting. They make problems I've heard about third- or fourthhand feel real, tangible. I wish more stories like this-about poor people at the margins of society, dealing with all sorts of overlapping problems-percolated into the mainstream.
This game touched me so much I called my mother and had a cooking day where she taught me family recipes. We are Lebanese which is kinda similar to greek food.
this game spoke to me, as i actually neglected my own culture to the point of not trying to learn the language my parents spoke heck my mom always told me to speak her language but living in europe and not hong kong was making learning her language difficult on top of learning my own. good to see i am not the only one touched by it
@@likky1 I consider myself lucky that I retained as much spoken Cantonese as I did, living in Canada.
I have a friend who's a Lebanese immigrant to the US! Her family invited me to a celebration once and the food was amazing!!
@@octochan same honestly i retained the most of my mom's language as i only spoke cantonese with her, to her request mind you. i am actually the best cantonese speaker in my family in that country despite me knowing the least of them all (other than mom,dad and aunt) due to living with her to my 30's i finally left the house this year
venba is SUCH a good game-especially as a filipino-american with an immigrant parent it hit so so hard for me it’s so good
As a second generation immigrant in Canada, this first episode has already made me so emotional. I kept pausing throughout the video to stop myself from crying. Thanks for playing this, Dan - looking forward to more. ❤
Loving this. Kavin's text speed in Tamil is much slower as well, showing he has to try harder to speak it. Paavalan's English is a similarly slow text speed. Also I adore the Batman Animated Series reference, as someone who grew up watching that show. XD It ran from 1992-1995 and this kid is fully of an age to be super into it. Lol.
I just realized that Batman is the reason that Kavin was wearing his shirt like a cape lol
This game is so cute. The way Venba and her husband are interacting feels exactly like how my parents used to interact and poke each other. Also as an Indian, it is a lot of fun to see Dan messing up cooking Indian food. Loving it
I *love* the writing in this game- the characters have very reasonable worries and feelings. They also have realistic relationship problems, both with their parenting but also between Venba and Paavalan. That thing about Venba needing to cook when she's sick regardless of whether Paavalan is pressuring her to eat is a common mismatch, where someone didn't think through the logic of your needs or that there might be previous socialization pushing you to do a task even when they're telling you to take it easy. It's a very gendered issue- invisible work doesn't stop being an issue just because someone said don't worry about cooking for me today, let's not worry about dishes right now, etc etc- you still end up doing the task because you need to use those dishes, or you need to eat. Then the person who said take it easy often feels attacked, or that you're being uptight or a martyr, when you tell them that you can't leave the task undone and that their lack of active help puts pressure on you. It starts being less of a problem when you actively think together and talk through who can do what and when.
Darn it all Dan, don't you know I watch your videos over lunch at work? You can't go making me cry like this.
Dan, your pronunciation of the Tamil words is actually very good, you shouldn't worry! Tamil pronunciation is pretty hard to convey in English, although the game's done its best. ❤
I'm always interested to see glimpses into other cultures. This is a fun treat.
14:24 love the difference in mic so it seems like it's coming from a distance
This one just has soul, huh. Love love love it when a game achieves that. I am also already dreading where this story goes.
This game is so neat! I love the little context clues, like the text changing color from Tamil to English, and Kavin's text going slower when he speaks in Tamil. It's also an underrepresented aspect of immigration - the idea that first-generation immigrants tend to hang on to their birth country's culture as much as possible, while the second generation tends to pull away and try to better assimilate into the current country's culture. And apparently third gen swings back again.
I see this in my own family. My grandparents were second generation. I remember when I was little, someone asked me if I was Italian based on my last name. I said yes, and my grandma burst out, "You're not ITALIAN! You're AMERICAN!!" (There might have been a little racism there - despite my grandma marrying an Italian man, she was pretty dismissive of Italians and Italian culture.)
This makes my dad third generation, and he really tries to connect with our heritage. He learned a lot from our older family about where we're from and the family history, and he taught me recipes that have been passed down in the family for generations.
I just find this swing of culture between different generations after immigration to be really interesting!
As a child of Asian immigrants, I absolutely love the visual representation of language here. It's something I didn't get to see in the demo, I'm so glad you decided to showcase it here!! Hoping I can afford to support this game later on, I really want more games like these.
Kavin's experience growing up as a second generation immigrant and a visible minority is very familiar to any other kid like that in Toronto.
Oh, thank goodness you are continuing this. I got so sucked into the story that when it ended I had a moment of panic. I'll still probably pick this up anyway. I can't remember when I have been so sucked into a story before. And you are right, Dan. This is a window into a world I do not have experience with at all, yet is all around us.
Pick it up! Support the devs!
Absolutely, ordered it on steam mid-way through the vid … not even sure if it will be playable on my pc (linux), but I'll probably get 13 usd worth of enjoyment out of watching the playframe playthrough either way. Society needs good stories.
Cook with your kids.
Cook. With your kids.
It's a bonding experience, helps teach them measurements, math, and cooperation - gets them interested in what they're eating, can be a gateway to good nutrition, and if they help make the meal, with a degree of input into how it's made, they're more likely to try new dishes, and may learn something they love.
Aw, I already see this game packed with emotions and thoughts. Can't imagine how much heart was poured into it. Can't wait to see more of this series!
Dan in a mood for short games, can't imagine why 🤪
I'm so glad you're going to play more (hopefully the whole game). I'm so invested already. Seems like a really sweet story and the way the language component is framed is really cool.
It's an interesting insight into what life may look like for people who immigrate to places with different culture and language from their birthplace. Shows that for all the differences, some things are universal; we're all trying to get by best we can and live a good life with our loved ones.
You should _absolutely_ play "Chants of Senaar". It would fit you perfectly.
This game seems so interesting! And it seems the team also took major inspiration from their own lives/heritage. I can't relate fully to the situation (had immigrant parents from Southeast Asia), but the world of culture through food, and its interaction with the rest of the world, is a fascinating one.
I love the mechanics here-- it's rare to see a cooking game capture the logic puzzle that cooking sometimes is, where you have to deduce what every step and ingredient is for and why it works in order to make it right.
Venba has the mom reverse psychology down with that pizza vs. puttu maneuver.
I can't wait for the next episode! This story is so touching.
Oh this is so cute and also sad - hopefully it ends well! But I'll probably cry by the end.
Watching Dan declare with such absolute confidence that the flour had been making for minutes was coconut and the fine long shreds with brown bits were flour was gold.
I live in Scotland at the moment (coming from Germany), and while the difference in culture is fairly mild, the story touches me insofar as I have made multiple Tamil-speaking friends at the university here. Excited for this to be a full playthrough!
This game was so heartwarming, definitely made with love. Its super simple and short but I won't be forgetting it for years ☺️
The name thing hit pretty hard first time seeing this. I'm American with a very European family ancestry, as is my name, but it's a family name on my mom's side and it was important to my family when I was growing up that people used the right name for me. But I also have a more "normal" middle name in case I ever decided I didn't want to use my first name. It's kinda unfortunately stuck with me that until college I routinely was called the wrong name by a lot of teachers. I personally don't think it's that unusual a name but I guess when I was younger it was considered more uncommon.
17:14 It's very neat to have the only two signifiers of speaking a different language being font color and the parents' reactions.
19:00 Biriyani is good!
23:35 Oh boy, it's one of those old cookbooks...
26:03 In the book, the coconut is dark, when stacking, it's brighter. Tooltips are useful.
28:57 Oh boy, are we about to get the "Indian family trying to escape the caste system being roped back into it overseas" thing? That'd be some hot commentary.
32:45 Yea, immigrating to Canada from India is a bit of an ordeal compared to from America. Heck, I spent 8 yrs studying German everything, and the one week I was there it was still a bit more than expected. I can barely imagine immigrating there.
39:30 Same!
This really reminds of my grandma. Since her parents were holocaust survivors, she had a pretty big thing with food, so whenever we came she would make us eat at least something. I especially miss how after every meal she'd give us these wide chocolate bars, like we didn't already eat seconds and thirds
I've got my coffee, my books, ready for a lovely study session with this video!! Thank you Dan!! It means a lot for you to play this :)
Oh! I remember seeing a trailer for this a while back. Glad to see it get some attention.
This made3 me remember an adult I knew while in highschool, whoworked in a shop near campus, and once talked about how his daughter wasn't retaining their language (I'm not sure if it was Hindi, Gujurati, Tamil or something else). Great video :)
HAHA I cracked up when Dan said, "oh phase 2", so glad you are playing this wonderful game
Well this is a beautiful game.
I like how Paavalan goes from "Everything's fine, go to sleep" to "I'M GOING TO BE A DAD, PANIC" in the space of like 30 seconds.
The music for this game is very interesting!
Funny coincidence while I was watching the opening: I also felt sick but forced myself to get up so I could get lunch. Ate it while I watched this video.
So glad you're playing this! I played through it and it's definitely your vibe!
The amount of relief that hit me when Paavalan was alive. 😢 I was so scared!!
I had to run to the comments 😭 I'm not strong enough
I saw gab's playthrough of this and the second half of the game had me absolutely sobbing the whole time.
This looks lovely. Can't wait for tomorrow!
I was curious and looked it up, Kavin and Kevin have similar meanings despite having such different origins. Kevin is from Irish and means handsome/attractive/beautiful while Kavin is Surskit in origin and as Venba says means beautiful. Kavin should go by his proper name, its just fun how the writers managed to get such a perfect translation quirk
17:05 Actually, I just noticed you can tell what language he's speaking by the text color. White is Tamil, yellow is English. ...... I could have waited a few seconds.
It just occurred that the smudging that crops up around the language barrier is also a symbolic parallel to the smudging in Venba's recipe book.
Holy heck this game is so touching.
As of Oct 18 2023 the game is 15% off on the switch if anyone wants to pick it up
As someone who were both a Difficult child (long story) and a pretty alright adult I vibe with this family dynamic.
Oh this game is so touching!! 😢
I just know this game is going to beat the hell out of my feels.
Literal flavor text. Wonderful.
I need something better than the standard like button for this. I like a lot of videos, leaving me with no appropriate expression to offer when something really great comes along. A triple-thumbs-up (more than the standard human allotment of thumbs) just for content that genuinely improves your day.
"Continue this tomorrow" WAIT what! this is a Wednesday episode XD. The advantages you have when the previous series just ended XD!! (I am /all/ for more of this. Lets goo!.)
That was a very fast 40 minutes
This game is wonderful ❤
all those dosas… soooo hungry…😅
💙
I'm thinking text colour is language. I've got a sneaking thought that the white (implied default) is Tamil... but that it might change, and that'll have meaning.
Ooh. I bought this game but haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
People like me who're just living the norm so to say really don't get a lot of opportunities to know what struggles migrants go through on an every day basis.
We need more of these sorts of experiences in our ever more polarized and xenophobic world.
Also I'm always so impressed with other place's food culture, I can't think of more than a handful of foods that I would consider a special dish that isn't just meat with a potato and a vegetable.
The parents are concerned the child is moving away from them, while they themselves have moved away from their own parents, as evident by the recipes Venba doesn't know, and the book being in taters.
Still... So far I feel like this should've been a short film, instead of a game.
Eh, interaction is a useful device for engaging with the audience, even if it's not about Showcasing your Skills.
@@Duiker36 Not a matter of skill in my opinion, more the pacing and storytelling.
The puzzle gameplay breaks the pace, and I think this could've been better as a visual novel instead.
Mechanically, the dialogue choices hide parts of the story, but you can replay or watch online to see what you missed.
As a gameplay mechanic, unless these choices matter down the line, and so far it seems they don't, it makes the whole thing feel pointless.
Just something to keep your attention, which is a good way of keeping players engaged, but is also a sign you don't trust your writing to do so instead.
If you want to hide some information from the player, just do it.
Which is why I said that it would've faired better as a short film.
A more controlled format would benefit the pacing and delivery of the storytelling, which is clearly the centerpiece of this game.
Im.surprised that carrie is not with you playin game where she was at
oh . is he muslim and she is hindu ? if so I would loved to see more. of that clearly . this is such a sweet and mlincolly game so far.
Actually, both names are Hindu. Paavlan means someone who is excellent in literature and Venba is a type of Tamil poem.
It's just a guess but I assume their case is that Paavlan and Venba might be of a different caste. The caste system was prevalent in those times in India. Intercaste marriage used to be discouraged heavily and intercaste couples were usually found themselves outcast by the community.
Edit: Added explanation for my guess.
You should play Laika aged through blood