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The collaboration and brief
mayamada, a creative brand founded in London, believes in the power of creativity to inspire and build a world of diverse characters and stories. With imaginative manga, a unique clothing line, and engaging pop-up events, they have captivated and inspired audiences to be more creative.
Keen on exploring the gaming industry, they teamed up with NextGen to work on visualising their stories in interactive formats. Under the guidance of mayamada's Co-Founder Nigel Twumasi and Creative Director Tazziii, Level 4 and 5 students at The Sheffield College were assigned one of their captivating stories. The students then had the freedom to choose between creating a 2D or 3D game prototype, or an animatic for a cutscene or trailer.
Each team had to deliver various elements to complete the brief, such as characters, environments, and a final pitch to present their concept at the end of the two weeks.This collaboration marks a milestone in mayamada's venture into the video game space, with students at The Sheffield College contributing their talent and creativity to bring the studio's stories to life in the world of gaming.
Above: Hot Lunch artwork. Copyright: mayamada.
Building creative and personal skills
The project provided an opportunity for students to build a diverse set of skills. Alongside technical skills, they showcased creative problem-solving abilities, honed teamwork and project management skills, and learned how to stay faithful to an established brand.
Additionally, Regular online feedback sessions with the mayamada team played a crucial role in refining their work, incorporating valuable insights, and building adaptability, and communication skills as they ensured their projects aligned with the brand's vision.
Results and recognition
The project culminated in a compelling final presentation, where Nigel, Tazziii, and NextGen visited The Sheffield College to hear the students' captivating pitches. The students showcased their work, which demonstrated a deep understanding their brand, stories, and characters.
Nigel Twumasi, Co-founder of mayamada, said of the work experience:
"Being part of this work experience project gave us a great opportunity to engage with young people looking to enter the creative industries and support their continued development of both technical and soft skills as they worked on our commercial IP.
"We were really impressed with the eagerness they took to our universe and the way they were able to take our characters from manga pages into the video game medium in such cool ways!"
Congratulations to all of the students who took part, and thank you to Nigel and Tazziii for this opportunity! You can check out some of the students work below.
Hot Lunch
by BR Studios - James, Cort, Josh, Jak, and Josh
The team behind BR Studios were assigned Hot Lunch from the mayamada universe.
The team followed the narrative of the story to create a 3D stealth game. Set in 1970’s Japan the main elements of gameplay include avoiding enemies, and finding a keycard to complete each level.
They used a stylized art style and used Cel Shading techniques, which helped to give a comic like style to the game that fits with the original IP.
Samurai Chef
by James and Jack
Jack and James started off their adaptation of Samurai Chef with the strong X-Statement of “Anthropomorphic MasterChef collides with Hades!”
The pair created game will be a Role-Playing Hack and Slash game, with a top-down view similar to games like Diablo, Lost Ark, Risk of Rain, and Tunic.
They chose an artistic style based primarily on black and white in a solid colour tone to “make the game look as if it was in a manga page, which coincides with the original form of Samurai Chef.”
