Earlier this year, we were delighted to be approached by Yasin, Taylor and Max from Orthors, London’s Black owned gaming studio, to host an event at our studio and Tentacle Zone co-working space. And last month, we opened our doors and welcomed some very talented students!
Orthors had been working closely with NextGen and The Sheffield College students for two weeks with the aim of educating and sharing knowledge with the gaming students on learning how to create Black narratives.
Creating Black Narratives in Games
Yasin Ali, CEO of Orthors talked to us about the project outcomes:
“Having the opportunity to educate and provide some extra knowledge to the new generation of gaming students has always been one of our company’s ethos. The students did an amazing job learning how to create black narratives. They were creative, very fun & interesting game ideas. A small step to building a wholesome diverse gaming industry.
Furthermore, Payload Studios gave the students a beautiful opportunity to present within their studio space, memories which I’m sure they shall cherish. With some of the Payload residents also joining in the session, giving some insightful tips plus having some exclusive play testing time.
You could tell this enhanced the experience & could be the pivotal point in them pursuing a career within the gaming industry. Hopefully this is the first of many more collaboration works to come.”
A Place for Students in the Games Industry
We managed to get some of our Payloaders involved to give advice on getting into the games industry – thank you to Django Verbaant, Senior Programmer; Yuuki Due, Junior QA; Anton Korubov, 3D Artist and Karen Yun, Events and Games Hub Manager. Tentacle Zone resident, Chris Dawson (Co-founder and Creative Director of Robot Squid) also joined and gave some careers advice and discussed entrepreneurship.
Sam Webster, Operations Manager, NextGen Skills Academy rounds up his thoughts on working closely with Orthors and what the students learnt:
“The Orthors and NextGen work experience project has been a fantastic experience. Working with Orthors is a real treat, they always bring enthusiasm, expertise and professionalism to their projects. It’s so important for the students to feel like there is a place for them in the games industry and Orthors really delivered that. The students’ confidence noticeably improved significantly over the two weeks and we were delighted with the presentations they managed to deliver. Orthors worked with the students on their professional skills alongside their technical skills, they really understand the link between self belief and good quality work. We hope to do more collaborative projects with Orthors and Payload in the future”.
We were excited to be involved and host the final stage of this two-week initiative. Well done to all of the students – we wish them the best of luck in the next stage of their journey!