~ Storytelling in India is increasingly shifting from single films or books to multi-format narrative universes spanning film, games, and immersive media, according to Anand Gandhi and Zain Memon.
~ Goa allowed us sustained focus and long-term thinking, enabling the creation of the MAYA, a multi-format storytelling studio.
Storytelling is moving beyond single films or books into expansive, multi-format narrative worlds that allow audiences to engage across mediums, according to filmmaker Anand Gandhi and game designer Zain Memon, co-creators of the Goa-based MAYA, a long-term cultural project that is evolving a narrative universe that spans films, games, graphic novels and immersive experiences.
The creators, who were speaking at a recent MOG Sunday session at the Museum of Goa (MOG) in Pilerne, said the project reflects a growing shift in how stories are written, produced and experienced, particularly by younger audiences accustomed to interactive and participatory formats.
Gandhi, a well-known filmmaker with movies like The Ship of Theseus and Tumbbad, among others, and Zain Menon game designer, entrepreneur, have been collaborating for over a decade, and said Goa played a key role in shaping the project. Having moved to the coastal state eight years ago, they described Goa as a space that allowed sustained focus and long-term thinking.
“Goa gave us the soil to build this work,” Memon said, adding that the cultural fabric, open spaces and distance from metropolitan pressures made it possible to develop a project of this scale over time.
Unlike traditional adaptations where films, games or books serve as extensions of one primary work, the creators emphasised that each MAYA format is designed as a complete cultural artefact. “A film is not marketing a game, and a game is not promoting a film,” Gandhi said. “Each piece is imagined in its purest form, but all of them inherit from a shared canon.”
This shared canon allows characters to move across platforms while remaining internally consistent. According to the creators, every character is developed with a detailed history, cultural background and internal logic, which is then adapted to the aesthetic and narrative demands of each medium. “Consistency comes from the lore,” Memon explained, noting that characters are not translated from one format to another but drawn from a common narrative foundation.
The scale of collaboration behind MAYA also sets it apart. The project involves more than 170 contributors from around the world, including scientists, architects, evolutionary biologists, musicians and visual artists. Among them are architects Vinu Daniel and Shikha Parmar, as well as an international team of artists and researchers who helped shape the world-building, design systems and narrative structures.
The creators also highlighted early audience engagement, pointing to a recent Kickstarter campaign for the first MAYA novel that drew support from readers across Europe, North America and Australasia. They said the response demonstrated a growing appetite for complex, long-form storytelling emerging from India but intended for global audiences.
The MOG Sunday session marked one of the first public conversations around MAYA, with upcoming releases planned across books, games and other formats over the next year. Gandhi described the project as “a global piece of culture being produced out of Goa,” adding that audiences are being invited to engage with the universe in whichever form they choose.
