Interveiw Gabrial Alexander Breidenbach

       

Gabrial A breidenbach

English 1109.1, 1:30-3:30 Monday/Wednesday

Mike Lohre

4/20/2016

I interviewed a buddy of mine called Jaylen. I met Jaylen in my art class at the start of this semester. Jaylen is a tall fellow with dark skin color and black hair and often times is in some kind of superhero themed shirt with a goofy smile sprawled across his face. We became friends quickly after the semester started resulting in occasionally getting in trouble for talking. So after a bit of thinking I decided that due to his behavior he would be a good person for the interview. What I found throughout the interview was that he was rather knowledgeable about his goal. So I Originally met up with him in the art room on the 18th of April in 2016(understandably unwise on my part but I had more than enough time) and interviewed him after art ended. This is how it went even if it were unconventional.

this is the knucklehead i interviewed

I started by asking what is your dream that you wish to achieve? Just to get a rather quick and precise reply from Jaylen stating I want to be a game designer. I admittedly wanted to know more so I dug a little deeper asking “How long have you wanted to be a game designer?” Jaylen just started to laugh as he quickly responded with “Since I was three years old”. Admittedly I found that odd but that got me thinking so I wondered and asked “How far are you willing to go to achieve your dream?” Jaylen paused for a moment and you could see just how he struggled to describe it . “I’d say pretty far since I’m taking classes to further my skills and already have a slight idea on how to code by messing with games that already exist”. After that I have to admit I was going to be very blunt because it really struck my curiosity and it just slipped “Would you call yourself eccentric?” Jaylen just looked confused at me and asked “Eccentric, Isn’t that the good kind of crazy and unpredictable?” I sat there wondering because he wasn’t wrong sometimes it was good and I saw it as such so I responded with “yes”. Jaylen just sat there quiet then started looking at the ceiling for a few seconds until he finally spoke” hm, yeah I’d say so, so yes I do believe I’m eccentric”.

After a few apologies for flat out asking if he was crazy I wandered back into the big topic and asked “How long do you think or at least wish to be able to achieve your goal?”. Jaylen just put went into a thinking pose with his chin resting in between his pointer finger and his thumb and after a few seconds passed “at this rate hopefully 3-4 years”. Suddenly it struck me to ask, “Any major reasons that being a game designer is your dream?” Without any hesitation he grew a big smile and Said “I grew up around videogames because there were very little options other than videogames or to, reason being there were very little we could do outside because of housing and often times just didn’t feel like going outside so I just played videogames feeling that it was more productive”. Letting that sink in though it took a bit I inquired (rather badly) “Any major influences”. Jaylen just looked confused as he asked “in the past?”. If I weren’t in an interview I would have face palmed at my failure to ask a question “No I meant in the present sorry”. He just said ok and went on with informing me “Then the yearly salary has to be the major influence because holy cow that’s a lot. I mean the lowest amount I found while researching was 700.00$ yearly salary”. Admittedly I was surprised by this responding with rather loud and unexplainable noise that made Jaylen lose it. After I collected my thoughts the game of 2o questions began again with “What is your opinion on the videogame industry?”. Jaylen just shrugged and said nonchalantly “ok I guess, I mean I feel it is doing well but commonly has publicity issues unless it’s a big title”.

Understanding the time restraints I said “okay last question any media tv, games that influenced you”. Jaylen responded with “the big popular games that everyone knows”. I kind of just mentally stopped than asked “Any particular examples?”. And Jaylen excitedly stated “Pokémon definitely Pokémon, if there’s anything bigger I haven’t heard of it”. All I could chuckle and thank him for his time resulting in him not paying attention and almost running into the door as he walked out which admittedly made me laugh even harder seriously I did not think I could laugh hard enough to struggle breathing just to see his goofy grin walk away.