Mathew Lizardi, A Unique Person With a Unique Narrative
Matthew Lizardi. a student at CCNY, majoring in computer science/engineering. He hopes to take what he learns in computer science/engineering and use it to help him become a video game designer. During an interview I had the pleasure of being on, I learned a lot from him. One of those was his opinion of writing in the context of video game design. He described how writing takes a bigger role in video game design than most people think. Having a good grasp of writing clearly and making that writing compelling was important to him.
Which makes total sense. In video game design, one thing you will have to do is give Game Design Documents (GDD), which are the blueprints of a video game. Which describes the game, its designs, its story, and its mechanics. Knowing how to write clear and concise documentation is very important for your game to have a clear path and end goal. With a GDD, your team can see what the game should and shouldn’t be about and code accordingly. It can attract publishers that are interested in the concepts presented in the GDD. Problems in the Documentation can be easily pointed out and edited early on, and it can give a baseline of the game’s storyline or narrative that can build off of the GDD. From this, I can understand why he thinks that knowing how to write clearly and how to write compellingly are important parts of video game design.
In this interview, we were also able to go over his Written Narrative. And during that moment, I was able to learn a lot about his essay. It was very nice to hear his opinion about the competition. How it has helped him and how it can help others too. He conveyed this very nicely through the testimony he gave in his essay.
He highlighted how much of an impact it was when he got into a friendly competition. When he was in high school, he had a friend who would always tease him about his grades. Mainly how he had higher grades than Mattew. But, when his friend’s grades started to go down, he felt inspired and motivated to work harder to beat his friend. And in the end, he did. As he described this experience, he also added how if it wasn’t for this, he wouldn’t have tried so hard to improve in his class.
Which gives a very compelling message on competitiveness and how in many ways it can push people to do better. Not only that, but the fact that his testimony was about his time in high school will attract the interest of other high schoolers. Especially those who are trying to find motivation to study. Some students, may not have a reason for studying or working hard in school. The main reason is that they don’t have any incentive to do so that is interesting enough for them. However, having a mindset of competitiveness with one another could encourage students to compete. To do better than those around them. And in turn, have better and better grades.
One thing that was interesting about his written narrative was his use of Spiderman. In our interview, he mentioned how much he admired Spiderman. Talking about how it inspired him to do better and be better. He admired him so much that he ended up using lines from the movie Spiderman into the Spiderverse in his narrative. Using quotes from the intro of the movie, and wrapping it into his text.
This is an exciting way to incorporate something he’s passionate about into an essay. However, I would say that this works in his favor. Mainly, to help get the attention of his young audience. For the most part, Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse was a very mainstream movie for high schoolers. Having something relatable in the text would help draw the audience in. If they think that the text has similarities to them, then they would feel more welcome and akin to the narrative. Not to mention, having the message be relatable to them would make it easy for the audience to consider his message. Making the message seem more like a helpful suggestion instead of a radical life change or lifestyle.
In conclusion. Matthew Lizzardi, is a freshman majoring in computer science. During his time in English 1100, he has learned a lot. He learned about rhetorical devices and how to use rhetoric in his writing. Not only that, but he had time to self-reflect. On how writing has a bigger impact on his interests than he had ever expected. Also when he wrote his narrative, he realized how much competitiveness helped him in subjects that he used to not care about.
