Pirates of the Burning Sea’s Jess Lebow: Q&A

Coldfront meets Flying Lab Software‘s Jess Lebow. He’s the Lead Writer and Content Designer for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which pretty much puts his hand on the wheel of the game’s content and story direction. And he loves pie. Arr.

He tells Coldfront how much he enjoys working on POTBS, what parts of the game he’s most proud of, and his love of pie (Arrr). He’s actually an import into Flying Lab – the project started long before he arrived – but he was apparently there at the time when POTBS started transforming from the small-niche game the devs set out to create, into “a huge world with several hundred hours of playable content”. As a result, the dev team had to re-think the way they do things.

As the lead content guy for the game, you’d expect Jess to be proud of the game’s story/mission content. And he promises: as much as possible, no “simple FedEx missions or reading cliché text”. He shared, “Recently I played again through the first fifteen levels of the game. It took me several days, and I was so engrossed that I forgot I was working.”

That ship sure be looking mighty tempting, matey.

When Coldfront asked which game feature players would probably be glad to walk the plank for, Jess replies, “the realm-vs.-realm combat.” Quite interesting, too, if your actions in-game could destabilize rival economies (let’s see the other guy field hundred-gunner barks then!), and the 25-on-25 ship combat – which would make you thankful you thought of destabilizing the other guy’s economy first.

Oh, and the pies. Arr. “Pie. Right now, pumpkin. Next month, apple. January, lemon meringue. You can send all pie donations to Jess Lebow, c/o Flying Lab Software…” Now, which bark of the Spanish Main be holding the treasured pies?

Coldfront meets Flying Lab Software‘s Jess Lebow. He’s the Lead Writer and Content Designer for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which pretty much puts his hand on the wheel of the game’s content and story direction. And he loves pie. Arr.

He tells Coldfront how much he enjoys working on POTBS, what parts of the game he’s most proud of, and his love of pie (Arrr). He’s actually an import into Flying Lab – the project started long before he arrived – but he was apparently there at the time when POTBS started transforming from the small-niche game the devs set out to create, into “a huge world with several hundred hours of playable content”. As a result, the dev team had to re-think the way they do things.

As the lead content guy for the game, you’d expect Jess to be proud of the game’s story/mission content. And he promises: as much as possible, no “simple FedEx missions or reading cliché text”. He shared, “Recently I played again through the first fifteen levels of the game. It took me several days, and I was so engrossed that I forgot I was working.”

That ship sure be looking mighty tempting, matey.

When Coldfront asked which game feature players would probably be glad to walk the plank for, Jess replies, “the realm-vs.-realm combat.” Quite interesting, too, if your actions in-game could destabilize rival economies (let’s see the other guy field hundred-gunner barks then!), and the 25-on-25 ship combat – which would make you thankful you thought of destabilizing the other guy’s economy first.

Oh, and the pies. Arr. “Pie. Right now, pumpkin. Next month, apple. January, lemon meringue. You can send all pie donations to Jess Lebow, c/o Flying Lab Software…” Now, which bark of the Spanish Main be holding the treasured pies?