The title for this interview is misleading because we already covered Puzzle Bloom with designer Jess Rahbek for our PAX 10 2009 interview series. So I merely touched on the relevant game for this IGF nomination and spent the rest of the interview catching up with Jess’s exploits since last we met. So the scope of today’s text covers the role of Unity in Jess’s development career, public prototyping as a AAA development strategy, and Jess’s pet iPhone project. It’s all cool stuff, so hit the link and start reading.

Taking ten students from different schools and asking them to make a game in four weeks sounds more like the plot of a G4 reality show than a PAX 10 entry, but that’s exactly how Puzzle Bloom came to be. Jess Rahbek is the designer for that game, and he’s very focused on that job. Read on for a designer’s-eye view of non-gameplay elements, the future of Puzzle Bloom, and one of Jess’s personal projects.