KILN: Throwing Hands And Pottery in XBOX’s Latest PVP Game

I’ve never been good at pottery. Not when I was a kid. Not when I was in high school art classes. Not even that Google game where you recreate pots from ancient history that I use sometimes in my day job to help people get better with mouse skills. Never was good at it and it never spoke to me.

I like cups a lot! Jenny and I have a whole collection of cups from our various travels, including my favorite mug that I picked up in Nuremberg, Germany on our first trip together to Europe:

So why was I excited to play this game, named Kiln (Xbox, Steam, PlayStation) about smashing pots? The best two words that come to mind are “Double Fine”.

In 2023, I watched the full release of an unprecedented 32 episode documentary series by 2 Player Productions that Double Fine released called Psychodyssey. Now I’d never played a Double Fine game before then, but I have a really deep respect and curiosity about game development. I appreciate and applaud media like Psychodyssey that reveals so much about the process of making art and this felt staggering!

It’s a miracle any creative project ever gets made, and Psychodyssey is an excellent example of why that is. The series goes from early concepts of creating Psychonauts 2 all the way until the game ships. Every milestone triumph and workplace drama is shown throughout. It’s like a weird version of The Office, but I found myself rooting for certain developers the entire time. I highly recommend watching this series for anyone interested in seeing how game development works, at least at Double Fine during that years-long period.

Episode 12, Amnesia Fortnight, not only highlights a ritual the studio does to destress from their current release by taking two weeks to produce several smaller games in house but also shows the inception of Kiln. These games sometimes become nothing, other times they become level designs in larger releases. In Kiln’s case, it turns into a fully fledged standalone game.

Kiln is, at its core, a 4v4 PVP game where you (a spirit armored in pottery) go up against an opposing team. The goal? Collect and pour enough water into the opposing team’s kiln in order to extinguish their fire. While this seems simple enough Double Fine goes through a lot of effort to ensure there’s a variety of playstyles you can choose from.

Image Courtesy of Double Fine

The Good

Player Creativity - When first starting out in the game you are given a medium ball of clay to throw your pottery armor. You can make this anything. You want a dish? Sure! A vase? Absolutely! A tiny little cup modelled after your favorite mug? Go for it!

With each change in size your pot takes on several characteristics. The more water your container can hold, the less health you receive. Every variation of pot receives special abilities, my favorite is turning my little mug into a can of snakes that launch out and latch onto the opposition dealing damage over time. The combinations of shapes and abilities seem endless and you’re encouraged to make more pots with their Shelf system.

The Shelf can hold three different pots for each match, that way you can switch up playstyles mid-match without being locked in. This has helped me out when I’ve played by allowing me to carry more water in a more nimble mug or to really throw my weight around for defense with a much larger jug.

You also earn a lot currency to purchase new glazes, spouts, handles, lids, etc. There’s been several times while playing that I had to marvel at the ingenuity people have already put into their pots just a week in.

Gameplay - The Quench game mode is pretty straightforward with little to no guesswork in how to achieve your objective. Currently that is the only game mode available, but I wonder if they look to add more in the future.

Different sizes of pots change how quickly you move around the arenas. There always seems to be ample water jugs around to smash to get water to fill your vessel. I personally love running around as my mug because they can juke around the arenas with ease. Your pots can also travel around faster by rolling to areas. Just be mindful if you’re filled with water as you spill it while using this ability to travel.

Sound - The music is fairly good, but the foley of the clay pots and mugs slamming into each other takes the cake for me here. Each hit feels kinetic and true to life with those simple additions.

Butts - The spirits have them and they are cute, ‘Nuff said.

Image Courtesy of Double Fine

The Mild

Maps - Currently there are six maps in the game, although I think I only saw four. Hermes’ Package Center and Anubis’ Boat of the Dead are my two favorites. Both feature moving elements on the field and can make for some exciting maneuvers and getaways. From the looks of their roadmap they will be adding more maps in the future, which will be nice because sometimes the map queue can get a little stale if you end up running into the same map over and over.

Image Courtesy of Double Fine

The Bad

Crossplay - While it’s promised that you can play crossplay between systems, this feels only about 2/3 true. I’m playing this game on a PS5 and currently have no way to reach out to my friends on Xbox or Steam in order to play with them. The first 30 minutes of my first session was trying to figure out some method to play with my friend Bona on Steam. I’ve found in digging later that while Xbox & Steam players can meaningfully crossplay together, PlayStation got the short end of the stick in the situation. PlayStation players are matched in crossplay lobbies, but good luck grouping up with friends in other ecosystems. I’m sure a lot of people are playing this on Xbox Game Pass so this may not affect most players to the game.

I would love for them to make this system more robust, maybe following a username system similar to Discord or Bungie’s, but I don’t see those changes in their roadmap and have seen no communication regarding a change to their current system so I’m not holding my breath. This release is also happening during the transition of Xbox’s new management. Not sure how much that fits into the picture here, but it could have some effect on how crossplay works for future Xbox released games.

Stuttering - Occasionally the game will stutter on my PS5 while I am creating a larger pot and in the midst of game of Quench.

The Takeaway

If you’re looking for a more zany, quick 4v4 PVP game, Kiln has that experience for you. If you’re looking for a creative outlet without the mess of actually throwing clay, Kiln has that as well.

For just $20 (which I paid a few dollars less on launch week), it’s an easy title to get into. While they have plans to update the game past the Summer, I do wonder if that will be the extent of the major updates for the game overall or if they plan to support it longer term. I would recommend purchasing on Xbox or Steam (don’t forget Xbox Game Pass) in order to make the most out of the crossplay capabilities at the time of this writing.

I’ve been enjoying my time in the game and, even through its faults, there’s a lot to like about this title. I’m grateful that smaller ideas like this are coming out in today’s gaming landscape and that Double Fine continues to pivot into their weirdness at every step.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve picked Kiln up (especially on PlayStation) and what your thoughts are on it!