Double Fine Productions is one of those developers that’s very high on my favorite list because of their original games. With Psychonauts and Keeper to name just a couple, the team rarely disappoints. With Kiln, they’re trying something different. No trippy solo adventure this time, but a multiplayer effort where you create the characters yourself… sort of. Did they manage to bring their magic once again? Let’s jump in!
Time for a fight
When Kiln was first revealed, it looked like a multiplayer party game only Double Fine Productions could come up with, so I was pretty excited to get my hands on the final product. That excitement faded a bit when I noticed the game only launched with one 4vs4 mode that can best be described as a lighter take on League of Legends. In Kiln, you take control of ghost-like creatures summoned to a battlefield where the goal is to put out the opposing team’s oven. Since your ghost can’t carry water on its own, you’ll need to create a body or armor for it first. And what better material to use than ceramics? Creating your own vessel to carry water is clearly the game’s main hook, and entering a match with your own ceramic creation is pretty fun. Watching those weird little designs run around in Quench Mode definitely gave me a couple of laughs.
At the time of writing, the game only features five maps, and while they are fun, they also aren’t perfect. After a couple of matches, I noticed that several maps have vulnerable points that are a bit too easy to exploit if you create the right type of character. Since you never know which map you’ll end up playing on, you can bring three different characters into battle and switch between them when needed. Bigger doesn’t always mean better here. Larger ceramic bodies can carry more water, but they’re slower and harder to control. Smaller builds, on the other hand, can quickly move through narrow pathways and reach the enemy oven much faster. That layer of strategy is a good idea, but because there are only five maps right now, it often feels like you’ll always have a character perfectly suited for the situation. It could have leaned much more into strategy, but right now it mostly feels like a brawler with some light tactical elements instead of a true strategy-focused multiplayer game.
Pottery simulator
Besides the actual battles, the game is also a pottery simulator where you create your own vessels. This part of the game is pretty impressive and goes surprisingly deep. It really feels like a proper pottery simulator, and I mean that as a compliment. You get a lot of freedom to create the ceramic design of your dreams, and you can even enter competitions or showcase your favorite creations online. What I didn’t really like, however, is the fact that some tools are locked behind character levels. I understand wanting some form of progression and a reason to keep playing matches, but locking decorations or sizes behind levels feels a bit strange. It took me several hours of grinding before I finally unlocked some of the tools I wanted from the start. Again, I understand why the system is there, but it still stings a little.
That being said, there certainly is something therapeutic about creating your own vessels from scratch, and I found myself coming back to the game a couple of times just to relax and mess around with the pottery again. I do think this game has a real shot at becoming successful if the roadmap introduces a bit more actual content instead of mainly new maps and cosmetics. Right now, there just isn’t enough variety to keep you motivated for very long, but that small spark of Double Fine magic is definitely there. Combining a pottery simulator with a chaotic multiplayer brawler is something only Double Fine Productions could really pull off, but at the moment, the game feels a bit too light on content to fully justify its price.
Conclusion:
Kiln has a clever core idea and some real Double Fine magic behind it, but right now it feels a bit too limited. The pottery mechanics are great, the multiplayer can be fun, but the game could really use more content and variety to keep things interesting long-term.
