Kiln Review

Double Fine has proven to be one of Xbox’s most surprising studios. Coming out strong with long awaited action sequel Psychonauts 2 before pivoting to Keeper, a more linear, Inside-like title, we now find them with the next natural (?) progression; a multiplayer online battler centred around building our own clay pots to fight and carry water to extinguish the opposing team’s Kiln… The idea on paper sounds out there, and going in we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. What we found though was a fun, accessible title that has plenty of pick up and play appeal while also hiding some extra depth for more serious players.

The most immediately attention grabbing aspect of Kiln is in the making of our own pots. The process is about as simple as we could ask for, and yet the scope is pretty expansive. Picking a lump of clay from three sizes (two of which are locked until we level up which will take no more than half a dozen rounds), we then mold the clay by holding A and dragging the on screen hands around. 

There are several types of pot to create, such as a bottle, vase, and jug among others, though the actual look of each is distinct to each player. We can just drag the clay about as we wish, with the game determining what sort of pot we’ve created, and assigning stats to it. Larger pots will be able to carry more water but are far more fragile, and vice versa. These can then be decorated with unlocked paints, stickers, and adornments. We can store up to three pots to take into battle, but many more times that in our inventory. Kiln encourages players to build and experiment, even showing other players creations in the lobbies for us to add to our collection should something take our fancy.

We could spend hours in the creation mode here just building all manner of pots, but at some point we must get into the game proper. Thankfully, Kiln offers a lot to enjoy here as well. Two teams of four players must each pick a pot from their personal shelf of three, and then the chaos begins. 

The aim is to get water to the opposing teams base and extinguish their kiln. Along the way, we fight each other using attacks and special moves unique to each pot style. Smaller ones offer powers like a charged up sword swipe or AoE Chicken that fires eggs at enemies (and is a pain to deal with!), while bigger ones offer larger attacks that are slower but deal massive damage, including one that creates its own gravitational field and a trio of planets that orbit around and hit enemies in range. 

It pays to have the team utilising different forms, with speedy small pots able to make use of shortcuts or be defended by the more tank-like larger pots at the cost of not being able to dump as much water on the kiln should they make it. Obviously larger, slower pots can carry more but take a lot longer to get there, are more visible targets, and can easily be outmaneuvered if they aren’t on the ball.

Getting in range of the kiln means we can spray water, but approach with a full tank and we can charge up a Super Soak move which does a big blast of damage at once. It’s hard to pull off as it can be interrupted but is worth the effort, especially for the bigger pots.

Each of the levels are smartly designed to force players to face off, even with multiple paths through them. It’s rare that a round of Kiln will go more than a few seconds without someone being in a fight, and seemingly generous ten minute round timer soons disappears with two well matched teams. One round saw us fighting down to the last 45 seconds, and it was a non-stop fight until we finally lost the battle. 

Unlike other multiplayer titles today, there is no battle pass or store to prop things up in Kiln. There is a level progression system that is fairly generous, doling out currency and new items after every round, but at no point are we looking at any dodgy tactics or FOMO other than seeing other cool creations that we can be inspired by.

The creation and gameplay of Kiln is very enjoyable indeed then. We’ve played it for a few nights now, and as you can tell from our streams had a blast. It really does need a group of players to get the most out of it though, as the few rounds we’ve played just matchmaking random players have been a mix of people who don’t work well together, which is disappointing when matchmaking takes as long as it does here. It’s not a game that is going to necessarily replace the go to multiplayer session games, but for something easy enough to just jump in with friends for an evening here and there it is perfect.

Conclusion

Simple, solid fun from Double Fine’s multiplayer brawler, with a charming and easy to use creation suite to boot. Matchmaking can take some time, and playing with random players is far less enjoyable than with a group of buddies, but this is still an easy recommendation for those looking to add a new game to the game night rotation.