In Kiln, Creating "Weird Little Guys" Is More Important Than Censorship

Double Fine's pottery-throwing party brawler is finally here, and even the studio itself has been hard at work embracing just how cheeky its creation tools let players be.

With Kiln, Double Fine continues its tradition of creating slightly out-there games for slightly out-there people--this time going so far as placing greater importance on player creativity than content moderation. But with changes to parent company Microsoft's leadership, a growing trend of creative censorship in games, and a plethora of other friendslop games also vying for players' attention, I've been left wondering how the studio's approach to making games--games like Kiln, for example--has been impacted. Will Double Fine keep getting to make weird games forever? Does a new CEO--one with a history of supporting AI, no less--pose a threat to developer creativity?

Fortunately, Kiln director Derek Brand offered to meet with GameSpot to discuss these topics and share even more insight on Kiln's development. From group pottery lessons to the team first meeting Asha Sharma, Brand offered a closer look at how the studio is remaining true to its creative agenda amidst changes, challenges, and internal debates.

GameSpot: When Kiln was announced--and then also in the Xbox blog post–[the team] went over the story of how it came to be: the game jam and that process. But I would like to hear in your own words what the experience has been like.

Brand: Double Fine always tries to take time every so often to have game jams where we spend a couple of weeks and make some prototypes, and I tried to take advantage of that opportunity because it's not a thing that happens at every studio. When it came around in 2017, I pitched this idea. My background is in concept art, so a lot of drawing and painting, and I had this idea where I really wanted a game where I could make a weird little guy and someone else could make their own weird little guy and we could battle it out. Yes, there's games with character creators and stuff, but there wasn't one that felt like it was built for an artist, I guess, and really made people feel like they were being creators. And so I pitched this idea and we started to build a prototype.

At the time, pottery was our idea [because it would] work on a controller. I had seen some images of pottery and I was like, "Oh, there's a lot of variety and shapes. What if that was the thing you're building? That would be easier than doing 3D modeling on a controller." Then, when we started actually researching it and building it for real, the pottery worked out really well on that prototype.

So we took a bunch of pottery classes and that's when the love for the art form and the craft really started. When we started actually getting our hands on clay and learning about the process and about the history of pottery, about how deep it is, that's when we started really being able to pull in all sorts of references; real-world tools, the actual process of taking a piece of mud, shaping it on a wheel and then dipping it in glaze and then putting it into kiln … The transformation that it takes from this goop to this beautiful object. [We're] trying to represent that in the game and do it all justice, and at the same time [make it] easy, fun to do, and approachable.

Because pottery is very accessible. It's a pretty simple art form in that it's clay, but it's also difficult. It takes practice. Our goal that we discovered as we were developing the game was we wanted people to feel like this is a pottery power fantasy--that it enables [you] to make weird little guys easily and is approachable.

Did you not have any experience in pottery prior to the pitch?

Not a lot. I had done ceramics in college and I've dabbled in clay because I was an art major, but no, I hadn't done pottery on a wheel before. I just pitched it because I was like, this feels like it would really work in a game and I hadn't seen it before.

Double Fine has built this reputation for being kind of quirky and experimental with its titles. I think that that's difficult to do in this day and age, and it's also difficult to do when you're not an independent studio. Did you feel like it was a struggle to retain that quirk? How did you go about advocating for that?

It's funny. I never felt like we had to tamp down any of the weird quirky stuff. We developed it without any oversight from Microsoft, and then we pitched it for a green-light meeting. Everyone loved it and they were like, "Okay, let's go and make it." It has been supported the whole way through. So I mean, and that's been really great to see overall for our studio. I never felt like we were pushed into any sort of creative box.

On that same tangent, Xbox leadership just changed. Have you met with Asha yet? Has there been any sort of impact on the development of the game or on the team?

I met Asha briefly when she visited the studio during Day of the Devs, but so far so good. I think things are still very fresh, and I think we're going to miss Phil, who was a big advocate for the studio. But everything I've seen so far has been really positive. I don't have any worries about it.

To go back to the artistry behind Kiln--right now especially, it feels like people are kind of clamoring for games that feel very handmade, human, and artistic. In more ways than one, Kiln really represents that. Did that desire feed into this at all? Is that something that you would think about during development?

We at the studio are always about handmade games. That's part of our creative identity and [a part of] this game. It's really important for Kiln because of what it's about. It's all about people feeling creative, as people; doing whatever they want, making whatever they feel like. [It's about] enabling that sort of expression and creativity in the player.

I think an area I could bring up, and we haven't talked about this much, but we have moderation tools in the game and that was a debate on the team. How much creativity do we give the player? Because there are people who could make things we don't want to see. We ended up leaning on making sure we could give people as much creative freedom as possible, and then moderating with options like being able to not see someone else's pots if you don't want to see them instead of limiting the tool set. It was more important to enable the creativity of the people playing the game.

That's really interesting because I do feel like that's kind of a larger debate in games right now. We've seen games on Steam taken down because of content, and [this growing conversation about] creativity versus moderation. What sort of moderation is in place other than that?

We have a moderated mode, which is a full-lockdown mode where you can't see what other people are making. It's really great and it's important for kids' accounts and making sure that there's always a safe place to fall back to. And then we have reporting for moderation of particular player pots and accounts.

There are obviously a lot of expectations around live-service games, and Kiln feels like it's veering more on that side of things. Do you identify Kiln as a live-service game and what kind of plans do you have for it in the future as far as support goes?

It's funny because we have been talking about it. We don't use the term on the team or at the company because I think it is a little bit loaded with expectation around a battle pass or something like that, and we're not doing seasons, battle passes, or any of that. But it is on dedicated servers and it is a game that is multiplayer only. So whatever we want to call that, but I don't know what we want to call that.

We are really excited to get the community to play it, we're committed to updating it, and can't wait to show people what else we're working on. We have updates that we're working on and we're going to continue releasing features, maps, new decorations, and more content. We're going to do that at a pace that we can manage because we don't have as big of a team, I think, as some of the other live games that are out there.

I feel like a genre that is super popular right now, or a categorization for lack of a better word, is "friendslop." And it sounds like a derogatory term, but I think it is actually really beloved and people gravitate towards these experiences because they just want something silly to do with their friends. How do you feel about the term? Do you feel like Kiln fits the bill?

That's a good question. I mean, I love Peak. It is so charming--it's a great time with friends. Our game is billed as a pottery party brawler, so we want you to feel like you're in a party, playing with your friends, and seeing all the weird stuff they're making. The core design we built, we want it to feel approachable and like more of an open multiplayer environment. We're really relying on parties and friends to jump into Discord, or even use the platform-level voice chat instead of the more emergent voice chat that happens in some of those games. So there's that difference. But overall, I think Kiln is at its best when you're making goofy stuff, going into battle, and just spending a couple hours with your friends. And if you want to call that friendslop, that's great.

Did you draw any inspiration from other titles within that genre?

I can't say that we have overtly, just because it's a newer phenomenon and we've been working on this for a little bit. But from very early on, we wanted there to be this lobby space where you could, in a very low-pressure environment, make pots together with people, see what they're making, and share those creations with each other. You can make a pot and give it to somebody else, and that [fosters] trading and sharing and conversation. I think it's very much the same spirit. Not the same features, but similar spirit.

[Xbox chief content officer] Matt Booty did a podcast yesterday and talked about how Rare was assisting with development. I wanted to ask about that and what Rare's role was. How was it working with them?

Oh, great. I mean, Craig [Dunan] has been such a huge help for hooking us up with Rare. We are a small team, this is our first big, modern multiplayer game, and we really appreciate their help. They've helped us with networking, they've helped us with community, they've helped us with bot work, with moderation tools ... A lot of stuff that they know about from Sea of Thieves.

Was there anything that you wanted to share about Kiln but haven't gotten to yet?

I really hope that people take inspiration from the game to try more creative stuff in their life and to try pottery in real life. If this makes you feel like, "Oh, maybe I could do that or try that," I hope that you take that impulse and try it out. Or really any creative thing--make your own little weird little guys in real life, too. I think that was really the goal with it from the beginning--to inspire people to make more stuff. I'm excited to see what they make in Kiln.