Kiln

The impression I get, is that this has been designed as an Xbox game-pass game; it feels pretty awkward here on Steam, and on PC in-general. As a game-pass game, I think it's chill; A novel game, make cool pots, look at the pretty graphics, and participate in some light-hearted pvp. For me, it lends itself to random and mostly brief play-sessions. Something you play every now and then for the hell of it. If you were to play a lot of this game, I think you'd have a bad-time; Any kind of competitive play and it can easily become frustrating. Very easy to pick-up, and it has an inherit draw; Who doesn't want to make their own pot? Playing this reminds me of games for gold and the arcade, back on Xbox-live. It's in that area, kinda like a Wii game, but different. It seems consistent with Microsoft, historical and current, in where they seem to position the Xbox in the gaming market. As a Steam-game, or just a PC-game in general; When I first saw this game it confused me very badly. It seemed insane to me, that this game had been made in current-year, and this was why I bought it; I expected the game to die in 3 months or less. It didn't make sense to me, that they decided to make this, until game-pass came to mind. So lets enter that frame-of-mind for a moment, to leverage my point. Imagine this: - Casual MOBA "party" game - £15.99 per copy - Hardware requirements are high-end - On release their "Roadmap" was 4 weeks in length + (And was only detailing plans for new maps and cosmetics) - No single-player content or alternative modes of play - Game is only played through match-making Imagine trying to convince 7 other people (it's a 4v4 game) to get a MOBA party-game (that they can't even run), where everyone has to pay £15.99 for their individual copy. The only justification of purchase in this imagined scenario is multiplayer (there's no single player, or alternative modes, for you to play). And the game is completely done through match-making; If it were to die, you could only play with people that you somehow convinced to buy it. There is a question of if even that would work-out too, it's multiplayer only, so you have to consider that it might rely on some infrastructure that they have to pay for (so if it were to die, they could be inclined to stop maintaining that infrastructure). I don't know how the multiplayer or the match-making works, and I don't care to know. - (It could be fully client-side, peer-to-peer) - (But it could also be that, yes, there's a server, that they're paying for, running it) (With regards to hardware, my PC is pretty high-end, so the game runs; When I'm playing, the darn thing will start pumping my room full of heat like there's no tomorrow) Hopefully you have an understanding of why this game seemed insane to me, thinking of it as a PC exclusive. But you throw game-pass in, and many of these problems disappear. The threat of the game dying is far less, because random people will constantly be picking it up and just trying it out. You don't have to convince people to buy it. Justification of purchase doesn't exist. You don't have the hardware problem (well kind-of), because everyone has console hardware. And it being fully match-making based plays pretty-well into the convenience factor of game-pass. (I think it fits into the UX optimised, anyone can play, Wii type-deal; You just hit the play button). So, I think this game is alright. As a Double-fine game, it's a bit boring to not see them do something bigger, and more interesting. But I don't mind it. You can make pretty pots, and roll them around. That's good enough for game-pass, and I think that's good enough for me.