{"id":76730,"date":"2026-04-27T17:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=76730"},"modified":"2026-04-27T18:36:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:36:41","slug":"in-kiln-creating-weird-little-guys-is-more-important-than-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=76730","title":{"rendered":"In Kiln, Creating “Weird Little Guys” Is More Important Than Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Double Fine’s pottery-throwing party brawler is finally here, and even the studio itself has been hard at work embracing just how cheeky<\/em><\/a> its creation tools let players be.<\/p>\n

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>, a growing trend of creative censorship<\/a> 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<\/a>? Does a new CEO–one with a history of supporting AI<\/a>, no less–pose a threat to developer creativity?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

GameSpot: When Kiln was announced–and then also in the <\/strong>Xbox blog post<\/strong><\/a>\u2013[the team] went over the story of<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":76732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external","brand-gamespot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76733,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76730\/revisions\/76733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}