Kiln

Kiln is a multiplayer pottery party brawler. Players sculpt their Warriors on a pottery wheel, then bring their creations into battle in chaotic 4 vs 4 online matches.

Available on PC (Steam) Xbox, and PS5.

Role

Senior Systems Designer, Lead Designer

Release

April 23, 2026

Responsibilities

• UX Design
• Tutorial / First Time Experience design
• Progression and Economy design
• Live Service (lead prototyping and launch of new content and features)

Contributions

I was initially brought onto Kiln as a Senior Systems Designer to own progression systems and tutorialization, and gradually took on UX Design. I converted from contractor to full-time about a year in, took on the role of Lead Designer after launch.

Leadership

Early on in my time on Kiln, I used concrete UX deliverables — storyboards and wireframes — to help the team converge on key design decisions. I directed execution of UI/UX work across our internal pod and outsourcing partners, making key calls on how players would access and interact with features, and kept the game director and cross-discipline contributors aligned throughout production with clear, evolving visual plans.

UX Design and Tutorials

My philosophy is that the best tutorial is a user experience clear enough that it teaches through play — and so I came to own UX as a natural extension of that work.
I storyboarded and wireframed the game's overal flow, establishing its UX foundation. Controller and mouse-and-keyboard both needed to be considered for interaction, as well as various certification requirements from first party.
I designed the tutorial and grew it into the game's full First Time User Experience (FTUE), in which the game's core mechanics are introduced alongside the game's narrative and thematic core. I storyboarded the overall flow and directed its implementation.

Testing and Iteration

Throughout, the FTUE underwent iterative playtesting — first informally within Double Fine, then through alpha and beta builds with our Double Fine Insiders community — and used this player feedback as data to refine the menus and flow. Key metrics I set balanced player comprehension and brevity: players needed to come out of the tutorial with the core skills to interact with the game, but needed to be empowered to get to the game as soon as possible. We used surveys, player interviews, and telemetry to test that this criteria was met.

Progression & Economy Design

Progression design goes hand-in-hand with tutortials as a tool to roll out mechanics one-by-one to players, letting them experience each in relative isolation before combining it with others.
In Kiln, players earn XP to increase their level, which gives them access to decorations with which they can decorate their pots. Decorations are purchased in the Shop using Chips, our in-game currency. I designed the XP progression system and economy of Kiln with retention in mind, but my main focus was rewarding engagement with Decorations, which enable players to customize their pots and express themselves.

Testing and Iteration

I simulated the player progression and economy in Excel so I could easily show the creative director and other stakeholders how long a plaeyr would spend with the game to unlock each reward. To keep this tangible, I expressed this pacing in terms of average match time. Using telemetry from our early alpha and beta tests, I tuned XP pacing against concrete weekly engagement targets.

Live Service

Since launch, I've been Lead Designer on Kiln, leading a cross-discipline team through the prototyping of new features and modes, and defining what "good" looks like for each. I own UX, tutorialization, and playtesting for new features to make sure they are ready to ship, and continue tuning progression and the economy. Stay turned for updates to this section as more features are released!