A pottery game where the crack is the point

A pottery game lets you shape clay on a virtual potter’s wheel, then fire it and do something with what you made. Kintsugi Pottery: Goldmend is a pottery game with one twist: the pot is supposed to crack in the kiln, and mending the break with gold makes it worth more than it would have been unbroken.

Breaking the pot is the plan, not the failure

The usual pottery game wants a perfect object: shape it, paint it, sell it. Goldmend cares about the moment after the kiln. You shape a pot on the wheel with one finger, fire it, and when it comes out cracked you follow each crack with gold until the repair is the part people look at.

The idea comes from kintsugi, the Japanese craft of mending broken ceramics with gold, where a visible repair can make a bowl more valued, not less. Goldmend does not just mention that on a loading screen. It is the price list: every crack you mend adds to what the patron pays.

Throw thin, dare the kiln

At the wheel you drag across the spinning clay to widen or narrow the wall, aiming for a faint target shape that shows what the patron asked for. Pulling the wall out thins it, and thin clay takes strain fast: the crack-risk meter in the brief at the top of the screen climbs as you work. A pot you work hard is more likely to crack in the kiln, and on the seven commissions that ask for gold seams, the cracks are what you need. Choosing how far to push it is the game.

Then the kiln. A firing lasts roughly twelve to thirty-four seconds: the door shuts, the kiln glows, and when it opens you see the glaze and the cracks at once. They open where the clay took the most strain, so each crack is a record of a decision you made at the wheel.

Gold is what the patron pays for

Trace a crack with your finger and gold fills it. Every seam costs one leaf of gold. When the last crack is filled the piece is done. Each seam you finish adds 40% of the pot’s base price, so the repaired pot earns more than the same pot would have unbroken. The golden seam is the target here, not a way of rescuing a mistake.

Gold leaf is the one scarce thing in the game. You start with three leaves, and every sale pays you more — one leaf, or two for a three-star piece — so steady play keeps the purse topped up. If you run dry halfway through a repair, you can watch an optional ad for more, buy a book of leaf, or sell the pot unfinished. And when a piece fails, the leaf you spent on it comes back, so you never pay for a repair nobody bought.

Commissions with real briefs

Each of the twelve written commissions comes from a named patron with a line of their own — the inn by the river needs a new water jar because guests keep stealing our old one. A few want a clean pot. Seven of the twelve want gold seams, so you have to let the kiln break the piece on purpose and then repair it properly. Stars come from how closely you match the outline and whether you delivered the seams the brief asks for — a flawless pot on a brief that wants seams earns one star.

The commissions are grouped into chapters, and each chapter opens at a running star total. The totals are set so that one star on every piece unlocks the next chapter; better stars just get you there sooner. After the twelfth, new commissions are generated from the shapes, glazes and patrons, so there is always another one.

Shapes, glazes and the shelf

Five shapes are available from the first pot. Four more cost coins, which you earn by selling pots. Glazes open as you finish pots: you start with Wood Ash, and every three pots add the next one, Celadon, Tenmoku, Raku and Cobalt in that order. Each has a pattern as well as a colour, so they stay easy to tell apart. A new glaze is announced when it unlocks, and choosing one at the wheel shows a line about its real history.

Your finished pots stand on a shelf in the studio, repairs and all. The free shelf holds the six most recent; the optional long shelf keeps the last 60. A leaderboard records your most valuable piece, and the audio — the wheel, the clay under your finger, the kiln — is synthesised in real time from your movements, with mute one tap away.

Made to be played slowly

The first commission you open comes with a guided lesson through the wheel, the kiln and the gold, and that pot counts: it is graded and sold like any other. When you want to throw pots without the risk, slow mode stops cracking altogether and opens the kiln almost at once. The game names the cost on the exact pieces where it applies: a brief that wants gold seams can only earn one star in slow mode, because nothing can crack, and it says so on screen.

So if you want a calm pottery game rather than a demanding one, Goldmend fits. Nothing in it rations your play with an energy meter, and any setback can be worked back from.

Is it a pottery simulator?

Not in the clay-physics sense, and it is better to say so. The logic follows real pottery — a wall pulled thin takes more strain and is more likely to crack in the kiln, and a crack is a line you can follow — but the shaping is a one-finger drag against an outline, built for a phone. If you want to learn to centre real clay, a class will teach you more. If you want the loop of throwing, firing and mending in a few minutes at a time, that is what Goldmend is.

Free, and what the shop sells

Goldmend is free to download and play. The installed game shows ads and has a small shop, and every shape and glaze is earned by playing. The shop sells three things. A book of gold leaf lets you finish repairs you would otherwise sell still cracked — and since a fully mended pot earns more, that is the one purchase that can raise a sale, though leaf is also earned on every sale, so you never need to buy it. A case of silver, copper and platinum seams changes only the colour: they mend exactly like gold and sell for the same. The long shelf keeps your last 60 pieces instead of the last six.

If you would rather not install anything, the same pottery game runs in a browser at tool.teamzlab.com/games/goldmend/. It has no shop there; the page shows web ads, like the rest of that site.

Goldmend is built by Teamz Lab. If you like a slow puzzle as much as a slow craft, Brimful is our water sort puzzle with jars of every size, and the rest of our games are on the games page.