Sad Socket's kingdom roguelike leaves Early Access with four modes, 130 cards and 140 decrees. And a half-price launch discount.
Alexandrosse
InsertCoins.press Score
8.5/10
Verdict
Recommended
9 Kings was originally supposed to have 81 cards. Nine kings, nine cards each, a tidy number. Version 1.0 has more than 130.
Some Early Access periods are about finishing a game. This one was about growing it far beyond what was planned, and that is the best compliment you can pay a studio.
A fast, brutal kingdom-building roguelike. You are a king, with a starting deck of buildings, troops and spells. You place them on a small grid, and placement matters: buildings boost their neighbours, combos stack. Every year a rival king attacks, and the battle plays out automatically. Win, and you can grab their cards. Lose, and your kingdom pays the price.
The game's motto is breaking the game, and it means it. Absurd combos are the goal, not a bug. Knights, occultists, imps, walking mushrooms, thousands of mercenaries bought with gold, the dead raised again. Reaching the end of a run with an army that no longer makes any sense is the main pleasure.
Four game modes: classic single-player, with dozens of difficulty levels; asynchronous multiplayer, where you take on other players' kingdoms to climb the ladder; a Quest mode that travels across the nine lands with puzzle-like challenges; and the much-requested Joker mode, to customise your deck and the rules.
More than 140 decrees, with each king now getting nine of its own, and more than 110 perks. Enough to find hundreds of new combinations for anyone who thought they had seen it all.
The flaw is the same as in Early Access: runs share the same rhythm, and once you work out which kings and decrees dominate, the curve of discovery slows. But 9 Kings has always been a short-session game, and it still is.
More than 2,600 players were online on launch day, and the half-price launch discount puts it at 9.99 euros. It is the best strategy roguelike of the week, and one of the best of the year.
Your most broken build belongs on the InsertCoins Discord, especially if it shames the balance team.
Community
Your rating
Advertisement
Loading comments...
You might also like
Spartans, Persians and Egyptians, sieges, naval battles and captured gear. A remaster that recalls the golden age of RTS without erasing its age.
After eighteen months of Early Access, the plane-building game adds seaplanes, firefighting and a hard mode. Still under 7 euros.
Drivers trained through machine learning, ten-minute races, tyres to pick and random upgrades. A Formula 1 auto battler.