9 Kings

[b]9 Kings is an addictive and original auto-battler with tons of replayability. Already so good, I keep forgetting it's still in Early Access. At first glance you build your kingdom, upgrade your troops and buildings and apply buffs. But it really is about breaking the game and finding impossible synergies and unthinkable solutions.[/b] [b]STORY[/b] There's no story, this game is just pure gameplay. And it's for the best. [b]GAMEPLAY[/b] This is where the games thrives. You pick one of nine titular kings and start playing. It's a card game but after you use it, it disappears form your deck. You pick up new cards by battling with your rivals. That's where the fun begins. You draw a card from a deck of a king you were fighting with – or a rebellion which is just your deck. You need to plan a strategy beforehand. But each king has a unique set of cards and a unique strengths and weaknesses. So you also need to adapt to the circumstances and cards you have at your disposal. And you can create some crazy synergies. It can lead to some satisfying moments when your troops are so overpowered they wipe out the rival army in a matter of seconds. The possibilities are amazing. Personally, I've had the most fun at the highest difficulty. Why? Well, at first it seemed impossible to survive 10 years – not to mention to win the final battle in year 33! But it also has lead me to a lot of experimentation and solutions I didn't think were possible! For example losing battles could be sometimes beneficial to upgrading my troops. What?! It's so awesome! And the fact that each king requires completely different strategy only makes the game more exciting and replayable. Yeah, and remember it's just Early Access. This is not even everything about the gameplay but I don't want to spoil the fun of discovery for you. [b]LEVEL DESIGN[/b] There are no levels per se. It's pretty much a 3x3 grid you start with. Then, as the game progress, you can buy more land. Each kingdom looks a bit different, in the theme of the king. [b]VISUALS[/b] Personally, I love it. The design of the cards is outstanding. The pixel art looks really cool and fitting. I'm on the fence with troops design. Sometimes they are hard to distinguish. On the other hand I appreciate it has it's own vibe – and if I had to choose I wouldn't change it for something better looking but generic. [b]SOUND[/b] I just realized there's a music in it. Personally, I like that it isn't noticeable. It means it's not intrusive and fits perfectly. Generally sound is alright. [b]CONCLUSION[/b] I would recommend this game to people who like to plan strategies, see them fail miserably, adapt and eventually come up with an unexpected idea that worked. There are a lot of difficulty levels and you can adjust it to your needs. You can enjoy 9 Kings if you're a casual gamer as well as if you're a veteran strategist. This is still Early Access so the game isn't perfect. But I'm talking about minor life improvements. Gameplay wise – it's a blast.

Thumbs up, but only because the developers are making improvements very quickly and it is still in early access. The game was released too early, the factions are unbalanced, some mechanics like the Blessing are poorly implemented, despite the title it contains seven kings (two are waiting to be introduced). Very enjoyable gameplay and a fresh take on the genre, but if anyone is unsure about buying, I suggest holding off and watching the development.

Game bangs Reached year 183 and game froze with my archers at half nearly half a centillion damage and my castle at trillions of map wide boulders per second REALLY strong gameplay loop and build paths Also 1005 lab rat levels game is all you could want from it and is being further fleshed out it freezing at year 183 is reasonable with thousands of calculations per second; aint' meant to go that far yet number go brr

The game starts out decently fun and promising at lower difficulties, but at higher difficulties it just sadly doesn't hold up to the premise. The only trick it has up its sleeve to make fights more challenging is to make enemies scale faster and harder. Your card rewards are based on the enemies you face. You can't reroll the starting enemy pool. You can't reroll or influence your starting hand. And the enemy scaling eventually winds up so absurd that it's not about making the best out of [i]what you have[/i], it's about getting up the best your chosen character [i]can feasibly pull off[/i]; what does this result in? "I didn't get the enemies I need, I didn't start with the card I can scale to absurdity, I might as well restart". This isn't helped by the fact that the balance is, for lack of a better term, atrocious. Certain units have notable downsides, and certain units just don't. They just don't. Certain enemies just absolutely hardcounter certain unit styles, and if you don't get the units you need to deal with it, that's it. Run over. Meta-progression isn't enough to carry it either. Each king can level up to 9 times, each level giving one perk point, and there's 9 perk options - 6 of which are generic, 3 are related to the character, and with precious few exceptions, none alter your gameplay enough that you'd look forwards to them. Staying at lower difficulties extends the grind, which further cements the difference between kings that are just allowed to coast by easily, and the ones that get random nonsense that doesn't help them in any meaningful way. The King of Blood gets two of their core units as well as two scaling towers at the start; the King of Progress gets 2 cards that increase the damage per level gained, which is useful if - [b]IF[/b] - you draw one of your units that scale well into the late game. In short; the current state of balance doesn't properly incentivise going up in difficulty, because the only reward is less grind, which in turn unlocks stuff that is only interesting for some kings. And with the disparity between good units and bad units, with percentile-based and hence ever-escalating limitless scaling that only SOME units and towers can exploit in SOME ways, it feels like the current way to go is that you either [i]break[/i] the game, or you don't play at all. And that just kinda sucks the fun out of a roguelite. If you can't make the best out of any given situation, if your player input feels like it matters so precious little, if the rewards for levelling up feel so unimpactful because getting to level 9 means getting another point you can put into a perk you could've gotten at level 1 already... It all just feels like it doesn't fit together as well as it could. It feels like a great game in the making, but the final sum is somehow a little less than the individual parts. However, it's also still early access - and balancing isn't a core problem that can never be fixed. The game may very well yet blossom into something great, but for now, it's just kind of-... [i]eh[/i] for the price. EDIT: I'm not wholly convinced just yet, but the devs are clearly working on it, having just handed out buffs to units and areas that were previously struggling or underwhelming. The perk system has also been overhauled in favor of something vastly more interesting, also leaning on similarities to the base game's building system. There's a still a few rough patches, but... We may be getting there and the dev is putting in a genuine effort.

Game for a busy person. The wife said not to spend anymore money because I own a Harley and I did it anyways. now I have 48 Hours in this game and Motorcycle parts still in their packaging.

9 Kings! What a great game for card and strategy players. Well, 7 Kings. There are 7 Kings to pick from. I suspect the other 2 will come soon. It starts out incredibly easy, but as the difficulty scales up each King brings his own challenge to use his own powers, plus the powers of the Kings the player is fighting. In my 20 hours I've not 'mastered' this game, but I've beaten King difficulty with one of the Kings and I'm now trying to challenge myself to do the same with the other Kings. It's much more difficult (and probably reliant on RNG) than it appears. I'm very happy with this game. Happy I bought it, happy I'm still playing it, and elated that there is so much runway with this premise. It's a good time to get in on 9 Kings, but if you wait I have a feeling it'll just get better and better. Hooded Horse publisher? They have a good eye, I think. And Sad Socket is a dedicated team* to this product. * may only be one or two people Balancing is needed. Kings are needed. Expansion will be needed but in due course. Wishlist this game if you like card-driven strategy games that tend to play out for themselves, similar to Heretic's Fork.

Great small indie roguelike strategy. You build your kingdom using different types of cards and then try to improve your roster to outpace enemy armies. Hooked me from the Steam Next Fest demo so much that I purchased it the moment it was available. Great execution, interesting gameplay. Runs are quick: successful ones (minus endless) are done in 20 minutes, but at first, you'll probably restart every 5 minutes. There are so many synergies you want to try to get that you never run out of interesting options. It is an early access in terms of quantity of content, but not of execution - it works flawlessly for me. People seem to find a way to break the game in long endless runs, but I have not seen a single glitch in the game, not to mention a gameplay-affecting bug. Definite recommendation to those who like theory crafting and searching for good compositions that make you scale like insane

solid game. For the price i got my money's worth. there are so many different build ideas that after each run i want to try going for something different which is what keeps you playing. For Devs: - i personally wish we could buy plots for 30g always, not just after we beat the boss. - would be cool to see how many units and their stats you're about to face in the next wave - keep up the good work!

[h1]Rats, Royalty, and RAM Overload[/h1] Came for the kingdom-building. Stayed for the rats. Lost my PC to 12 million attack-speed spearmen. Worth it. Played a normal run: “Oh cool, towers, units, some synergies.” Played endless mode: “What if I made a palace that attacks faster than light?” Game: [i]violently crashes[/i] Yes, it’s a roguelike. Yes, it’s a builder. But mostly it’s a science experiment where you see how many layers of broken combos you can stack before the game begs for mercy. (Answer: 6 layers, 1 rat, and a dream.) [b]Pros:[/b] Deep strategy with a 3x3 grid. Each king has a totally different, busted playstyle. “Lab Rats” exist and yes, they are a lifestyle. Performance updates are improving things (RIP supercomputers). [b]Cons:[/b] – Endless mode isn’t just endless—it’s [i]existential.[/i] – Occasionally your units forget how damage works. Or physics. Or numbers. – Game crashes more than your favorite crypto. [b]Wishlist features:[/b] A combat replay/debug tool so I can understand how my 5M DPS rats got outdamaged by a sentient bush. Some kind of "what just happened" log for battles. More optimization so I stop judging my GPU like it's a prisoner on trial. [h2]Final thoughts:[/h2] It’s like Slay the Spire had a fever dream after watching Age of Empires, then woke up screaming about rats and battle palaces. Also, where are the other 2 kings? Are they hiding with the frame rate? [b]Final rating: 9 rats out of 9 kings. Will crash again.[/b]

was really enjoying this game at first, i was making steady progression, enjoying playing as different kings. unlocked king difficulty and was still enjoying playing and challenging myself with the extra difficulty ranking past king. then the latest update came out and some how ruined everything, i dont know if it was the way they changed the meta system, or something else. All i know is that ever since then i have been unable to enjoy a single game without the AI stomping me without breaking a sweat, it feels impossible to win now. like i said i was playing on max difficulty, now i can barely enjoy a game playing many difficulties lower. something happened and it wasnt for the better.

Game is good, but 90% of the units and building are useless in later difficulties, making the game VERY boring. You basically need to restart until you get the proper enemy kings and starting cards or you literally cannot beat the first few fights. Either nerf the enemies a lot OR buff every single unit and tower to have at least double damage and HP so they can stand any chance

as some one who finished the game on hardest difficulties on multiple kings i tell you this. this is just a rng grind game and there's not much player agency, skill involved or strategy involved.

A Simple, Fun, and Addictive Roguelike Gem - 9 Kings Review 9 Kings truly hits the sweet spot for a game that's easy to pick up but incredibly hard to put down. It's a simple premise: defend your 3x3 grid from invading kings using strategically placed units, buildings, and spells. The core loop is pure fun. You'll quickly get into the rhythm of drafting cards, building synergies, and watching your tiny army of oddball units take down increasingly tough enemies.

The game is worth the money for sure. There are a lot of scaling issues though. Seems like there's a limit so the game doesn't crash, but if that's the case, enemies should also have a limit. I feel like everything just becomes infinite health after wave 70 or so and invalidates any scaling you might have done.

Game is quite fun but they REALLY need to fix the late-game scaling. It's BAD bad. I had the most insane broken-ass run going with the King of Gold but it doesn't matter when late game AI King of Spells one shots your army of 2k frontline units with 2k HP each or King of Nothing's archers have infinite fucking HP and just tank millions upon millions of damage. Would give this game a middling review til they fix the scaling

This is one of those games that you think might grab your attention for a few days and then it sits in your Steam Library untouched for the rest of time. You might think it gets stale or old after a certain point, as many rouge-like / roguelite games sadly do. You might even think that there's nothing that really sets this apart from the rest of the games in its genre. But you should probably stop thinking and start playing 9 Kings. Turns out that it's a criminally underrated, genuinely replayable, flexible game that has lots of win conditions and even more synergies. Even when you beat the 'hardest' difficulty, it KEEPS GOING with difficulties BEYOND the game's 'maximum'. Now, do those later difficulties make some builds impossible to use; yes, it does...but that's because you're pushing past the limits. But there's a certain thrill in seeing a run take off when all odds are against you. This game is NOT for everyone, however. Especially people that believe that any synergy should be viable or that any difficulty should be beatable without exploiting some broken combos. That is simply untrue. Eventually, you WILL lose an endless run. You WILL find a difficulty level that you can't beat. But it sure is worth the attempt. Let it be known that not all Kings are created equal. Some are objectively not as good as others, but all of them ARE fun to play and demand different strategies to maximize their capabilities. Possibly my favorite aspect? A successful run takes anywhere from 10-30 minutes...perfect for a lunch break at work or something to do while you wait for an appointment. It's very easy to pick it up and play a round or two! I've sunk lots of my recent weeks into 9 Kings, and it only gets better and better. Frequent updates that add new things (as of June 20, 2025), the devs seem to really be paying attention to player feedback, and there's even a little community growing for the game. It's all deserved. Stop reading this comment, go buy this game, and have fun.

Really enjoyed this game but the last update that changed the perks completely really sucked the fun I was having. The perk rework took away too much. As the King of Greed, the perk that allowed up to 6 extra levels was beautiful! Taking away the perk that allowed up to 3 extra plots was awful. The entire rework of it really is messing with how much I originally loved this game. Starting to think after a handful of extra matches, this might have killed this game for me.

The game is fun but its really RNG based. Once you get leveled things are pretty easy but you can literally have entire runs screwed because the game just feeds you crap selections over and over.

Numbers get bigger. eventually they got too big for my computer. Would crash again 10/10.

Really fun game, worth the money. It'll devour hours of your time if you're not paying attention.

I really, really want to love this game so much. The premise is fantastic, the general game play loop is incredible, but the simulation engine and it's math is beyond broken and unfair. You are never rewarded for your decisions due to a fundamentally buggy simulation. For example, the King of Greed's special starting power is a building that, each time it attacks, does Infinite damage to a single unit. This means it insta-kills a single unit. It starts off with a pretty low attack speed, once every few seconds. However, via another building's power, you can speed up this main building to the point where it attacks billions of times a second and beyond. By the simple numbers, it should wipe out an enemy army of 1000 units instantly. What it does instead is slows down the simulation significantly, making it so you don't attack anywhere near as fast as the numbers say you do. The game needs a better mechanism for scaling unit and damage numbers overall, without trying to render each individual unit. This would mean a single on-screen unit would initially represent 1 unit, then maybe 10, then 100, etc. This would "scale" the game without crushing the CPU for animations, and in turn would allow for a decoupled simulation engine. It's a fun game, but ultimately, until simulation is fixed, you are punished for being too good at it. I'd wait until it's fixed before you buy.

Cool concept. I'd give it a thumbs up but it needs some serious balancing: -certain units/buildings are objectively superior in all situations -turn-by-turn enemy scaling at king difficulty is more a spike than a ramp -it's very easy to brick runs if you're unlucky and don't get draws that keep you on curve I wish there were other QOL features, like dynamic stat calculation (e.g. vamp %) that accounts for a unit's buffs. I really do think there's something to this game, but it feels pretty raw and repetitive; balancing and additional cards for each faction would fix that.

The game is pretty easy to win especially with some scaling tower. to have a chance at endless you need to have had started with towers scaling your troops very early on. The SFX is too much, all the combat sounds add together to make a single bad sound even if its volume has been set to low. I would wait for it to be released before you give it a try

game is a balance mess. most winning runs feel samey. all strategies just come down to finding the thing you want to scale and what to scale it with.

Balancing issues in late game aside - it's early access after all -, there's a lot of fun to be had. The core game loop is well thought out, the UI feels mostly satisfying, and every run is different to due the mix of enemy kings you encounter. Well done! I'm excited to see the final release.

The only reason I am not recommending this game is because you can see ALL the content of the game within 3-4 hours and it's in Early Access. $15 is too much for something with less complexity and content than most >$5 games. This game has a lot of potential but it still feels more like a proof of concept than a real game. The game is still new so there is a lot of hope and excitement about upcoming content additions. However they have to actually deliver that content and until the action economy per round is expanded and more cards are released I cannot recommend this game. Especially for $15.

9Kings starts out great but completely falls apart by the endgame. The early difficulties allow for a variety of builds, making each run feel fresh. But once you reach the endgame, all that depth goes out the window. Progress starts to depend on pure luck, and no matter how well you’ve played, you're stuck restarting until you hit the pieces you need. What begins as a thoughtful strategy game ends up as a frustrating test of patience.

game is quite fun, it's fun to try and get that early snowball effect. but it's kinda not fun when it doesn't happen. sometimes it feels I rely a [i]little[/i] too much on rng to get a run going. trying to beat it on king difficulty wasn't too bad tho, got it in around 2 hours. other popular complaints i've read is about performance but i haven't experienced it too bad.

cool game, really fun. regular updates, good vision for development going forward.

9 Kings is very fun and on the path to success through its early access. The game has a fun and snappy base that adds complexity layer by layer. Choosing your opponents wisely so you can gain their rewards without being defeated, planning out your units and buildings with limited space and unknown rewards ahead, wisely targeting with your base's attack, and managing your gold across rerolls and shops all combine to make a fun, quick, but surprisingly deep experience. The quirks of the many units of the game (stuff beyond their displayed stats like their speed, their starting position, their target priorities, their attack methods, their unit numbers, etc.) make planning your army very satisfying. The roadmap ahead teases exciting things to come, like new kings, cards, and gamemodes, so definitely keep an eye on this game even if you don't hop on now/ Since the devs seem to be reading the reviews, I'll make a list of some of my current issues with the game: -The final assault/boss battle is terrible. You either one shot it in like 3 seconds or have the world's longest most protracted battle with it, sometimes culminating in an instant loss at the end if the boss out DPS's your troops after all its troops are gone. The boss wave seems to nerf your damage/attack speed and may nerf other stats behind the scenes, and that's lame. I literally just had a run with poison defenders today that went from wiping the wave before effortlessly to struggling to deal with the boss wave's troops and dealing a fraction of the poison they were the wave before. There's no way to anticipate what boss you'll get or to know if you'll have difficulty with it or run it over. -Some values are hidden or pointlessly inflated. Values like move speed are not shown despite being modifiable, and some values like attack speed get pointlessly inflated. In a recent patch, the notes said that attack speed over a certain amount is converted to damage "on the back end" but attack speed can still reach silly numbers like 3.456+e11 and none of that conversion is shown. Knowing where the caps are and how things function would avoid the fairly common sad newbie moment of "why is my 5 trillion hits per second dispenser losing to endless mode year 60". In the same vein, what is a tower, summon, or construction is not super clear, and clearing this terminology up would help with selecting perks and understanding buff interactions. -Endless mode needs some extra spice even if the jank does get ironed out. -The prophecy system is a cool idea but very half baked and doesn't seem to account for how the game is actually played. 75% of the time it blesses tiles I am not planning around and there's usually not much point in getting the blessing active unless it randomly works out with how you build your plots. There's also not very many of blessings in the pool.

Even though this game is in early access, it's so much fun. Each king is unique in a playstyle, and the RNG to get cards you want make it fun - or mess you over. Can't wait till 1.0 release!

Here is a good example of autobattler-roguelite-TD. Game is really fun, but I am leaving negative review because of: 1. Lack of balance. You will annihilate your enemies in a few seconds without any problem. And next wave will do same with you. 2. Game is short and not really replayable. All you got with win is a new difficulty option. As you could remember, game is not perfect example of balance, so you really don't want higher difficulty after some moment. 3. Enemy's ballista is OP. Your melee units can compact in one point. I mean all your 2000 units can stand is 1 fucking point. And ballistas will genocide them all with 1 shot. There has to be some AI fixes or balistas balance. 4. You will get perkpoints only for one king. Thats mean you will able to play new king only from the beginners difficulty, that fells kinda annoying. 5. Game speed is too slow. After planning phase you have to watch how your support building buff your units and you can't skip it. Base speed seems like slowmotion game. Max speed feels like it have to be normal speed and you probably will want to speed it up lil bit. But you can't. 6. Bad optimization. Late game = thousands of untis on the battlefield. And the game can't hadle it without FPS drops and freezes. I would say price is kinda high for amount of content you will get, and there is lot of work to do, so I can recommend this game with price discount or maybe later

SUMMARY: A rougelite city manager/decbuilder/battler with a great aesthetic, combos galore, and lots to unlock. Absolute must-reccomend at the price even in Early Access. 9 Kings is a game that's in the vein of "someone knew what they wanted and made it." It's a game meant to fulfill a specific desire, and it does. That desire is a fast-playing city-builder and battler. Try to rule the world in a half hour (or hour if you go long). So here's what you do: PICK YOUR KING: Each King is different, with different units. As you progress you unlock perks, some general some not, to customize them. Also, the designs are great from the skeletal King of Blood to the classical King of Nothing. BUILD YOUR CITY: You start with a handful of cards and earn more as you fight your fellow kings. You place troops, buildings, use enchantments, and so on to build your kingdom. BATTLE: Every turn you place one or more cards (depending on events) then its off to war with one of your fellow kings. Battles are mostly automatic, but you do have a special attack for each king you use in battle. Battles yield cards based on the King you fought, so you can easily combine card types. SYNERGIES: Combos are the name of the game as troops, enchantments, buildings, and upgrades combine and that's where the differences get made. Archers with static bolts, wizards throwing combustable bolts that grow more powerful through a library, vampiric paladins, exploding rats whose ever-growing horde comes from local farms - you can make all sorts of combos. Buildings also work together, from flesh-munching catapults to healing towers that may make your armored troops near-indestructible. UNLOCKABLES: Keep playing to get more perks, more kings, and more to do. I don't always say an Early Access is must-buy, but this game is fine even in its unfinished state. I'm not sure it needs much more already, and you'll get your money's worth. It also is a game whose design and mechanics invite expansion, so I look forward to what the authors do. If you like townbuilders, unusual roguelikes, and combos, go for it.

Fun, unique, and innovative roguelike with frequent updates and a promising future!

I love this game. its super fun and lots to do. love trying diff strats love spamming a billion archers tho!

The most recent patch which reworked the perk system for the kings is honestly a huge problem right now. The kings that had weak cards that relied on their old perks (Greed, Stone, Blood, and Nature) are now just unfun (Greed and Blood getting hit the hardest being both Kings that need to scale, their cards no longer allow them to survive the early turns rustling in 80% more runs dying before turn 12). The Baron + difficulties have also because no longer a challenge they are instead a game of luck, the old perks gave you some agency on these higher difficulties the new perks do not; which leads me into MY biggest issue, it feels like I've lost my agency in the game. The Perk re-work has gutted the fun from the game, I would love to launch the game up for a couple 15-30 minute sessions for a few runs, maybe try for achievements or hunt prince + wins, I feel like to actually to get the same degree of challenge from baron (which used to be my baseline) I have to play on knight. I think once they start to balance and adjust cards and perks the game will be enjoyable again, but at this time I cannot in good conscious recommend the game. TLDR: New perk system completely replaces the challenge and strategy that used to be in the game and now it's just luck.(they gutted the value of strategy in their tower defence rougelike, and until the figure it out I'm going back and also recomending rouge tower)

I really like the game and the mechanics. The kings offer different play styles and there are lots of possible strategies. At the beginning I thought only one or two kings have the potential to beat King V difficulty, now I'm optimistic every king has the potential. Especially on higher difficulties there is some luck involved. With the "wrong" starting cards you sometimes are doomed to loose in just a few minutes. On the other hand with a bit of luck you can have games that last over an hour. With the latest patch the the difficulty scales better, before it was far easier to reach year 100 and beyond.

https://i.imgur.com/IOjDi4L.png After clearing IX IX with my favourite king i think i can now properly give a review The games really good, the devs are giving constant updates. They are taking feedback, they are fixing the game week by week, if you want a simplified CiV-like that's addicting that you can sink a lot of hours into this is a game that'll do it with a reasonably low cost. I trust in these devs to keep making the game better. I'm still waiting for them to do something about how bad mangler is though. :D

Very nice game, the idea to let the player continue playing on endless mode after winning is brilliant. Only remarkable points; after trying some different builds and ideas, it looks like most strategies are focused on surviving early-mid term which then won't be useful on endless mode. The other point is the optimization, they are conscious on that, as they warn the player that after a long run they may experiment certain troubles, but this sets a very defined limit to the game, transforming your computer into a microwave, not even reaching year 100. Hope they fix it soon, still a very enjoyable game.

One of the best little indie games I have ever purchased. I got solid 35 hours trying to grind out every king to king level. I think this game does a wonderful job of changing the colour palette ant starting cards between the kings that I felt my runs were varied enough. For the price I found it a good value, it's also quite a relaxing game to quickly play in about 30 minutes between runs. Easy recommend if your a strategy Enjoyer who wants to kick back with a coffee in the morning. That being said it will have a shelf-life, but two new kings coming and the extra neutral cards, still looking forward to jumping back in. This game just hit all the right notes for me and thus was compelled to sing it's praises.

[b]Short version review:[/b] Overall, I’d recommend this game. I tried Balatro at the same time, but liked 9 Kings more because it offers more goals: various conditions for unlocking kings, leveling them, discovering talents — rather than just “collecting unique cards.” Longer version! ^^ [b]What I liked:[/b] - Each king provides unique play style based on his city's main building mechanics and cards. - Achievements (if you're into them) push you to try different tactics and even discover strengths in decks you didn’t like at first. Though I still couldn’t get into the King of Progress — mainly because its main building hovers over enemies and conceals them, which made targeting harder than it should be. [b]What left mixed feelings:[/b] - The cards you draw after each round seem tied to the kings you’re fighting. It has pros and cons: you might discover interesting mixes and unexpected combos of your king's deck and enemies, but if you want to play strictly your king’s deck, it becomes impossible — sometimes the needed cards just won’t drop, and entire “cities” end up built from other kings’ decks. - Only 3 of 9 talents for each King are unique. - If you enjoy spending time deckbuilding and min-maxing, this game won’t satisfy you — it’s more about playing + a bit rerolling cards, rather than building. Personally, I’m fine with that. What became irritating - the sounds. :D Battles at max speed turn into a noisy mess, so I ended up muting them (even though I usually love game OSTs).

I would describe this game as a rock-paper-scissors -as in there is no strategy or build you can construct- deck builder. You get the cards in threes at random at the end of each round where you can reroll for gold at a universally increasing rate. Since you get cards from all (even the locked/unplayable) kings the pool is huge. You can fish for synergies but it also means you will get more useless cards. Leveling your kings is a bit tedious and the meta progression, the perks you get for your kings, other than extra rerolls and extra decree (some sort of relic) options, they are pretty much cosmetic and basically have near zero influence in the progression. I played the demo and got addicted to this game. It is fun and easy to get into but as you progress it feels like there is this weird scaling issue where the enemy units get rinsed in one round and the exact same composition two rounds in comes back overtuned. Each unit has a billion HP and one taps anything it touches. Overall it is a fun and addicting game but needs time to cook.

In the year 128, with an army of over 5.000 units, with tens of thousands of damage dealt per hit of each unit, with tens of thousands of hits per second by each unit, the game finally decided that my reign shall be cut short.... by crashing the program ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [error: index out of bounds exception] out of 10 dead lab rats. Do recommend.

Very fun! The interactions all the buildings have with one another combined with the card pulling makes for a super replayable game. There are multiple ways to victory in all the difficulties too which you don't always see.

I can recommend this game! It's a good way to relax on easier levels, and gives you something to think about on harder levels! Be sure to check out the upper right of the screen - the "auto" toggle for your citadel's active ability and speed settings are handy for fine-tuning the experience. Since the creators are checking out reviews for feedback, I do have some suggestions... FEATURES *"Concede battle" button that lets you instantly lose a life and move to the next year, for when enemy troops are slowly marching up to your castle. *"I'm done" button that lets you immediately return to the main menu without bothering to save or end the run - this would be especially nice when the King's exp is maxed out and you don't want to sit through a Run Over animation. DISPLAY *Give Walls a life meter, perhaps placing it above the troop meter like the Pagoda's imps. *Rather than counting mounted boars as instant casualties, have the mounted unit count double when it dies. *Have an option to show damage taken by plots, so we can see how tanky our Paladins are. *If enemy troops' stats change over the course of a run, maybe display this somehow. GAMEPLAY *Have the armies fight in a line without compressing into a tiny point - it would look cooler, and ballistae and lightning bolts won't instantly delete the player's entire army. *When a player rerolls, ensure that at least one option changes. *Allow the player to change the targeting priority of their castle - "highest," "lowest," "furthest," etc. It'd be amazing if the same could be done for each plot, but I don't know how practical that'd be. *If not that, make the King of Greed's palace target high HP enemies and ignore immune targets. ART *Remove the creak of the EXP dialing up when a run ends and the King is at max level. *The text "Infinite" looks like "Immune," so maybe infinite damage could be represented by a little möbius strip or skull. *Make a "Rebel Face," possibly just a mask and hood, that can be used for the preview when your own Kingdom's rebels are attacking next. (It can be the same rebel face for all Kingdoms, probably?) CARDS/ABILITIES *Add a Decree that presents you with all of your King's cards and lets you pick one. (Maybe two?) *Give the King of Greed a decree that makes them lose an amount of gold each year to bribe/buy off some small fraction of enemy forces, similar to the King of Spells turning 5% into frogs. *It might make sense for the King of Nature to have a perk like Warden that lets the Treant start with levels, the idea being that it's ancient and has been growing there for a while! *Give the Pagoda a weak attack or have it slowly regenerate imps, so that the player isn't entirely helpless as that one last enemy elf waddles across the battlefield. *Give the King of Spells a card that lets them remove the enchantment stacks on a plot and gain the cards. *Let every King have a frontline troop of some kind, even if they're substandard, so that the King of Stone doesn't get caught in a death spiral of never getting any troops because they get slaughtered every time a King that has frontline troops attacks them. I wouldn't have such a long list if I wasn't enjoying the game, though! One last note: it's kind of odd that it's the demonic King of Blood that has a Pagoda. I'm not sure about that choice! What about a nice sinister Basilica? Something that evokes his theme, rather than East Asia.

The game is really good, but sometimes crash, as I got NaN of damage and when the game restart after crash I lost all the status of the soldier

Great early access game with a solid foundation to expand with more content. The Dev team is very active and has been issuing regular updates in direct response to player feedback/testing. As is, there is a good game play loop in place and multiple Kings, each providing a relativity unique set of Powers/Perks and card decks. Endless mode and multiple difficulty scales offer good opportunity to tweak and optimize multiple kingdom build styles and strategies. However at higher difficulties/waves, there is a bit of limitation of builds that will scale fast enough to keep up. The Dev team is actively tweaking balance in EA which should allow for greater variety of builds and less run kills on bad RNG card pulls. I look forward to more content being released as development continues. This game has good potential to make it into my rotation of roguelite games with that "Just one more run" factor

Extremely addictive! Really fun build opportunities make you keep playing "just one more game". Demo good enough to see if you'd like it - try it, then buy it. Full version adds a lot more stuff and is absolutely worth it at full price though steam sale in about 5 days so can't hurt to wait for that ; )

If you like making big numbers you will like this game. Scratches the same itch that balatro/slay the spire do for me. The grid placement is such an interesting twist. It's worth the $ and it sounds like there are improvements on the way

15.2 hours in – and I’m hooked. 9 Kings hits that perfect sweet spot between brainy strategy and chill gameplay. It’s the kind of game I can relax with while hanging out with my son, no stress, no fast reflexes required—just good vibes and smart decisions. The 3x3 grid system seems simple at first, but once you start stacking synergies, it gets real addicting. Every run feels like a puzzle you want to solve. When you land a broken combo and start steamrolling enemies, it scratches the hell outta my brain in the best way. Devs are active, too. They're dropping updates, fixing bugs, and already mentioned a roadmap’s on the way. I respect that. If you like roguelikes, auto-battlers, or just want something satisfying to play without getting sweaty, this one’s worth it. Excited to see how it evolves.