9 Kings

Great game, surprisingly very replayable even with limited cart sets per King. There is a lot of builds and synergy between different kings which can make many runs pretty different than others, although once you reach the very high difficulties of course some builds evidently become much superior than others. Would recommend to anyone who likes Strategy based rogue like games. Currently on King IV difficulty and man, I really wish the level cap wasn't 9! It's pretty unfortunate since every king usually has 2-3 skills that are basically mandatory to get because of how good they are compared to all other skills, so the rest of the skills are basically redundant because you will never be able afford to get them majority of the time. Feedback for the dev- I hope later down the line each King gets 4 extra cards you can unlock and mix/match to your Kings card set, and that once you reach King difficulty you can start the game by declaring wars on different Kings instead of it being RNG. Would triple the longevity of the game a ton. Also I honestly really dislike the current Prophet/Divination system where tiles are randomly selected to get a random buff. Two biggest problems is that there are just way too few buff options making it not very interesting, and honestly I would really like it if there were two occasions in which this divination procced per run instead of once, and that they happened slightly earlier even if the buffs became slightly weaker. Just a somewhat lackluster mechanic at the moment. Would be very nice if you could sell cards during the shop window, and that you can reduce the refresh cost as it seems to scale per shop for some reason. The Wizard enemies seem to by far be the strongest enemy in every regard for some reason, and I cannot remember any time Greed enemies ever beat my units or builds. Probably some imbalance there. Theres a few other things but honestly they are pretty minor and the game is genuinely great, but I really do hope you plan to revisit some of the things I mentioned above. EDIT: Currently beat both Year 99 and King IX III difficulty, game is great, however it has become very apparent that there is a very big scaling limitation that was somewhat unexecpted and completely limits all builds that plan to enter endless mode. In games like this, usually you want to infinitely scale your units and towers damage/attack speed/health etc, and you can even do that pretty effectively getting into multiple billion upon billion scaling. However that is irrelevant, as each tower/unit can only target a maximum number of units per second, so even if you get quintillion attack speed, it would be equievelant to a few hundred thousand attack speed etc. Basically you cannot stat stack to beat endless mode, you have to spam quantity to get around this. Unfortunately you simply cannot quantity spam anything except for units, which pigeon holes every endless build into Farms+Blacksmith+Library[Nothings Invulnerability Enchantment] as the only viable build, although you can exclude library. I have tried so many other builds that simply do not work, as there is also an issue with enemies scaling damage much faster than you can scale health. So if you try to do Wall only build, even with 2+ Overwork perk, every tile having walls/forests adjacent and 3 Spires with millions of damage and attack speed, this method isn't viable for endless past Year 70 or so simply because you cannot outheal or outhealth the damage past that point. The only viable method is with units using Nothings invulnerable enchantment which makes health irrelevant. I hope if the developers plan to make endless a more indepth game mode, this type of scaling limitation on attackspeed gets looked at. Also please buff all Kings except Stone and Forest perks, they are almost all terrible especially King of Progress. Basically no way to actually beat King IV+ difficulty on any of them besides forest/stone, with forest being the supreme S+++ tier King except its Elf Ranger card is probably the worst card in the game hands down lol. Cool game

It's really good, But. The main game (without endless mode) is great. It is really fun to find the different possible combinations of towers, troups and buffs and feel the scaling if something works. The problem comes with endless mode. I know it's not finished, but. There are random (not connected to stronger chaos events) days that are way harder than others. There seem to be hidden caps on dmg and attack speed. E.g. a god of greed palace with >5million attack speed should be able to kill >5million enemies within a second (unlimited dmg). But it doesnt. Also I tried something else. I had 3 troups of mercenaries. Each of them buffed by different things. One only attack speed, one only dmg, one only health. When the framerate began to drop randomly one of the troups did more dmg than the others. Sometimes even the health troup did the most dmg. Optimization is one thing, but this needs to be implemented in a determenistic way. No matter how bad the framerate is the outcome of a battle should always be the same. Maybe a debug tool would help, so that we can replay a fight and show some numbers for enemy attributes and stuff. Still recommending, but It doesn't feel good to have a perfect strategy and the game isn't able to calculate it correctly.

Awesome game. Quick bug note for the devs: If you click on a card, you should be able to move your mouse off of the card and have your selection be undone. The card should only be picked if the player's mouse has clicked the card AND the cursor is on the card still.

Absolute gem of a game, easy to learn and extremely addicting However, it needs more progession hooks and a lot more content to be the best it can be: - unlockable cards for fulfilling specific conditions (BoI style) - Skins and maybe alternative/hybrid starter decks It's very easy to figure out a braindead winning strategy, the game just needs more content to thrive

The game has a lot of interesting ideas, but it feels like there is a major problem with player agency. Most of the scaling in the game occurs through buildings that buff units at the end of each round AND is often multiplicative. This means that in most cases you have to lock in a build relatively early in the game because you have to scale your units in order to keep up with the enemy. It also makes it very hard to ever pivot a build because your new units will be so far behind on the scaling curve it's nearly impossible to have them catch up. Because of this I found the late game is often spent not really doing anything. Either your early game was set up well enough that you can scale to win or it wasn't and there's nothing you can do about it. Thematically I think the game is supposed to be about more macro game play than something like Slay the Spire. But, I think there is a way to do that while still giving the player something meaningful to do at each point in the game. For example, perhaps adding more events or choices later in the game that allow the player to transfer stats between troops or give the player some big payoff if they can meet certain requirements. The blessings are an interesting mechanic that could be used for this, but the problem right now is they are simply just flat buffs if you happen to have the right building on the random square that is picked. It would be interesting to see more events that reward you for having buildings at a certain level, certain combinations of buildings, or other things the player has a little more control over.

Nice strategy game. Only thing I dislike is the sound design. I play with the sound off because I do not enjoy the music nor the SFX.

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.

[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.

The game is still in early access and still there is an endless amount of content. Absolutely amazing game design.

As of right now the game needs more player agency. At higher difficulties it feels like if you roll a bad hand (or bad kings) then your run sort of just ends before you get a chance to make any real decisions. Runs should start off feeling good, and then change for better or worse as you make good or bad decisions. Every run should be winnable if you make the right decisions, play the right cards, do the right strategy. Maybe let us choose which kings to war against so that we have a little more agency with our synergies and can plan out specific builds. Right now, unfortunately, it feels like the ultimate strategy is to spam replay until you get a good hand, good kings, easy armies, and the stars themselves all fall into place. Another major issue is the meta-progression. The meta-progression in this game is a really slow grind for +1 stats, +2 free rerolls, and that sort of thing. With a strategy games like this it would make much more sense for the meta-progression to alter the behavior of certain units and create new synergies, or maybe make certain units more favored or unfavored so that you can run a specific strategy, or really anything to help make the game more tailored to the player's individual preferences for the game. Instead leveling up just makes the game objectively easier, and for the higher difficulties its balanced as if you had many of these handicaps already unlocked. The result: you kind of just feel like you've been nerfed from the start, and you don't really look forward to leveling up because it just feels like you're setting the game to a lower difficulty.

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

I've never reviewed a game before, but I felt obliged to do one for this game. The good - mostly everything. I can't name a card that doesn't have at least some part to play in some aspect of the game, there's a fun learning curve, and all the kings feel different and incentivise different things. There are no builds I think you need to endlessly reset to get, even at the highest difficulties, although some will obviously make you happier to see than others (I'm looking at you, trip forest boars and defenders). The bad - endless does need some work, but it's early access I guess. I think the King of Progress is quite difficult to play at any difficult above prince, but that could be a skill issue. Some cards, even though I said above have a place, can feel so underpowered and gross (soldiers are probably my least favourite unit, but I'll be trying to make a build around them) that they just make you sigh when they pop up. Also, I have had one good lab rat build, and I need that to change. Maybe it could have the flavour text 'when this levels up you win the game' cos that would be rad as a rat enjoyer. all in all, easy 8.5/10 which is incredible for early access. dev is constantly updating, there's gonna be new stuff out, and the difficulty scale (although incredibly hard to figure out and manage) feels satisfying when you've lost 20 run and then make it past year 11.

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.

The ideas are neat, but the implementation is not, and leads to a fairly unfun, railroaded gameplay loop on higher difficulties. If the game shapes up well, I'll re-evaluate, but currently it quickly becomes bland and lacks decision-making. The multiplicative scaling of units obliterates build diversity; you essentially need to get a build with strong scaling started early on (like demons or golden gun) or it feels like you just have no chance on higher difficulties. Essentially, if you get your build online early, the game is a bunch of railroaded dicerolls, but if you get an unlucky board/hand on King IV+, you may as well just restart (depending on build). If the game were based around linear scaling (just increase % base stats), it'd allow for builds that don't rely on such extreme early scaling. King balance is a bit whacky. The King of Greed is a brutal enemy on higher difficulties; their mercenaries are extremely tanky and their thieves kill quickly. The King of Progress hard walls many unit builds early on at higher difficulties because it has massive tanks with thorns. It feels like the counterplay is just kinda lacking, especially due to how fixated your build has to be on specific, strong plots. King of Spells is an anomaly; their stuff just doesn't feel like it synergizes well with most others, as it's almost entirely centered around enchants which can only buff units. It also seems like they need a defensive enchant; it's strange that the King of Nothing has a shield buff instead of the King of Spells. There's also something strange where it says my tower/unit will shoot like 50000x per second and it clearly doesn't... and it seems like changing game speed changes the outcome of gameplay, which would be(?) a pretty bad bug.

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.

I beat King Difficulty and felt like a genius... Then the game unlocked King Difficulty 2. Me: 😎 Game: "Sit down, peasant."

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.

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!

The game is dope. It's a little TFT-ish, a little Despot's Game-ish, with a dash of that good Slay The Spire-ish roguelike twist that keeps you coming back and building up strength over time.

The game itself is really fun and addictive, but the runs that allow you to progress in the game lead to many frequent crashes that may reset the units/towers numbers to a different and always lower value when restarting the game. This immediately stops a lot of runs in their tracks and makes the game very annoying to play in endless or even at higher difficulties. TLDR: Wait to buy until the game is more stable

[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]

At the moment, the game gets very repetitive very fast, and refreshing your run just because your starting hand is dogwater is really tiring. The gameplay mechanic itself is pretty good, but I'd like to see a bit more deck building and options for the gameplay itself, hopefully added later. Also I'd love to see more obscure achievements (build only vaults around your palace or something?) To bring more variety to the game and something that incentivizes you to try new things. Just my two cents for the developer, mostly. The game itself isn't bad, it's just lacking at the moment. Looking forward to being able to recommend this game as it evolves.

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 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

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

My new favourite game. Hilarious combos, gorgeous art, strategic decisions to be made, and it's quick to jump into a new run once you reach the limits of what your current build.

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.

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.

The game is fun at start but at higher difficulties it is reduced to a couple of working strategies and endless "fishing" runs, when you hope that you will get perfect cards dealt so that you can survive. Early game becomes literall hell and gambling, no skill or strategy involved.

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.

short game u can bit it within 5 - 6 hours, needs more update but gameplay pretty legit

It's a great and fun game, like the demo was. It feels like there's more strategic depth now, with more kings in the game, but it also feels like the scale is off the charts now when it comes to difficulty. Not every run is winnable with strategy alone, on every difficulty. Endless mode is also way harder than in the demo. This review was written after the release of Patch #07 - EA.

its fun! building a castle that makes the the numbers riseeeeeeeeee feels great! BUT its not very stable right now. With a good computer and a lot of ram, its still crashes and stutters a lot when lots of troops spawn =( needs MASSIV improvments =(

A lot of fun in its current state and it seems like it will be well supported/updated going forward to improve it even more.

For what is is and what I got it, it does the job, quick easy strategy, could even work well as a mobile game. But I left this review to mention something I think they should have, my pet peeve so far is once a troop card is deployed you cant click on it again anytime during your phase to re-identify what that troop is. If I got a game going casually that I come back too and I'm selecting new cards I cant easily identify what troops I already have, especially when there is so many of that troop that the entire square is just filled with pixels without identifiable shapes. Basic feature, hover your mouse over any square and it tells you what the level and what each troop is. I think thats pretty fair. Idk how to give that feedback to them in a way they will actually see it but yea.

fun game, has some balance issues but that's pretty expected in early dev, surprisingly bug free, should give it a try, its good for a pastime, it starts off far too easy, but i promise you, that changes.

Game is fun for the initial run of the game but as of now when you decide to continue the game on a run it gets extremely difficult. It basically comes down to RNG of the opposing force and not the cards you receive. Even with a good setup of cards, the enemies just seem to push through you. Keep in mind the game is still very fun if you do the amount of years the game is supposed to go to, but the difficulty spike is still kind of crazy even on the lowest difficulty. If this changes I will update my review.

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

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.

This game is not bad, and will only get better, but I can't recommend this game right now because it feels far too bear bones, even for the sale price. Matches are quick and it took me about 3 to 4 of them until I realized that it's a lot of the same cards and structures over and over no matter which King you pick. I may check back once it fully releases to see if anything changes but the fact that it doesn't have an endless continuing mode that works properly is pretty damning for a deck builder. What makes something like Slay the Spire so popular and successful is the dungeon crawl that can theoretically go on indefinitely, and the attempt to beat your previous or longest runs is what makes that game fun imo. That is something this game lacks.

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.

Fun little game, but maaan we need like x2 the number of builds and like 5 cards to pick from. Right now it's just locking in and hoping you get "the" build available from the card selection you got into.

This is a pretty neat little title, I think a lot of the combos are quite fun, I think it can be a little grindy to get those perks but I suppose it's not necessary. Cute, fast fun about stacking exponential buffs.

Fantastic game, with tons of build variety. + Pretty much everything - Can't handle end game scaling (expected due to early access). I am unable to reach year 99 due to crashing.

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.

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.