9 Kings

Overview

9 Kings pits you against other kings and their armies in this chaotic deckbuilder roguelike. You play with your selected king and one or several cards and watch the battleground unfold with both armies until one emerges victorious. After a battle you are given three cards to choose from the king you’ve defeated (or who has defeated you). Choosing the best cards and a myriad of buffs for your kingdom, taking the best build is the ultimate goal to become the king of kings. Reaching the final year goal will allow you to play indefinitely.

Gameplay

This game is an autobattler deckbuilder where you pick cards after each battle to upgrade a selected troop, structure, or enchantment, and your troops do the fighting for you. To unlock additional kings, you must win at least one battle with a king you haven’t played before. As you play with a king and a run is completed, they will earn experience, and you can unlock perks that are exclusive to the king to be used in any run. Difficulty can be increased for your opponent to have higher stats in everything they use; this in turn will grant you more experience.

The King of Nothing has a card for every occasion, and it specializes in having more troops with balanced stats. King of Spells focuses on enchantments and spellcasters. King of Greed likes gold, and it strengthens certain cards the more gold in the coffers. King of Blood has a lot of summons of units with low stats. King of Nature focuses on ranged units and poison. King of Nomads doesn’t have a lot of structures but even more troops, some with high mobility (your base, which is usually a castle, is instead elite raiders). King of Stone specializes in defense and more structures. King of Progress contains upgrades that demand more card uses but increase your numbers more. Finally, King of Time can rewind certain unit upgrades (and keep their stats intact), or even years.

A game starts with choosing where your main base will be set in a 9-square field. You are then given three random cards from your selected king. For a battle to start, there must be only three cards to choose from. Discarding a card gives you gold instead. Your offensive troops and towers will auto-attack the enemy, but you can attack as well with your base by clicking anywhere in the battleground or leave it in auto mode. After every battle, successful or not, you are given an option of three cards from the loser king. This repeats every time until a specific year arrives, when a buff can be chosen among several scripted buffs.

A random blessing, which will target empty plots, will take effect after several years if conditions are met. Decrees give a plethora of buffs, some unique to the king you’re playing. Diplomacy will first declare a war on another king, with the second diplomacy giving peace to one. A merchant with specific cards from every king (troops, structures, enchantments, etc.) where you can spend your coins. The last buff allows you to select a plot for expansion. Buffs are given twice per run until the enemy champion arrives.

Troops can be melee, ranged, or support (can summon more weaker troops, give buffs to current troops, etc.). Structures can be offensive, defensive, or supportive (giving gold every year, summoning more troops, increasing stats, etc.). Enchantments give to a selected troop unit the effects explained in the card. Tradeoff cards will grant other effects that do not affect your troops but other game buffs in exchange for something (expansion, sacrificing troops to level up plots, etc.). Rainbow cards grant special, unique buffs that can’t be found elsewhere if you defeat the Jack of Rainbows.

You must find what cards are the best of the best, should you want to defeat the king’s champion and claim victory. If you do emerge victorious, you may continue playing indefinitely, but chaos will increase, making your enemies stronger. At this point you can expand your kingdom plots with coins as much as you like. Every run is different, as you get random cards and upgrades, but you are free to reroll with coins if you’re looking for something else. The more you play, more options will become available to use for future runs. If you want specific challenges, there’s Quest Mode in the main menu (unlocked after winning with every king once), where, for example, you can play with and against the same king, using only cards from them. There are also achievements to complete, some with their secrets.

Audio & Graphics

Retro stylized graphics work well for the game and its performance (though if you manage to indeed break the game with thousands of troops, be prepared to face FPS drops). The UI takes a while to recognize my cursor while I hover it over a plot to check its info and upgrades, but it is manageable. The screams of units fighting, swords clashing, and arrows flying truly capture the chaotic battlefield the game invokes. It gets a bit louder with more troops in the field, so I recommend tuning the volume down.

Pros & Cons

Pros-

• It gets better with more numbers, and it's fun when it works.

• Pretty much can run on any PC. Good for multitasking too.

• Tons of options to make insane builds.

Cons-

• A bit more RNG dependent on higher difficulty levels (not all options are good)

Rating: 8/10

The devs want me to break their game? Wish granted!

Links:

• Visit the game's Store Page